Actual Christianity

Jesus infamously said “”Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”

The immediate context concerned taxation, however Jesus’ wording had deeper implications. It was his concise declaration that there should be a separation of church and state. He understood that intertwining power & government with religion/spirituality would corrupt it, just as he stated money would. History shows that fusing religion with political authority contaminates religion and alienates people from it, steering them away from its goals. Political authority/power corrupts, and neither money nor political power has any rightful place in authentic spiritual teachings per Jesus’ himself.

With that in mind, it is contradictory for Christians to promote Christian nationalism, declaring Christianity the official state religion or insisting that a single faith be taught in all public schools, despite the founders deliberately refraining from establishing one. Increasingly, Christian theology, biblical verses, and religious symbolism are invoked in government settings without hesitation, often implying that public policy is divinely sanctioned and that elected officials are carrying out God’s will.

Blurring the line between faith and state power risks undermining both. When political authority claims sacred endorsement, it becomes harder to question, critique, or hold accountable. History shows that merging religious certainty with governmental power can place any democratic society on a dangerous path.

In recent years, we’ve seen what many view as a rapid acceleration down this same slippery slope. Donald Trump has openly courted his Christian base, presenting himself as a devout follower of Jesus, even when he has struggled to name his favorite biblical references when asked. At the same time, political figures like Pete Hegseth have brought his pastor Doug Wilson into the Pentagon, to deliver speeches.

This is a pastor who espoused views that common Christians and secular Americans would find deeply troubling, such as defending slavery on the grounds that the Bible does not explicitly prohibit it, despite it violating the most fundamental teachings from Jesus “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” When people who hold such views are elevated into influential government spaces, it raises undeniable concerns about the direction of church-state boundaries.

The growing fusion of religious rhetoric with governmental power is increasingly framed as divinely ordained governance. When political actions are wrapped in the cloak of Christianity, they escape scrutiny among the most fringe and devout believers, because those actions are assumed to represent moral righteousness and opposing them risks the spiritual consequences of eternal damnation.

In short, many conservative Christians operate under the assumption that the GOP is carrying out God’s will in government. That perception is reinforced by the Republican Party’s frequent and unapologetic invocation of God to justify its policies and political agenda. For many within that base, simply positioning the party as anti-abortion is enough. Once that box is checked, nearly any other action is tolerated or rationalized, because, in their view, overturning abortion access made everything else worth it.

Of course, the Christian extremist fantasy of integrating of church and state, can easily be argued as being fully against the teachings of Jesus, as the aforementioned quote from Jesus conclusively proves.

Matters of earthly governments should be kept separate from spirituality/religion. This is not just in reference to taxation, but on a broader principle. The moment power and government gets infused with religion/spirituality, it begins to corrupt religion/spirituality.. The reverse is true as well, as government can tap into people’s spiritual biases & religious beliefs in order to score easy political wins. So now we have politicians exploiting religion for power, and power corrupting religion completely. With that in mind, Jesus’s instructions to keep these two realms separate make a whole lot more sense and you don’t need to be a Christian to see it. Refusing to interpret this quote outside the context of taxation is also completely missing the larger point he was making, as his wording makes it patently clear that he was referring to matters of government.

So what we are seeing is the most toxic incarnation of Jesus’ teachings, something that has devolved into Christian Nationalism, the most toxic incarnation of Jesus’ teachings and has effectively reversed or obstructed the teachings of Jesus from being received and processed accurately. It’s all Christianity done under the cloak of superiority, separatism, bigotry, violence and other ideas that Jesus preached against. You will not be hard pressed to find national pastors with a large base commending and celebrating Donald trump for deploying military attacks on other nations, despite Jesus teaching us not to intertwine politics with religion and to not engage in violence with others. The actions of political leaders are celebrated to congregations which also poisons their minds thinking it’s perfectly okay to step all over the beliefs of Jesus, so long as they checked the box on their tithing form that they’ve accepted Jesus and the holy spirit, everything else they believe and do are perfectly fine.