Mixing religion and politics can be a dangerous business, especially if done from the pulpit and backed up by fully-weaponized police poised in a worship space at the laity in the pews, and from the front so the congregants know they are being intensely watched even as the words, “Peace on earth” are shown on the big screen directly above one of the uniformed police employees. To my utter astonishment, I encountered just this scenario when I visited a large Presbyterian church in the U.S. early in 2026. A Christian who has read the Gospels might look askance at the weaponized, uniformed police in the sanctuary who were facing the people from near the front, and the television cameramen who were standing on the stage even very close to the altar, and think of Jesus castigating the money-changers and sacrifice-animal sellers operating inside the temple.
The modern equivalent to the greedy
businessmen in the temple is the power-tripping, weaponized police officer staring
down congregants in a sanctuary even while the people are worshipping God.
To see people worshipping the prince of peace while a fully-weaponized policewoman
looks directly at the worshippers from just left of the stage in front—staring
at the people—is surreal. True Christianity cannot thrive in such a hostile
environment. Lest any members of that Presbyterian church might consider complaining
about the obvious hypocrisy, the pastor’s sermon could easily be interpreted as
a warning against complaining, not just about the church, but also, and even
more troubling, the government.
Just one day before my visit
to the large church in a Trump-friendly state in the U.S., Iran’s Ayatollah Ali
Kamenei denounced rioters, saying that they “must be put in their place.”[1]
Such a sentiment is hardly surprising because Iran’s “democracy” is severely
constrained to include only approved candidates for office. So, it does come as
a surprise that Iran’s supreme leader went on to say, “We talk to protesters,
the officials must talk to them.”[2]
It may also come as a surprise that the pastor of the Presbyterian church would
not agree with Iran’s leader on talking with protesters, for that pastor said
in his lengthy sermon that Christians should not complain about government. To
do so is to “rebel against God’s sovereignty.” Anyone who complains has an overblown,
selfish sense of oneself. The pastor also urged his congregation to contact the
White House’s office of religion about a public prayer for the U.S. coming up.
Because it is unclear how a democracy can endure without complaints being made about elected officials, government policy, and even laws, I contend that the pastor was advocating a proto-fascist, anti-democracy message as a religious sermon. That he lapsed in overreaching from the domain of religion to that of politics and government—a category mistake—was dangerous because he had stationed fully-uniformed, and fully-weaponized local police not only at the periphery of the building outside, but also inside the sanctuary and in front, facing the people—staring at them as they (presumably) worshipped amid the blatant show of force.
I intentionally made transparent the latent hostility by pivoting in the pew in the direction of the
policewomen because she was staring in my direction throughout the entire service, except during the
sermon, when she faced the pastor. Her loyalty was clear, and this means that
the pastor’s demand that the laity not complain, even though in the Gospels
Jesus complains about the money-changers, is dangerous. Were he to have seen me
holding my phone/camera at my chest in the direction of his hired gun and told
her to harass me, she would not have hesitated to do so, and with manufactured
anger directed at me. In short, the pastor’s autocratic mentality plus the blatant,
literally “in your face” presence of a fully-weaponized police officer is so
toxic to Jesus’ message in the Gospels that the pastor could hardly be trusted
to wield such power as he did.
The environment inside and
outside of the church was so toxic to worship that the pastor actually did his
congregation a favor by talking through almost all of the service, lest the
people be put in the uncomfortable position of closing their eyes in engaging
in transcendent religious experience. Outside of the building, before the
service, at least two uniformed, near riot-gear police employees roamed around
the perimeter while security guards were also present. It was a sight,
ironically, of excess, and thus bad judgment. As I sat in a pew inside the sanctuary,
I noticed two cameramen standing near the main table/altar even though the only
activity was that of a piano-player, who was very good. The Christmas lights
were still up, and the sight was beautiful, but unfortunately false (which is
what Aristotle wrote of Plato’s theory of the forms). After a hymn was sung, just
before the Creed was said, the pastor warned his congregation, “If you don’t
believe in the Apostles’ Creed, you aren’t getting into the kingdom of God.”
Apparently that minister had never read Paul’s dictum that without the love of
compassion, even, and I would like to add, especially for one’s enemies
and even rude and dislikeable people, even faith that can move mountains is for
naught. Love is not primarily about belief, though that it part of it, as I
discovered ironically as I was walking from the pews.
True to his form, the pastor
went from reciting the Creed to making a bunch of announcements of upcoming
church social-events. Any sense of transcendence that the laity may have felt
arising in them from reciting the Creed was instantly wiped out by the profane
announcements, which were essentially advertisements. The profane turn was made
complete when he urged people to contact the White House’s office of religious
affairs regarding an upcoming public prayer for the United States, which was
then aiding and abetting Israel’s committing of what the UN and the
International Criminal Court have both determined to be a genocide. “Praying
for the country” would not include praying that the United States hold the
guilty accountable and extend compassion to the million of homeless, starving civilians
in Gaza.
The pastor’s sermon came after
a reading not of the Gospels, but of one of Paul’s letters to a congregation. Philippians
2:12-6 was the reading. Interestingly, it includes the expression made popular
by Soren Kierkegaard, fear and trembling. These words rightly apply to a
human’s reaction to the presence of God, rather than to that of a uniformed,
weaponized police officer confronting a congregation inside a sanctuary. Not
surprisingly, the pastor referenced his recent sermon on fear and trembling. Fittingly,
in the current sermon, the minister claimed, “Paul is almost like a sergeant.”
Not. Then the pastor turned to his personal dislike of people who complain. “Remember
God hates complaining,” he said without any scriptural justification.
Furthermore, “complaining is a type of unbelief,” by which he probably meant
atheism. Then he overreached onto the domain of government—something that Jesus
refuses to do in the Gospel stories. “Complaining about the government is
really complaining about the sovereignty of God.” Only self-centered people who
think too much of themselves complain.
The pastor’s theology of grace
can be likened to that of the Jansenists, who were extreme Augustinians—extreme
because they believed that the Fall decimates free-will, such that redemption
by the Cross is by grace alone. The use of free-will to extend humane
compassion to one’s detractors and even enemies is instead totally by grace—the
person deserves no credit for making the choice to help. As I was thinking
about this in the church that I hated so much while I was walking past pews in
a line, I saw a cell phone fall on the carpet ahead. Immediately, I picked up the
phone and another person helped me locate the man who had just dropped it. As I
returned it to him, I said to just a few—now I wish I had had the guts to
really speak up as Jesus does to the money-changers in the Gospels—“I am really
opposed to your church, but, here, this is real Christianity—I am intentionally
returning this phone to this man to show humane compassion even when it is not
convenient. I really oppose your congregation.” The few people who heard this nodded
in agreement that what I was intentionally illustrating was indeed what Jesus
stands for in the Gospels, and that my complaint against the brazen police
presence was valid. Even though credit is deserved for my use of my free-will
to pick up and return the phone—this was not solely due to God’s grace, though
I did wonder about how fortuitous the phone being dropped such that I saw it
first was. It was as if a supremely intelligent being sourced beyond our realm—including
our domain of politics—was testing me to see if my anger at the violations in a
house of worship was in line with authentic Christianity, and thus akin to
Jesus’s anger at the money-changers in the temple. As in the Gospel of Mark,
the word immediately came into my mind as I saw the phone on the carpet.
I knew it would have to be a split-decision whether to ignore the phone out of
spite for the minister and the policewoman who had been staring at me, or to be
compassionate in such an environment in which I was so angered. I would even state
that it is precisely in making the choice to be compassionate when being so is inconvenient
at the very least that the image of God is in us, and that the proverbial Fall
does not diminish that image in us. Even Augustine argued that a person’s
self-love of that in oneself that is in the image of God is theologically
laudable, whereas selfish self-love is a sin.
During my first master’s
degree (and Ph.D. minor-field) program in religion, my advisor used to take his
graduate students to a variety of religious places on weekends so we could
observe religious rituals along the lines set out as a methodology by Geertz.
We were to bracket our respective religious backgrounds and perspectives to focus
on knowing “the other of the other.” We did so at Hindu and Sikh temples, Greek
Orthodox churches, Protestant churches, and Roman Catholic churches. I’ve
continued this practice off and on through the rest of my life. In visiting the
anti-democratic police-state Presbyterian church at the beginning of 2026, however,
Geertz’s methodology of bracketing one’s own religious view went out the window;
I couldn’t get away from that church fast enough, though I did get a glimpse of
real Christianity as I paused to pick up a phone on the way out.
2. Ibid.
