"...American Christian churches seem to worship the government more than 'God'."
Sadly all too true.
I'm another Christian theologian, and you won't find me toadying up to government or giving a pass to the churches that do. Just FYI, in case you might want to see how "the other 2%" of Christianity views the whole guv'mnt thing... ;)
Do you go to a government run/"regulated" 501c3 church?
I don't believe that churches should ever seek government approval. I consider all human governments, as we know them, to be instrumentalities of the devil.
As far as "where I go," I don't "go to church." I meet with God's people.
I don't consider "church" to be an organization in any case, it is a body, a gathering of Christians.
I don't even accept "church" as an appropriate word to describe what is really intended to be an organic gathering of God's people.
I think we could have a more Christian government or at least a much less Satanic one. I like how a lot of the black churches will go against the government and basically endorse politicians like Obama. I don't like how they endorse baby killers like Obama though.
I appreciate your comments, and would encourage you to do more reading on voluntaryism. "Christian government" is really an oxymoron, it makes no sense.
Why?
Jesus himself said this:
How much authority? ALL
Where? In heaven only? No, on Earth also!
If Jesus has all authority, how much does that leave for human "government?"
Other than Jesus himself, no man or group of men has any right to rule other men.
Christian citizens could vote in a government that supports Christian values instead of Satanic values. Theoretically we could switch to a more servant form of government.
You're still missing the point, my friend.
Voting implies a democracy, which is still a method of ruling, or exercising power over other men. It is one of the worst forms of rule, sometimes called "mob rule." Jesus had this to say about that:
Your phrase "servant form of government" is a complete oxymoron. You can either have an organization that serves, or one that "governs," i.e. rules by force. The two concepts are incompatible, no matter how America's founding fathers may have pretended to marry the two.
Strangely enough, it has taken me a lifetime to understand this. A fellow by the name of Larken Rose helped me to "see" the truth, and I would strongly recommend his book to you:
Government can serve us by protecting us from others. Not everyone in this world is self-governed.
I don't think complete anarchy would go very well in our Satanic society.
And yet Jesus lived under the protection of the Roman government and not only did not encourage rebellion against it but told them to pay to Caesar what was due to Caesar.
I've never thought of the "all authority" saying as applying to civil government. Not sure why anyone would.
I appreciate your comments, @kirbyhopper, but must respectfully disagree with them.
The institutional church has become so corrupt that it encourages misrepresentations of what Jesus said. The enemy controls not only the Powers That Be (human government) but a great deal of "organized" Christendom as well. For example, Jesus remarks about Caesar in no way instruct us to pay tax.
While Jesus did not "encourage rebellion" against government, he taught that it had been replaced by the Kingdom of God. Why do you suppose they crucified him?
If you care to delve much more deeply into this, I invite you to read some of the articles I've already written on the topic. You can find them readily accessible on my Library Christianity Shelf, just click the shelf below:
Jesus statement about "all authority" is an absolute. There are no exceptions. Any individual or institution that departs from Jesus' specification of what is right and wrong will ultimately face destruction. God's perspective on such rebellion is laughter (Psalm 2).
How do you know "Jesus statement about 'all authority' is an absolute" isn't an assumption? I find Jesus speaking in absolutist terms while dealing with only a local, temporal issue. For example, "No man can come to the Father except through me" is usually interpreted by the corrupt church (and I agree organized religion is corrupt - they just can't escape Lord Acton's maxim: Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely) to mean no human can ever know God apart from a knowledge of and faith in Christ. But the context tells us he was talking to a group of people who constantly saw his good works of healing people, hear his good teaching about love your neighbor, and yet still accused him of being a demon. For THEM, and them only, they would not see God without going through him, that is, heed his words and follow his example. A lot of people following him around took his words literally and got tripped up on many occasions. We need to be careful about applying his sayings to others beyond his immediate audience.