A long-time, very close friend of mine in a recent FB post reminded us how important separation of church and state really is. Personally, I’m a big believer in this tenet.

History has taught us that the church and state do not mix well without abuse and corruption surfacing. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the church or the state in the power seat. However, as the fallen human race, we do not retain the nuances of this lesson very long.

My friend refers to an example of church and state collusion during the early few decades of the CE time period. During that time, Jesus walked the earth and his presence, teachings, and actions threatened the Jewish establishment’s (church) power position carved out by the top ruling authority, the Roman empire (state).

Here are my friend’s questions that bring elements of the ancient Jewish-Roman relationship into the USA 2020 election year: “Is this [ancient] biblical pattern repeating itself today? If so, where do you see it? Does the hope of changing laws or Supreme Court interpretations to align them more closely to a particular understanding of biblical ideals justify the collusion of any segment of Christianity with any political party?”

While I think this was presented as a rhetorical question, I’ll answer it anyway. My short answer to this question is there is no justification for “any segment of Christianity [church: ‘body of Christ’] colluding with any political party [state].” Period!

However, as a practical matter, I personally don’t feel that our current day church-political leaders entanglement rises to the level of collusion.

Collusion is defined as “secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy among multiple parties, especially for the purpose of cheating or deceiving others.”

I just don’t see this being a shadow agenda of a segment of the Christian church and a set of political leaders today. It is out in the open, whereas, in ancient times, I suspect it wasn’t so much.

This is where I think the church leaders today get derailed.

I believe the primary role of a Christian leader/teacher/pastor is to make sure his/her congregants are equipped to make Holy Spirit led choices in all walks of life. This is accomplished by teaching them who Jesus is at a deep, spiritual level. Pastors taking valuable time away from this mission to influence their congregants and others to vote for a particular Presidential candidate is a big no-no for me.

When church congregants learn to lean on the Spirit of Jesus within them, they will each be empowered to make her/his own determination about the alignment of a Presidential candidate’s values and policies with the congregant’s internal Biblical values.

In an authentic democratic society, a vote for any candidate should always be “one person one vote” weighing the balance of the values and policies of each candidate with the individual voter’s values.

Realizing, of course, there is no candidate nor voter who is set apart from the fallen human race, therefore, none is perfect.

Is the Jewish-Roman pattern repeating itself today?

Yes. Shock, shock that this could happen within the fallen human race.

I see it across the spectrum of Christian church leaders – liberal, moderate, and conservative.

Conservative

I see the pattern mentioned by my friend with many conservative Christian leaders (church) supporting President Trump (state). Notwithstanding his character (which is not so Biblical all the time), many conservative pastors support President Trump’s goal to seat Supreme Court Justices who are constitutional originalists cut from the pattern of Justice Antonin Scalia.

I can put a few names to the conservative church leaders supporting President Trump in spite of his style, yet loving his Supreme Court Justice nominations: Pastor Robert Jeffress, FBC, Dallas, and Rev. Franklin Graham, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

However, I just don’t see this as segmental collusion. I see it as individual church leaders losing sight of two of their primary objectives — teaching individual souls about The Great Commandment and Great Commission of Jesus.

Go figure!

One would think Franklin Graham learned better from the mistake his father Billy Graham made and acknowledged when he became a close confidant with President Richard Nixon. This ended badly when a few of their ignoble conversations were exposed on the Watergate tapes.

Moderate-Liberal

I’ll call out just one example of many I’ve observed.

The organization identified as Vote Common Good for Biden has collected signatures from 1600 moderate-liberal church leaders to endorse the Biden-Harris ticket.

Church leaders cannot endorse candidates for the Presidency from their pulpits without risk of losing the 501(c)(3) tax exempt status for their congregants’ tithes and offerings. That pesky ole Senator Lyndon Johnson Amendment circa 1954.

So, in my opinion, those 1600 church leaders have by their actions leveraged a deceptive, end-around maneuver using Vote Common Good, a 501(c)(4) organization, to act as a “pulpit surrogate” soliciting their congregants votes for Biden-Harris. A 501(c)(4) is a social welfare nonprofit organization with tax exempt status that is not passed through to its donors.

It seems clear to me from news media coverage over the past four years, this is an action by moderate-liberal Christian church leaders endorsing a presidential candidate whose ideology aligns closely with their Christian Biblical ideals on issues such as abortion, social justice, immigration, racism, and climate change.

My Vision for All Church Leaders

I long for the day Christian church leaders enter the Post-Jerry Falwell/Moral Majority era (1979 start date) of church and politics entanglement.

To me, that means getting back to Christian basics by focusing on teaching their congregants the nuances of our Lord Jesus’ Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37-40) and Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20) rather than political activism.

In a nutshell, such an education consists of learning to “love God, and love [and help] your neighbors as yourself” and “tell others about the love and eternal plan of Jesus for all mankind.”

Then, let the congregants decide on their own which candidate/platform matches their heart-mind-soul interpretation of Biblical values. Each individual vote can then be cast with the individual voter being led by the Holy Spirit, not church leaders.

In my opinion, these church leaders have much more important things to do in the Kingdom of God on earth than getting “down and dirty” in the quagmire of politics.