The Supreme Court of the United States is going to consider a case that argues for a legal theory called the Independent State Legislature. Similar to the Unitary Executive theory from the Dick Cheney days, it simply ignores the concept of the Separation of Powers, a property deeply embedded in the US Constitution. Rumor has it that the Trumpian Right is also interested in destroying the separation of church and state, another deeply embedded property of our Constitution. These properties are never absent from any function of our government.
The people advancing these ideas are simply ignoring the parts of the Constitution that they find inconvenient. In Christianity we call this heresy. And many of the same people are committing it with regard to their interpretation of the Bible as Christians. It is the same juvenile self-serving mental practice of focusing on a few scriptures, or in law, a few legal clauses, and declaring the holier-than-thou position of taking the Bible or the Constitution literally. Well, a Baptist pastor I had many years ago once preached, “People who take the Bible literally do not often seem to take it seriously.” Just so. #Jesus corroborates this when he told the Pharisees, “He that made the outside made the inside also.” Those people are avid about titheing down to the mint and cumin, but ignore the weightier matters of justice and mercy. They wash their hands but their hearts are full of corruption. Juvenile self-centeredness is not American Liberty. I’m looking at you, Don.
The government described by the Constitution, like the kingdom of God described by the Bible, can only be properly understood in a holistic way. On a given point of law, and on a given point of Christian Life, you must be sure to consider all the pertinent verses. Sometimes it’s complicated; sorry, Life is complicated. God is vastly greater than you or I can imagine, but there are ways of thoughtfully integrating what we know in order to best please him, which is the basic goal of Christian Life. The simplest one is to ask him. If you are a Christian, and not just passing for one to get by in your culture, then you must believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that he is alive, and that he is interested in pursuing a personal relationship with you. ‘Prayer’, in spite of the word’s root meaning of asking, is at least half devoted to listening to the Shepherd’s voice. The change in perspective this can give is literally life-changing.
I have been entwining church and state quite deliberately in this discussion because I was talking about a human thought process that affects both our civic life and our spiritual life; but let me be clear about church and state: the government of the United States is constituted as deliberately secular - similarly, the kingdom of God is not of this world and its goals are the farthest thing from domination. When Jesus was about to be arrested in the garden of Gethsemane, Peter pulled out a sword and struck off a guy’s ear in defense of the Lord. And what did Jesus say? He told him to put his sword away, didn’t they think that he could ask his father and get more than twelve legions of angels? See, God has never wanted to coerce anyone. Those right-wing radicals want to give (their idea of) Christianity the force of law in this country. It is destructive; it is doomed to fail; it is not pleasing to God.
