Render unto Caesar?

The statement of Jesus famously mis-applied
by coffee-shop-theologians to the modern paradigm of self-government is more properly interpreted as an affirmation of the limitation of Caesar’s authority, rather than as an admonition that churches should revere or respect a government which behaves as a tyrant or oversteps its authority. We would be no less sensible in equating Caesar with American government than if we were to make a public policy of adjudicating all crimes by turning the other cheek.

Caesar was a title, rather than a name. “Caesar” means Emperor, and it is in modern times the etymological root of Kaiser, Czar, and Tsar

In America, we are not ruled by a king, but instead, we are self-governed. And when any government oversteps its authority, and refuses to govern at the consent of the governed, “it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it…”

American Government is no analogue to Caesar

The American political system is an extension of
Christianity itself, and each should be understood as
radical within its own context,
each of them a catastrophic upheaval
of the pre-existing order,
each of them a new paradigm–
each a new covenant.
In this new order, the government

is subject to the consent of the governed
is limited in authority

and that authority does not include protracting
a waning public health crisis into its seventh month as a pretext for restricting in any manner whatsoever

the right of churches to meet.

Render unto the State
what it is owed, and no more.