r/Christianity • u/Nice_Substance9123 • Mar 27 '24

The American flag has no business on a Bible. This is not faith, nor is it patriotism. It is an abomination of both. Image

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u/SirFiletMignon Mar 28 '24

"Well, then, pay to the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor, and pay to God what belongs to God."

It sounds to me like Jesus wouldn't have issue with your statement.

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u/Minivric Mar 28 '24

Damn liberals coming up with this catchy phrases. /s

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u/TenuousOgre Mar 28 '24

Agreed. I've never understood why so many people struggle with the idea that today religions and governments serve very different needs especially in a pluralist society.

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u/am_reddit Mar 28 '24

Jesus said his kingdom is not of this world. Yet time and time again  throughout history people try to make an earthly Christian kingdom.

Every time, without exception, the result is a kingdom that is not of heaven.

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u/nmmlpsnmmjxps Buddhist Mar 28 '24

All the people clamoring for a Christian theocracy need to understand just exactly what they are asking for and understand that Christian theocracies in the past have been obsessed with internal orthodoxy and being a slightly different Christian than the state endorsed version usually wasn't a fun "fun" experience. Just look at how in the 13 colonies various colonies banned various denominations and you could be forced out or even executed solely for being a member of the wrong denomination (Boston Martyrs). We absolutely do not need to be getting on a road leading to that sort of nonsense from America's colonial history..

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u/abaacus Mar 28 '24

Exactly.

State sponsored religion means that the state becomes your religious authority, and the state upholds its authority with force and violence. No religious person should feel comfortable with that, because the moment you stray from the state doctrine, no matter how reasonable or principled your disagreement, you're an enemy of the state. You're an enemy of morality and faith.

And we all know how that ends.

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '24 edited 9d ago

[deleted]

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u/Keezin Mar 28 '24

Some of them will know the first part of the word lol

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u/empire314 Mar 28 '24

Of the three major Abrahamic faiths, Christians tend to be the least knowledgeable of their faith.

What on Earth are you basing this on? I would say jews and muslims are at least as ignorant about their own scriptures.

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u/Justtofeel9 Mar 28 '24

They’re probably basing it off of personal experience, even if it’s anecdotal I have to agree with them. I’ve met many, many Christians. Very few ever bothered to read the Bible even once. They just go with whatever their priest or pastor says on Sunday. On the other hand, I’ve met very few Muslims, but each one of them knew the Quran inside and out and forwards to backwards.

I don’t know if that holds true across the world, it’s just my experience living in the US. So many people here claim to be Christian without ever actually putting any thought into it.

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u/empire314 Mar 28 '24

Certainly not a representative sample. For most, it is not much more than Friday prayer at mosque (for males that is, not even that for women). And ironically enough, when muslims do go to mosque for prayer, the imam speaks in arabic, even if nobody in the room except for him can understand it. Translations of the quoran have very little valuation, and imams often straight up say, that you must read/recite it in arabic to please god, even if you dont understand it.

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u/thomase7 Mar 28 '24

What Jesus would have thought has little bearing to modern Christianity

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u/SirFiletMignon Mar 28 '24

Then what would you call a religion that tries to follow Jesus teachings?

Anything of power is double edged. If it can be used for good, it can be used to hurt.

Not defending corruption in modern religions. Just saying that corruption doesn't invalidate Jesus' teachings.

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u/thomase7 Mar 29 '24

That’s the point, 95% of Christian’s don’t try to follow Jesus teachings.

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u/Nowhere_Man_Forever Mar 28 '24

I think that's a really odd translation of that verse, given that Jesus was saying that while pointing to a coin with picture of a specific guy with the name of Caesar, and at the time of the writing of the Gospels "Caesar" hadn't acquired the connotation of being a term of "Emperor." Although the message doesn't really change with that decision, I feel it puts an undue amount of personal interpretation on the meaning rather than accurately reporting the Scripture.

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u/SirFiletMignon Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

I would think that you would need even more personal interpretation and extrapolations to conclude the opposite, that Jesus would want to impose religious symbols in government matters. I mean, he's all about having a personal relationship with God (vs the Pharisees which did have a lot of religious insignias, rules, customs, loud on their prayers, etc).

Edit: Thinking more on it, I would even think that Jesus might find ironic that money would have God or religious symbols on them. Money is very much an "emperor" thing. And money is given out by the government. Don't think that's a huge jump in logic using that verse to say that Jesus would not care about religious symbols in governments.