What is the functional god of a society? This struck me as I was driving somewhere recently. The news came on, and every single item in the bulletin related to the state. I was informed that the government was doing this or that, or in a few cases told what the government ought to be doing but was currently not doing.
This got me thinking. News bulletins are a reflection of what is considered newsworthy. What is newsworthy is a reflection of what a culture considers to be important. What a culture considers to be important is indicative of its worship – or its functional idol if you will. In our case, as I have argued previously this is the state.
Well, I decided to try listening deliberately to another couple of news bulletins on different days. Similar story. Covid obviously dominated, as did the government’s response and advice to citizens. Then of course, like Rome of old which hosted the circus to keep the population happy and compliant, our news bulletins end with sport.
What is being said? It is this. The centre of your life is the state. All other avenues of life; family, work, school, church, friendship, health, commerce, media and entertainment orbit the state. There is almost no sphere in which it does not wish to speak its law-word. And where there are currently gaps, it seeks to move into those areas and conquer. The realm of the private individual where the state is absent is shrinking, and his protections are being weakened. Over the top you say? Our parliament is looking at a bill that will potentially stop parents from affirming their children’s gender and stopping them from undergoing hormone therapy. We have to ask the state for permission to homeschool our children. We cannot make a contract with a friend to rent our house to them without the government determining whether our house meets their standards. Some face losing their jobs because the government deems it has the right to force them to undergo a vaccination that is against their wills.
Now consider Colossians 1:15-18
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
We have given to the state what ought to be given to Christ. Christ should be at the centre of all things, because all things hold together in him. They don’t hold together in the state. It is not the state that is preeminent in all things, but it is Christ. And Christ speaks his law-word into all of life, but unlike the state, his law is freedom and liberty. His yoke is easy and his burden is light. As part of The Resistance, we must resist the state’s encroachment and usurpation of Christ’s crown rights. We might be small and the state has the power to crush us, but resist. Pray against this tyranny and the blasphemous state. Encourage your brothers and sisters who are struggling. We serve Christ, and the blasphemous idolatrous state is on the wrong side of history. They are the ones who need to kiss the Son lest he be angry. They are the ones who are tyrannising Christ’s sheep and will face his just wrath.
What is interesting and perhaps most perturbing is that many Christians I speak with are just as idolatrous as the pagan culture around them. And that includes our leaders. They can’t see how education belongs to parents under Christ and are quite happy to see it belong to the state. They can’t see that the gathering of the church belongs to church leaders under Christ and they are quite happy to allow it to belong to the state. The state-centric model of the universe has been blindly adopted by the church and our leaders have not spoken up courageously against this idolatry. Let us pray for revival and courageous leaders to teach us to worship Christ alone.