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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35032 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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The exchange described in Mark 12:13-17 is a brilliant bit of verbal and philosophical Jujitsu that is difficult to appreciate if you're coming from a mind-space where some sort of separation between the "church" and "the state" or "clergyman" and "politician" is assumed to be the default. Something that was emphatically not the case in the ancient world.

Notably, the distinction between "church" and "state," "clergyman" and "politician" was not really a thing in most of the Christian world for a long time, either. Technically still isn't in places like England. And, insofar as you take the Yarvinite position that modern progressivism is a protestant heresy, the tendency is back towards the combination of secular and ideological authority.

The distinction is absolutely a thing. The American idea of a "wall of separation" between Church and State doesn't exist until the United States (and even then it evolves gradually - at the time the Constitution was written, the point of the 1st amendment was to protect State-level established Churches such as Massachusetts puritanism from federal interference, not to abolish them).

But the idea that spiritual and temporal power are different and that a separation between them is logically possible is Christian. The concurrent jurisdiction of Kings and Popes in Catholic Europe is a real thing with real negotiations between Church and Crown a constant of European politics over about 1200 years. Even in England (which is unusual in the degree to which the Church is subordinate to the State - it definitely isn't the typical pre-1st amendment case), Charles III is not a priest, and it would be unthinkable for him to celebrate a sacrament on behalf of the nation. This is very different to the role of a Roman or Persian emperor, or a Caliph.

Technically still isn't in places like England.

I was under the impression that religious tests to hold public office or serve in the government/military had gone out of style some time in in the late 17th century but if you have a citation for non-Anglicans currently being barred from participating in English politics please provide it.

I was thinking more along the lines of Anglican bishops having seats in the House of Lords and the monarch being the head of the national church. I was also thinking of things like the spending of public tax money on religious institutions as in Germany

I feel like the fact that you're taking it for granted that any tax money at all would not be spent on religious institutions is kind of illustrating my point for me.

It's one thing for religion and politics to be intertwined and entirely another to deny the existence of any distinction between the two in the first place. I can see how someone could argue that "England is a religious state" but in the end all that argument really tells me is that this person has never been to (or really sat down and talk to someone from) a place like Saudi Arabia. That over the last 800 years or so theocracy has gone from being the default form of government to the exception is largely a product of western dominance.

He's probably just referring to the fact that King Charles is technically both the head of state and Supreme governor of the Church of England. Even if that sort of a relic at this point.

America is still a Christian nationalist state and hope it will be forever. Even CRT and woke have Christian roots and are arguably atheist Christian religions.

Christianity is at its core a slave religion. States eventually formed and modified it to project power.

Judaism at its core and why I’ve become a little anti-Semitic lately in real ways is an ethnic tribal religion. They don’t for the most part invite others to be Jews.

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