Hubris damned Caesar: do not him follow [Lk 20]

Beware of the prelates. Be particularly wary of those who seek high office within the church, for they will act like rulers, and demand not their due, which is respect, but that which they are not due, which is mindless obedience,

You abandoned your traditional churches – Reformed, Methodist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, RCC, for these fancy new Zionist Mega-Churches.

I’m afraid you have that exactly backwards. The traditional denominations you list abandoned the Gospel long ago in favor of catering to the secular culture. The growth of the much-despised “maga-church” was a direct (and predictable) result of this, as the true believers sought alternatives that refused to compromise withe the world.

The new Mega-Churches barely even make a pretense of being anything other than businesses. Rick Warren is lavished with praise by the Wall Street Journal for the effective cash machine he’s running. They approved of his plaque at his desk, quoting the famous business dictum, “the customer is always right.”

Alas, you are correct here. What started out with the best of intentions has gone off the rails just as its traditionalist predecessors did half a century ago. The lesson to be learned here is that once principles of faith are in any way compromised, the corruption of the World quickly sets in and destruction becomes total.

This is not a new problem. Many fear a theocracy, but the civil power in Israel during the time of Christ was held by the Romans: Judea was a Roman protectorate. The Romans destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70, with justification in their minds, because of rebellion: if they sowed the fields of Carthage with salt then destroying and enslaving a rebellious province was a standard operating procedure.

It matters not if you use parables or speak truth. It is not honour or respect these people want, but your unquestioned obedience. And if that requires fear or hatred, so be it.

The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them, but they feared the people. So they watched him and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that they might catch him in something he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor. So they asked him, “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly, and show no partiality, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” But he perceived their craftiness, and said to them, “Show me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have?” They said, “Caesar’s.” He said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were not able in the presence of the people to catch him in what he said, but marveling at his answer they became silent.

(Luke 20:19-26 ESV)

Now, the secular authority does not have to be good. Frequently it is not: frequently we are ruled by tyrants. Fascism is a step back from tyranny: freedom is rare. The amount of room we have to speak truth is decreasing in the West.

But we still have to pray that the Queen and her ministers are given wisdom, so that we can live a quiet and Godly life: we still have to pay taxes, and the rates (property taxes), wages, and accounts need to be met and kept. Caesar has his due. Even though Caesar was damned, and the modern rulers seek their own perdition.

But we are diluting what we are supposed to be about. The church is not the handmaiden of the Tories. Or the Reds. Or the Green party, but at times this seems to be all people talk about.

[I used to give Caritas money if there was a disaster in places like the Phillipines because the Catholics have infrastructure there, and the Protestants do not. But no longer. It is no longer fit for purpose.]

It’s time for New Zealand to take charge and be a leader in climate change negotiations, says Caritas in a submission on the Government’s climate change target.

In its submission, the Catholic agency for justice, peace and development said the Government’s consultation document “too narrowly sees our climate change contribution as a financial cost to households. There is no consideration of the costs of doing nothing or not doing enough to counter climate change.”

“The cost of inaction is too high,” says Lisa Beech, Advocacy and Research Manager for Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand.

We need to give Caesar his due, but no more. And there are some that argue that Caesar is stepping into the things of God. With justification. Locally, we have legal gay marriage: and the PCANZ limits those who can use their churches to marry to ministers in good standing… who stick to PCANZ rules, which limit marriage to between one man and one woman (no homo: no poly). But the NZ government (Caritas please note) knows that there are but four million kiwis living on a couple of rocks in the south pacific. We are small. What we do matters little. The US federal courts, however, think they can do… anything.

Churches that ascribe to marriage as a union between one man and one woman are watching this closely. Justice Antonin Scalia (another Catholic) voiced the concern that clergy would be forced to marry people contrary to church doctrine—or lose their ability to perform any weddings at all—and these churches mirror his concern. Getting out of the “wedding business” is actually being discussed in numerous denominations in an attempt to sidestep the question of obeying both the laws of the land and the doctrinal laws of the church.

This might not be the first thing that comes to mind when picturing a church wedding, but it’s more than just a religious rite. It’s a legal, civil contract being executed, as well. Pastors who perform marriages act as agents of the state, and the marriage ceremony is every bit as binding as a marriage solemnized by a justice of the peace. This makes the clergy in question bound to both the laws of the land and the rules of their church body—and until recently the laws and doctrine of even very conservative church bodies agreed about who could get married. Marriage was a societal building block, and families springing forth from the vows all looked pretty similar: a man, a woman, and usually children followed.

This view has changed rapidly in the last two decades, though, with fewer people getting married at all.

Well, in the USA, the costs of divorce are such that getting married without the covenantal relationship within a church and a firm desire to seek God and to never leave each other is foolish. The US courts cannot be trusted to do what is righteous and proper, and the US social services use the Duluth Protocol to actively destroy marriages.

We are to render to Caesar what he is due, but participation in evil is not one of those things. We must obey God.

And in this time the church leadership should not ascribe to the teaching of the elite. For this elite, like the Romans in Biblical times, await the final judgement with fear.