Remember COVID?

Remember the evangelical talking heads—Russell Moore, David French, Ed Stetzer—aggressively pushing us to “love our neighbors” by wearing dirty face masks? Doubled up, maybe. Telling us that we must “do the right thing” by risking our own lives, injecting an experimental chemical into our bodies, or else we were just like murderers.

We were told that the government had our best interest at heart, and by not obeying our civil leaders’ demands, we were being disobedient to God Himself.

That’s because, to these people, government is God.

That’s called statism.

Technically speaking, statism is the idolatrous belief that the civil government possesses supreme, ultimate, and highest authority over men. It is the belief that the state has authority over every institution, including family, church, etc., and has the power to compel people to violate their own conscience in service to the state.

But these men and many other church leaders today have taken it beyond even that by blending their statist thinking with a Christian worldview and creating a whole new monster. During that era, government “mandated” that churches stop assembling. They told us to comply.

Once the government allowed Christians to return to church, it determined what elements of worship were acceptable. It determined what kind of singing and communion was acceptable. It determined how much masking and social distancing was required. It even determined how many could be in attendance.

These men told us to comply. Government knows best.

Government knows better than God, apparently. Because God never mentioned any of these restrictions on corporate worship.

Those restrictions, government mandates, “emergency orders,” have all disappeared, though we constantly see them trying to creep back in under different forms. But the theology and worldview behind the movement to comply has not. Here are some ways that you can identify statist thinking in your own church’s teachings, sermons, or leadership.

First, Romans 1 is often treated as a blank check for unlimited government power. You’ll hear things like “the government has ordered it, and Romans 13 requires us to submit to civil government.”

But this line of reasoning skips the entire question of whether or not the government has authority over a particular matter. Romans 13 defines the civil magistrate as God’s servant who has a responsibility to punish evil and reward good. What it does not do is give it jurisdiction over all all institutions and matters. Scripture gives us plenty of examples of faithful people resisting government:

The Hebrew midwives disobeyed Pharaoh, Rahab hid the spies, Daniel’s friends refused to obey Nebudchadnezzar, Daniel prayed to God despite the king’s decree not to. And in the New Testament church, we see the apostles continuing to preach after being ordered by the government to stop.

So is your church explaining what authority God has actually delegated to the civil government, or is it teaching you to simply obey no matter what? Romans 13 binds the subject, but it also binds the ruler. Romans 13 commands submission to lawful authority but also presents the ruler as a servant who is accountable to God, not as an authority with unlimited power.

Another way to identify statism in your church is if your church is presenting government policies as moral obligations. The pattern is typically something like this:

Government officials identify a problem. Government “experts” recommend a particular response. That particular response then becomes policy. Church leaders cloak it in biblical language. And then, disagreement with said policy becomes disagreement with God.

The COVID era supplied the most obvious examples. But the pattern exists in a multitude of political issues—immigration, welfare, education, environmental regulation, gun control, criminal justice, public health, online speech, practically anything.

It typically boils down to “Christians must support this policy because the Scriptures demand compassion and biblical compassion requires us to follow the guidance that the experts have settled.” Not doing so means we’re not “loving our neighbors.”

Yes, the Scriptures require Christians to be compassionate. But the question is, do the Scriptures actually command acceptance of this particular policy to be compassionate, or can compassion arise in other ways? And more importantly, are other ways to express compassion closer to biblical faithfulness than the particular policy being pushed by church leaders?

Which now brings me to these government “experts.” The statist in your church will often present government “experts” as the teaching authorities on particular matters. They are treated as a unified and virtually unquestionable class—anointed by God.

Their academic credentials are confused with infallibility and their words are treated ex cathedra. Their scientific claims are used to settle moral and theological questions, and your church leaders will dismiss any dissenters while deferring to the state-approved institutions as the final judgment on a matter.

Not trusting these experts is akin to not trusting God. “This has already been settled,” they tell us. And “unless you possess the proper credentials, you have no business questioning it.”

While scientific knowledge can help inform moral judgment, it can, under no circumstances, replace Scripture, pastoral responsibility, parental authority, and certainly not the personal conscience. But to the statist, Caesar’s “experts” constitute a Christian magisterium.

Of course, we’ve all heard this one. “Love your neighbor”—it’s used to justify coercion. And this may be the most emotionally manipulating form of statism in the church because it binds the Christian conscience. The reasoning typically follows this pattern:

Christians must love their neighbors. A particular political policy claims to protect certain neighbors. Therefore, loving our neighbor requires supporting and obeying this particular policy while anyone who does not is “unloving.”

First we should ask these questions. Does the policy actually accomplish its stated purpose? More often than not, it does not. We must also ask what harm it imposes on other neighbors—our immediate family, our church members, fellow Christians. Does the government have the authority to impose this policy? Does the policy require that some Christians violate their conscience?

Policies like this typically focus on helping one person or group of people at the expense of others. A worker facing unemployment because of these policies is also a neighbor. A small business owner who must close his business because he can no longer afford rent is also a neighbor. A person suffering from an adverse medical effect is a neighbor. Church members deprived of fellowship, counseling, accountability, communion, and pastoral care are also neighbors.

But “loving your neighbor” requires us to comply with the one-sided government policies, according to the statist.

“If you loved people, you would comply.” “Your freedom ends where another person’s safety begins.” “Christians should gladly surrender their rights for others.” “Personal liberty is less important than the common good.” “This little sacrifice could save even one life.”

Yes, Christian love for our neighbor is willing to sacrifice itself for another, but statism confiscates the whole person—property, labor, conscience, everything—and redistributes it to another.

Statists will often respect your conscience so long as doing so is approved by the government authorities. While the conscience isn’t infallible by any means, disobeying the conscience is still spiritually serious. The statist may affirm your conscience in the abstract but continue to deny it practically.

In reality, statist church leaders leave it to government institutions, experts, and policies to decide whether or not your religious conscientious objection is sufficiently worthy of being honored. They’ll say things like “that is not a legitimate religious objection” or “you may feel very strongly about this, but it isn’t actually a matter of conscience.”

“Expert” evangelical talking heads—Russell Moore, Ed Stetzer—they go on CNN and tell the world that Christians have no theological reason to object.

Your pastor will align themselves with such thinking and say things like “your conscience is being shaped by politics rather than Scripture” or “being submissive even in your discomfort would be a great Christian witness and demonstrate humility.”

Do your church leaders listen carefully before objecting to your objection and are they showing you from Scripture where your conscience is mistaken? Or are they simply deferring your conscience to be shaped by “expert” reasoning? Your pastor has a duty to correct your concscience where it genuinely departs from Scripture. But your pastor does not have the authority to coerce you by attaching God’s authority to a government demand that God has not commanded.

Here is where statism becomes embedded in ordinary church an family life, not just during emergences. This may be more subtle than the obvious examples previously given. But in the statist worldview, duties that God has assigned to the family and church are regularly transferred to government.

What I mean by this is that ordinary things, like education, charity, healthcare, child care, eldery care, poverty relief—even things like moral formation, family support, and community outreach—are seen as the government’s responsibilities. The government is responsible for overseeing and managing these things.

The warning sign here is that the statist instinctively assumes that every social aspect of society requires or is best served by a government program.

The cycle is that families and churches surrender a responsibility and government assumes it. Then, taxation and regulation expand to support it. Society becomes dependent on the program. Sometimes, even Christian organizations will receive government funding to administer it, but the money doesn’t come without conditions. Church leaders then defend the program because their funding and ministries depend on it.

One of the most glaring examples of this today is the “refugee” resettlement programs. Scripture commands us to practice mercy and hospitality, so the government exploits this by partnering with churches and Christian ministries to fund these programs with taxpayer money. They then defend it with biblical invocations taken out of context, and when the government funding disappears, the ministry collapses.

Scripture absolutely does command us to have mercy. Christians are to perform duties that cannot simply be transferred to government. But the problem is that government funding does not enlarge the church’s ministry without also enlarging government’s influence over that ministry.

Which brings us directly into the present. Concern about state power by statists often changes according to whoever is currently in power. Statism is selective—your pastor may preach unconditional submission when Joe Biden is in charge, but then suddenly discover there are biblical and constitutional limits on that power when Trump is elected. Think Dwight McKissic.

Opposing one administration is not necessarily opposing statism. It’s simply selective in that the person believes that the wrong people are currently standing in for their ultimate god—the government.

Statism rarely enters a church through an open declaration that government is the ultimate power. It enters, subtly, through appeals to submission, expert authority, compassion, and the common good.

On the surface, it may sound responsible, reasonable, loving, and cloaked in enough language, even biblical. But Christians must be able to discern when the state’s demands are being placed into God’s mouth. Because, at the end of the day, it’s the usurpation of God’s authority by the state, and carried out by the state’s apostles disguised as Christian leaders, that makes this form of statism so dangerous.