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"Render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." (Jesus Christ)

Jesus wasn't about religion, in fact he reserved his anger for organised religion and challenged, ignored or subverted religious practices. He didn't teach the non-religious about religion, or expect them to become 'religious'. If anyone has to become religious to follow Jesus they've missed the point, so talk of the relationship between church and state is missing the point too. It really is debateable whether Jesus wanted a Church. In fact, Jesus was a humanist. We should be humanists too. If Jesus' followers fail to adopt this outlook they revert to being 'religious' instead, if this then leads to people becoming out of tune with humanity they may go on to becoming inhumane. There are too many examples of this happening in the history of Christianity, pray God that it does not continue to happen. However, we see 'religious' inhumanity in appalling 'Christian' attitudes towards Muslims - 'you have heard it said that other religions are false, give their followers the cold shoulder and make them feel unwelcome.' Jesus never said this but you might think that he did when you hear what some of his followers say.

Jesus actually advocates humanism - 'give to man what is man's', or better, 'you have heard it said, "it's a man's world", but I say to you, "give to woman what is woman's" - what possibilities does this offer? Is this what religion looks like? Hopefully it is, though religion has often treated women incredibly unfairly, giving or expecting legal permission to treat them unequally, and continues to do so. What if Jesus was saying - 'Give to human beings their human rights and entitlements, by the time you've done that you will have given God what God wants?' This is what God wants actually, God invented human rights! This ensures that religion doesn't get in the way of people. Religion asks - 'how should I treat my neighbour?' This is a secular question. True religion asks and answers secular questions, questions for everybody, not religious questions with religious answers for religious people.

We should turn to secular scenarios to test our religion properly. Secularism is a good test for religion. If we can allow that Jesus was not religious and urged us not to get stuck in religion, then we should be open to the secular, everything that is not explicitly religious, and be comfortable with it. The challenge for 'believers', which is 'loving our neighbour as ourself', is to live life and faith in the secular sphere. This isn't what those who questioned Jesus wanted, their twin aims were to trick him and twist out of anything that they thought he might say. In his responses he generally offered a humanistic answer which trumped 'religion' - for example, when questioned about 'working' on the Sabbath- 'who among you will not rescue his donkey from a ditch?' He also offered humanistic observations in his sermons, reflecting on God's care for outsiders and foreigners.

His 'give to Caesar' is really asking us a big question - does commitment to God cease when you are part of wider society? If you don't pay your taxes to Caesar then you are limiting and excluding God who expects you to do so. God does indeed support the secular establishment."

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