Rendering Unto Caesar

The subversion of religious belief for crass political porpoises continues apace. Yesterday the Washington Post published news of a Bush/Cheney campaign document aimed at enticing "conservative" churches to risk their federal tax-exempt statuses while pretending not to, and this a.m. the same document is discussed in the New York Times.

"The campaign is asking conservative churches and churchgoers to do everything they can to turn their churches into bases of support" -- oh yeah -- "without violating campaign finance laws or jeopardizing their tax-exempt status." The last part of that sentence is purely cover-your-hiney, butter-wouldn't-melt-in-our-mouths boilerplate, but it's just more Bush/Cheney "down-is-up-ism."

SINCE even laying a few Bush/Cheney color brochures, like, by ACCIDENT, on a table in the church parlor violates IRS rules, so the sort of activities recommended by the Bush/Cheney operatives -- like shipping church directories to Central Command -- are going to invite negative scrutiny. Unless ... wait! ... unless the people in charge of the IRS enforcement of tax exemptions is under the control of ... of ... wait, it'll come to me! ... unless the White House controls the IRS. So perhaps there's more than just a wink-wink involved when the Rovians blandly suggest that churches break the law, "just so long as you don't break the law," since, as we all know from the recent torture-is-not-torture-if-the-president-orders-it memos that it's not illegal if God tells George W. it's all right. And evidently, God has spoken.

In fairness, not all "conservative" Christians think this is such a good idea. Bless his heart, Richard J. Mouw, president of the Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., one of the largest evangelical Protestant seminaries, said: "Theologically speaking, churches are really in a position to speak truth to power. But this smacks of too close an alliance of church and Caesar."

Now there's a novel role for Christian churches, "speaking truth to power," instead of this current concubine-with-portfolio to the Republican Party. Where did Jesus say, "Render unto Caesar your conscience, your judgement, your ability to think for yourself, not to mention your church directory"?