Randomly Rudimentary Faith Stuff
Just some dad trying to leave a footprint for his kids to walk in if they need to know where to go
Why Even the “Right” Religion Doesn’t Belong in Power
By LONNIE KING
Last month, the US State Department’s official X account made this public declaration:
“Our nation was founded on the recognition that moral virtue and a steadfast faith in God are necessary preconditions of freedom… Under @POTUS’s leadership, the State Department will eradicate practices that devalue and demean the Christian faith.”
Let me reiterate: this is official social media account of the United States federal government’s agency that handles the nation’s interactions with the rest of the world.
For some, that message might sound reassuring. After all, if you’re a Christian, why wouldn’t you want your government to protect your faith?
But talk to Christians inside the State Department, as Puck recently did, and you’ll hear a different story: this new religious favoritism feels alienating even to them.
The lesson is simple but urgent: even the “right” religion doesn’t belong in power.
The False Promise of a Religious State
Christianity from the start has taught that faith is personal, not imposed. Jesus never built an earthly religious organization—the Greek word ekklesia, which we’ve translated into English as “church,” was not a religious term at all when Jesus used it and would not have been understood that way at the time.
What He did was call people into a living relationship, not into a state-sanctioned institution.
That’s why the first followers of Jesus lived as a countercultural community, often in direct resistance to the Roman Empire’s demand for allegiance. They refused to burn incense to Caesar or to submit their faith to the machinery of the state.
Early Christianity wasn’t about preserving political dominance; it was a revolution of values that stood apart from the powers of the world.
History shows that when religion weds itself to political authority, faith gains short-term influence but loses long-term vitality. Puritan Massachusetts punished dissenters in the name of faith. Constantine’s Rome turned the church into an arm of empire. In every case, what begins as protection ends as coercion.
“Protection” or Privilege?
The Puck article highlights how only 133 complaints—out of 25,000 employees—were used to justify sweeping claims of anti-Christian persecution at Foggy Bottom. Many of these grievances were less about discrimination and more about resistance to vaccine mandates, pronoun policies, or oversight of homeschooling subsidies.
In other words, a loud minority reframed cultural discomfort as religious persecution, and the administration amplified it into policy. That’s not protection of faith; that’s favoritism.
And here’s the key distinction: protection is not enforcement.
Protecting the rights of Christians—or Muslims, Jews, atheists, or anyone else—means safeguarding their ability to live out convictions without harassment.
Enforcement, on the other hand, means compelling others to conform. The two are not the same.
Protection doesn’t remove the possibility that others will disagree with you or even object to your beliefs. It simply ensures they cannot use power to silence you. Enforcement does the opposite—it uses power to silence dissent.
Christians Don’t All Agree
Ironically, some of the sharpest pushback comes from Christians themselves. They describe freely hosting Bible studies, wearing crosses, praying with colleagues, and finding accommodation for religious needs long before Trump’s task force was created.
What bothers them now is not a lack of freedom, but the imposition of a political version of Christianity they don’t recognize. When faith is co-opted as a tool of nationalism, it alienates believers who see their religion as global, not tribal.
The Civic Risk
A religious state cannot remain a free state. When government elevates one faith, it inevitably diminishes all others—including dissenting voices within that same religion. True religious liberty is not about enforcing dominance; it’s about preserving pluralism.
And here’s the hard truth: even if it’s your faith in the driver’s seat, you should still be uneasy. Because the moment political winds shift, the same machinery can just as easily be turned against you.
Moral Convictions or Morality Compliance?
If faith becomes enforced by law, it ceases to be faith. When the only alternative is compliance, belief stops being a matter of the heart and becomes a checkbox. That’s not Christian discipleship—that’s state religion.
Jesus condemned religious gatekeeping and repeatedly resisted the pull of organized power. He did not intend to establish a political religion in His name. A faith that relies on government compulsion is not the faith He taught; it’s a counterfeit.
That’s why even the “right” religion doesn’t belong in power. Because the freedom of faith depends on the freedom from state control.
Grace and grit to you! — LK
Randomly Rudimentary Faith Stuff 