The Biblical Illiteracy of Travis Rawley

Travis Rawley

Travis Rawley, chairman of the RI Young Republicans and who describes himself on his Twitter account as “Fiercely pro-Liberty” and a “Staunch anti-Democrat” wrote a piece on GoLocalProv entitled “Politics & the Pope” in which he took issue with a piece I wrote for RI Future entitled “Bishop Tobin Confuses Anti-Choice for Pro-Life.”

My piece was critical of the strategy employed by Bishop Tobin of the Providence Diocese in dealing with Catholic elected officials that Tobin feels are not sufficiently pro-life. My point was that the more Tobin pushes Catholic office holders to support church priorities over secular concerns, the more non-Catholics should feel concerned about voting for Catholic candidates. Rawley’s critique of my piece was a bit rambling and unfocused. Rather than deal directly with things I said, he mostly reframed my arguments into straw men that could be lashed with rhetorical vitriol and familiar talking points.

That said, there are a few things Rawley says that I’d like to take a stab at responding to. At this time, I’ll only deal with this bit of Rawley's writing:

Demonstrating the hopelessness of separating religion from government, Ahlquist himself accidentally invoked the New Testament in order to influence public policy. He did this with a complete misinterpretation of Jesus’ encounter with the Pharisees who asked Him, “Tell us, therefore, what dost thou think: Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” Jesus famously responded, “Why do you test me, you hypocrites?...Render…to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” (Matthew 22)

Ahlquist embarrassingly concludes, “In other words, separate church and state.”

Or we could listen to actual Biblical scholars who understand that Jesus, “knowing [the Pharisees’ wickedness,” sidestepped their trap by forcing them to consider what precisely doesn’t belong to God – and then to decide for themselves how to deal with the oppressive Roman government.

The main point here has little to do with Ahlquist’s Biblical illiteracy. The point is this: Considering the Left’s proposed absolutism when it comes to the “separation between church and state,” how could Ahlquist possibly consider anything that Jesus Christ ever had to say to be of any political importance?

First off, in no sense did I “accidentally” invoke the new Testament. I explicitly invoked the New Testament, there was no accident involved. I was talking about JFK’s famous speech to the greater Houston Ministerial Association, in which the then future president declared his full support for the separation of church and state. I said:

Kennedy was faced with essentially the same problem posed to Jesus, who famously told his interlocutors to render unto Caesar (the government) what was Caesar’s, and render unto God what is God’s. In other words, separate church and state.

Perhaps the word Rawley was searching for was “ironically” seeing as how I’m an atheist and I’m referencing the Bible. Rawley seems to think that because I strongly advocate for the separation of church and state, I should be disallowed from being able to use passages from the Bible, even if I use them only as constructive fictions, parables if you will, in my arguments.

Let’s look at the specific Bible passage I referenced. Rawley claims that I displayed Biblical illiteracy when I claimed that Jesus’ famous exhortation to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” could be interpreted as Jesus advocating for separation of church and state. He calls my analysis embarrassing, and goes on to give his own, somewhat prosaic, interpretation.

I understand that New Testament scholarship can give rise to many different interpretations of specific passages, but was my use of Matthew 22:21 so completely off-base as to rise to the level of Biblical ignorance? Was the idea of using this passage as a possible Christian justification for the separation of church and state so outside the mainstream that no Biblical scholar would possibly come to such a conclusion? Obviously not. There are many theologians, Catholic and otherwise, who interpret this passage in much the same way I did.

I would refer interested readers to the website Baptist Distinctives where the case is made as plainly as possible:

Speaking from the steps of the United States Capitol in 1920 to 15,000 people in the open air, Texas Baptist pastor George W. Truett declared: “‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s,’ is one of the most revolutionary and history-making utterances that ever fell from those lips divine. That utterance, once and for all, marked the divorcement of church and state…

So, no, I think it can be safely stated that my view that this Bible passage can be interpreted to support the separation of church and state is Biblically literate and theologically sound. Rawley might not like my interpretation, but it is at least as valid as the one he presented until Jesus himself shows up to referee our dispute. And I’m betting that never happens.

I think Rawley’s disagreement with my use of this passage comes mainly because Christian Libertarians use tortured interpretations of these words to justify their resistance to paying taxes to a government they disagree with on religious grounds. Then again, perhaps Rawley just doesn’t like the fact that I can just as easily quote mine his religious texts to justify my position as he can to justify his own. You see, I think the Bible is just a work of literature, and I quote it the way Rawley might quote Shakespeare, if Shakespeare wasn’t some sort of leftist agitator.

Rawley also says that my piece demonstrated the “hopelessness of separating religion from government” as if something hard to do is also somehow not worth doing at all. But let’s look at actual Catholic doctrine concerning church/state separation. Has the church ever adopted anything like it in it’s 2000 year history? Turns out they did, in 1965.

Jim Dinn, in his piece “What’s the Catholic view on church and state?” written for USCatholic.org writes:

…in 1965 the second Vatican Council took a fresh look at the church's posture toward civil governments and implicitly affirmed the separation of church and state in the Declaration on Religious Liberty.

Dinn ends his piece:

Vatican II called for the formation of "people who will respect the moral order, will obey lawful authority, and be lovers of true freedom.

It is a lofty vision for the Christian citizen, but no more so than the cryptic admonition of Jesus: "Then give to Caesar what is Caesar's, but give to God what is God's" (Matt. 22:21).

Not only does the Declaration of Religious Liberty “implicitly affirm” church/state separation, it also references Matthew 22:21 in it’s text. You can read it at the link provided.

Of course, the main brunt of Rawley’s attack on my piece has little to do with his Biblical illiteracy and his ignorance of Catholicism. Rawley is only interested in advancing his conservative, libertarian agenda. The fact is, Rawley doesn’t even understand religion well enough to define it properly, which is something I’ll get around to addressing at some future point.