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This piece was adapted for Russell Moore’s newsletter. Subscribe here.
“Here we are, right at the end, and the election is a coin toss.” A friend said that to me just a few minutes ago, referring to the razor-thin polling margins between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. A few thousand votes one way or the other in as few as three swing states could produce radically different alternatives for the future of the country.
I wonder, though, whether as American Christians we ought to think of Election Day as a coin toss in a different way as well. Even in a more secularized society, the words “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17, ESV throughout) are still recognizable to most people. The account—from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke—recounts Jesus’ response to the question of whether to pay taxes to the Roman emperor’s regime.
Like many other Scriptures, those words have been grossly misused. They’re quoted to justify churches engaging directly in political activism (often paired with a misreading of Abraham Kuyper’s famous declaration that there is not one square inch of the universe that Jesus does not claim as “Mine”). They are also quoted to make the case for a separation of Christian conscience from public justice (often with a similarly downgraded version of Martin Luther’s idea of two kingdoms).
Jesus’ words here actually speak sharply to what it means to be his follower in a time of pronounced divisions and high stakes. But to hear them rightly, we must pay attention to how Jesus discerned what was real and what was false. In many ways, his political situation—though radically different, set in an ancient empire rather than a modern democracy—was similar to the one facing us right now.
First, Jesus upended an artificial controversy to provoke a genuine crisis in his hearers. The question about taxes was posed by two very disparate groups—the Pharisees and the Herodians—but neither side was truly grappling with a theological dilemma. They were executing a strategy. They were humiliated by Jesus’ parables against them and so plotted “to trap him in his talk” (v. 13). This was a proxy war.
Jesus saw through the artificial controversy and the manipulative flattery with which it was framed: “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God” (v. 14). It was not out of naive ignorance but “knowing their hypocrisy” (v. 15) that Jesus answered.
What Jesus recognized here was what journalist Amanda Ripley calls “conflict entrepreneurs,” those who have an interest in creating havoc and division for its own sake. If we are to seek “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:15–16), we should likewise be able to recognize that often what really matters is not what’s debated most fiercely around us. Such controversies may light up the limbic system, but often they distract us from what really matters, to the detriment of our neighbors and ourselves.
As Jesus upended the artificial controversy, he also upended the tribalism that undergirded it. The conversation about Caesar’s coin, after all, was not really about tax policy. The Pharisees knew that the throne of the kingdom of Israel belonged by covenant to David’s heir (2 Sam. 7:1–17), not to a puppet of some Gentile occupying force. So if Jesus told his hearers to pay taxes to Caesar, he’d be understood as negating that covenant promise. But if Jesus had answered that people should withhold the tax, this would be heard as Jesus urging insurrection against Rome.
Those who were “just asking questions” knew that they could use the question—particularly for those who cared about God’s covenant—to draw tribal boundaries. For the whole crowd, they could make taxes into a “You’re not one of us” question of identity. They chose this strategy of riling political passions because they “feared the people” (Mark 12:12). To deny the possibility that Jesus was, in fact, “the stone that the builders rejected” (v. 10), now made the cornerstone of a new creation, they sought to push him into existing divisions.
The trap aside, those divisions were real and serious. So too are the divisions in American life—and the consequences of this election are of crucial importance. But one of the reasons the country is exhausted is that so much of our political debate is not about politics at all. It’s about whether one is really part of the tribe—whatever tribe that is. To be excluded feels like a threat to our very existence.
Yet Jesus refused to join a tribe and instead asked for a coin. In this, he reordered the priorities of the entire conversation. “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” he asked (v. 16). Caesar, of course, had honored his own image, depicting himself as the son of the gods.
Jesus’ response made all that self-magnified glory look pitiful and small. He tossed the coin back to his interrogators and got to the question behind the question. Mark ends the story by recording that “they marveled at him” (v. 17).
As the American experiment continues to be tested in the years to come, those who love our country best will be those who are not Americans first. The sense of politics as ultimate leads us to do unspeakably awful things, harming our own country, because “desperate times call for desperate measures.” But Christians who are secure in our first priority—to seek the kingdom of God and to be citizens of that realm—can love our country well. We can render unto Caesar without veering into idolatrous worship of party, politicians, or democracy itself.
Time Is Not a Political Promise
The New Testament honors the legitimacy of government—even really, really flawed governments like Rome. But that honor never includes making politics or government a source of identity or meaning in life.
We often can tell where our priorities are by what drives us to despair or to anger. I voted in this election, and if it goes a different way than I want, I’ll be worried and upset. But if I find myself in a frenzy or hopeless, I ought to rethink what it means to follow one who was tranquil before the government with the power to crucify him (John 18:33–36) while his disciples were fleeing, but then sweat drops of blood in prayer in the garden while those same disciples were asleep (Mark 14:37).
“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Other passages teach us about the separation of church and state, but that’s not what this text addresses. Other passages teach about the duty to pay taxes; that’s not the reason we have this one. This is about something we all should remember as we make our way to Election Day: that we are first and foremost Christians. That we belong to God.
We owe it to the legacy of George Washington and James Madison and Harriet Tubman and all the Americans who came before us to guard the institutions and freedom they handed on to us. We owe the same to the generations to come. Politics matter. But when politics start to define us, to control our sense of who we are, to keep us in a state of artificial exultation or artificial doom, we should recognize what’s happening.
Someone is handing us a coin. We should toss it back.
Russell Moore is the editor in chief at Christianity Today and leads its Public Theology Project.
