Early Christians were willing to face any amount of torture rather than agree that the state (Caesar) held authority over Christ’s Church. They understood that there could only be one LORD. Either Jesus Christ is LORD, or the state is.
During the first three hundred years of Church History, the state dominated the political, economic, and cultural environment. However, in the early fourth century, an emperor arose who wed the state with the church, and the Holy Roman Empire was birthed. Now, Rome had been the predominant world power for about four hundred years, but now ostensibly the state and Church would share power.
The result of this marriage was a thousand years of darkness where churchmen became rulers of men through their dark alliance with various governments, so that tyranny under the papal clerics was worse than any under secular governments.
The American Founding Fathers understood that government and religion could not be wed. They incorporated into the Constitution guarantees for the free exercise of religion, even while establishing secular government as the political and economic power. Religion had no authority over the state, but neither could the state subsidize, limit, or show preference to religion.
The Supreme Court of the United States has affirmed that position time and time again until Friday, May 29, 2020. The decision of John Roberts to join with the liberal wing of the SCOTUS and allow the state of California to limit church attendance in effect, authorizes the state to define what does and does not constitute a church. Something heretofore steadfastly opposed by SCOTUS.
What does it mean in practical terms? Local municipalities will be energized to limit churches, they might even go so far as to determine that enough churches exist and prohibit the establishment of new ones. In times past local entities have tried to define churches by the number of attendees and/or income. One entity in a Mid-Western State went so far as to say that a body was not a church unless such and such percentage of the income was for pastoral support. The SCOTUS rejected each and every attempt to define church by government entities UNTIL YESTERDAY.
Conservative churchmen have long felt that the time is rapidly approaching when Genuine Believers will be separated from the cultural christians which seem to make up a large portion of church memberships. With the advent of radical feminism, the homosexual agenda, metooism, and now the pandemic fear; the stage is set for the state to define legitimate church activities by the degree with which the church agrees with and practices what the state promotes. The rumblings can already be heard within the bowels of once staunch Biblical bodies, as more and more justification for acquiescence to state edicts are expounded from once sound pulpits across the land.
That Believers in America have become soft, lazy, and ineffective ambassadors for Christ is almost without dispute. Socially acceptable pastors, and deacons invited in the debauched settings without a word of rebuke being raised demonstrates the weakness of the so-called spiritual leaders of today. Each time I consider the lives of those who stood for Biblical principles and the consequences they paid, I shudder to think in America today, the most celebrated of men are often pulpiteers who stress blending to the extent that they are almost spiritual Neville Chamberlains. “It is only a little bit, this compromise we make,” they opine.
Time and again, I return to the analogy of my Grandfather’s pasture gap which was sealed by five round poles resting in notches in the fence post. At one point someone was in a hurry and failed to replace the top pole, well that wasn’t bad because there were still four and the cows were still contained. Then one day a boy broke the current top pole while climbing over it. Again, there remained three poles to restrain the cows from wandering from the pasture. However, that very afternoon, one of my uncles ran over one of the poles and broke it. Now, only two poles remained, and new poles needed to be cut because now the cows could just step across. That is exactly what happened, the cows always thinking the grass was richer and greener outside the pasture, were soon in Grandmother’s garden. When the boys returned with the poles, they had much, much bigger problems. Winter’s food was being devoured by the cows which were simply doing what comes naturally to them.
In much the same way, government is naturally inclined toward control. As long as government is contained and limited by the Constitution and those limits are supported by SCOTUS, people are mostly safe and prosperous. But once those poles in the gap begin to come down, they are almost impossible to put back before irreparable damage is done.
EVEN SO, COME LORD JESUS!
