Money Changers in the Temple of Democracy

A godless atheist wonders what it would mean to live in a truly Christian nation, and proposes the modest first step that would imply.

El Greco, Christ Cleansing the Temple (detail), probably before 1570 (National Gallery of Art)

There seems to be some confusion these days among Christians about what constitutes acceptable and moral behavior. Not among all Christians, of course, but among enough to constitute a worrisome trend. And look, I get it. When what you read in the New Testament or maybe learn in Sunday school conflicts with what you see good, churchgoing people doing in the world around you, it can be confusing. It can set your head spinning, like Regan in The Exorcist. I’ve been there myself.

The Ritual of Holy Confusion

At the church I grew up in¹, I was taught that I should love and welcome all of God’s children, but then when I made friends with people who didn’t believe the same things I did, I was told to stay away from them. At the church I grew up in, I was taught that pride was a sin, but then we would all take turns standing in front of the congregation and patting ourselves on the back for being favored enough by God to know the One True Gospel. At the church I grew up in I was taught that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven², but then we would we all idolize and suck up to the wealthy old men among us and act like they were the holiest and most blessed of us all, and not just jerks who caught some lucky breaks.

The church I grew up in had a lay clergy, which meant that our local ecclesiastical leaders did their church jobs for free in addition to their regular jobs. One of those leaders, a stake president³ named Robert Mouritsen, worked in the real world as an investment consultant—a modern-day money changer. He was a man so forbidding and judgmental in manner, so sanctimonious in his pretentions to saintliness and erudition, it was like he was auditioning for the role of God’s clenched asshole. I was taught in church by people like Mouritsen not to steal, and I don’t mind using his real name here because in 2018 he was indicted for fraud by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He used his status as a church leader to bilk investors of $1.5 million, and he was sent to federal prison in 2020. Talk about mixed messages!

What I’m saying is, it can be hard to know what it means to be a Christian. And if it’s hard for an individual to know what it means to be a Christian, just think how much harder and more confusing it is for an entire country to try to be Christian! It’s no wonder we here in America seem to be getting it so wrong.

Caveat Christianus

Now, I know what some of you are saying to yourselves right now. You’re saying, “Hey, dummy! The United States of America is not a Christian nation!” And you would be correct. In case this wasn’t already clear from the Constitution’s establishment clause, our federal government said it out loud in 1796 in Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli: “As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion … no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”⁴

However, since so many of us here labor under the misapprehension that this is a Christian nation, it’s worth reviewing a few of the precepts we might expect to figure into policy if we as country were in fact dedicated to following the example and teachings of Jesus Christ.

Imagining a Christian Nation

The most basic of Jesus’s teachings was to love all people. What would that mean for a Christian nation? To respect all people and recognize their right to exist? To favor all groups, tribes, and congregations equally, none more than the rest? To help everyone succeed, thrive, and be happy? Those sound like good starting points.

I’m pretty sure Christian nation would not foment hate against its neighbors, attempt to legislate or dictate other communities out of existence, or exclude refugees from seeking safety within its borders. That would be the opposite of love.

Time and again Jesus made clear through words and actions that his followers have an obligation to help the poor, to feed the hungry, to heal and minister to the sick, to clothe and shelter the needy. Some people will tell you this commandment applies only to faith groups and other private entities, not to governments, but that’s a specious argument, aimed at dodging the cost of responsibility. In a truly Christian nation, the obligation would necessarily apply to the government as well.

Contrast that with current U.S. government policies. The president and his cronies are on a rampage, revoking funds to fight starvation and prevent disease around the world, sending vulnerable refugees at our borders to prisons overseas, gearing up to slash Medicaid and Social Security, waging war on vaccination while a measles outbreak worsens, and much more. None of which strikes me as very Christian.

Jesus instructed his followers to turn the other cheek and to love those that hate them, while the president obsesses about retribution—and delivers on it⁵. Jesus exhorted his followers to render Caesar his due, while the president plots to shift more of the burden of taxation from the wealthy onto the shoulders of the weak. Jesus stood with the oppressed, while the president stands with the bullies and monsters of the world.

How would a Christian nation behave? Not like this. What should a Christian nation tolerate?

Not this.

I’m not saying it was perfect, but our government was behaving in a far more Christian fashion just a couple of months ago.

Is that a confusing way to put it? A more correct way would be to say it behaved in a far more decent and moral fashion just two short months ago. We shouldn’t perpetuate the fallacy that Christianity has any corner on the morality market, just as we shouldn’t forget that, for all its problems, the United States has been a remarkable force for good and stability around the world, in part through agencies like USAID.

This pathetic poseur holds the Bible like it’s a live hand grenade—not that brave Captain Bonespurs has ever been within golfing distance of a live hand grenade.

In What Do We Trust?

Speaking of which, the U.S. may have no state religion, but I do believe we have something akin to one. Spoiler alert: it’s not Christianity.

Our de facto state religion is democracy.

Democracy is the axiomatic principle of our Constitution, as fundamental to our national ideals as loving one another is to Christian doctrine. Democracy requires faith in order to work—faith in the wisdom and good intentions of our fellow citizens, and faith in the representatives we elect to lead us. Democracy requires everyone’s involvement. Democracy is fragile. It demands vigilance against those who would warp it, break it, or blow it to smithereens.

If we lose it, we all go down together.

Money Changers in the Temple

While the putatively Christian president is consumed by violent posturing and rhetoric, on only one recorded occasion did Jesus himself indulge in anything approaching violence. Upon entering the temple in Jerusalem, he saw merchants selling animals for sacrifice and grew angry. He fashioned himself a whip, overturned their tables, scattered their coins, and drove them out with their animals. “Take these things hence,” he said, according to John 2:16. “Make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.”

The temple of our democracy is infested by rapacious billionaires and their enablers. Jesus never had much that was encouraging to say about the rich, and these are some of the richest pricks ever to sully our poor little planet. He didn’t only say it would be hard for them to get to heaven. “Go thy way,” he told the wealthy man in Mark 10:21, “sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor.” Can you picture Trump, or Musk, or Bezos following this admonition?

No, instead they’re intent on pulling down the pillars of democracy and making it a house of merchandise, no matter the cost to the rest of us—to the rest of the world. They will snap the neck of democracy like it was a dove. They will slit its throat like it was a lamb and drain its blood for money, and for power. And then they’ll look for another sacrifice, and another. Mammon is hungry.

Confused Christians, is the situation coming a little clearer? What would you do if you were truly intent on following the example of Jesus in all things? Would you fashion yourselves whips? Would you overturn the tables of the money changers, scatter their riches? Would drive them from the temple like the animals they are?

The rest of us can’t do it without you. Are you ready? ∅

If you’re feeling as much despair about America’s direction as I am, one resource I recommend is Jessica Craven’s excellent Substack Chop Wood, Carry Water, which is full of actions you can take every day to promote change and stave off darkness. Plus, I just donated $50 to help Ukraine purchase military defense hardware. You can direct a donation to any of several different Ukrainian support initiatives!

My memoir, The Accidental Terrorist: Confessions of a Reluctant Missionary, is available from all the usual sources online, though I would encourage you to order it either from your local independent bookstore or from Bookshop.org.

1. If you don’t know, I grew up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some of you will try to explain to me that is not a genuine Christian denomination, to which I will reply, “I’m sorry you don’t approve of the Forgotten Realms module they’re using, but they follow the same Dungeon Master’s Guide you do, so suck on this Magic Missile.”

2. True, I was also taught that the Eye of the Needle was one of the gates into Jerusalem, and that it was only tall enough for a human and go a camel would need to go through it on its knees. In other words, tricky but not impossible. Which, you know, sounds nice, but also sounds like something a rich man’s P.R. agent would say.

3. In the LDS Church, a bishop leads each ward (or congregation), while a stake president leads a group of wards.

4. This is about as explicit a statement as you could ask for, approved for ratification by a Senate that was in a position not just to understand but to remember the thinking and the debates that went into crafting the Constitution. It’s one of those facts that so-called originalists love to ignore, since originalists are only originalists when it’s convenient for whatever line of bullshit reasoning they’re trying to sell.

5. If Donald Trump resembles any character from the Bible, it’s the God of the Old Testament—angry, petty, thin-skinned, jealous, insecure, vindictive, and murderous.