I went to dinner at Tommy and Lauren’s place tonight. She had a bunch of friends over for another discussion. This time the conversation was about what Jesus meant when he said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” At first the answer seemed obvious to me but the more I thought about it the more I realized that first of all it was a brilliant answer to a question designed to have no good answer. And secondly, I realized that it isn’t entirely obvious what is Caesar’s and what is God’s. And there was some debate over whether his answer was his way of saying that the question was Mu (meaningless), or if he was simply saying that you should pay your taxes (and uphold the laws of the land) but give God your heart and all he asks.
I got home and payed some bills, spent some time debugging a gaim plugin I was writing, and now suddenly it’s 12:30am. Where’d the time go. I think I’ll do a bit of reading before I go to sleep.
October 28th, 2003 at 10:36 pm
This is from an article on lds.org:
There is no reason or justification for men to disregard or break the law or try to take it into their own hands. Christ gave us the great example of a law-abiding citizen when the Pharisees, trying to entangle him, as the scriptures say, asked him if it were lawful to give tribute money unto Caesar. After asking whose inscription was on the tribute money, and their acknowledgment that it was Caesar’s, he said:
“Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.” (Matt. 22:21.)
It is the duty of citizens of any country to remember that they have individual responsibilities, and that they must operate within the law of the country in which they have chosen to live. I quote further from the Doctrine and Covenants:
“We believe that all men are bound to sustain and uphold the respective governments in which they reside, while protected in their inherent and inalienable rights by the laws of such governments; and that sedition and rebellion are unbecoming every citizen thus protected, and should be punished accordingly; and that all governments have a right to enact such laws as in their own judgments are best calculated to secure the public interest; at the same time, however, holding sacred the freedom of conscience.” (D&C 134:5.)