God or Government?

On this day 6th July 1535, Sir or Saint Thomas More was executed on Tower Hill.

Sir Thomas More (/ˈmɔːr/; 7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated by Catholics as Saint Thomas More,[1][2] was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was also a councillor to Henry VIII, and Lord High Chancellor of England from October 1529 to 16 May 1532.[3]
More opposed the Protestant Reformation, in particular the theology of Martin Luther and William Tyndale. He also wrote Utopia, published in 1516, about the political system of an imaginary ideal island nation. More opposed the King's separation from the Catholic Church, refusing to acknowledge Henry as Supreme Head of the Church of England and the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. After refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, he was convicted of treason and beheaded.
Pope Pius XI canonised More in 1935 as a martyr. Pope John Paul II in 2000 declared him the "heavenly Patron of Statesmen and Politicians."[4] Since 1980, the Church of England has remembered More liturgically as a Reformation martyr.[5] The Soviet Union honoured him for the Communistic attitude toward property rights expressed in Utopia.[6][7][8]
Thomas More. (2016, July 1). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 15:50, July 6, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thomas_More&oldid=727884046

Sir Thomas More died refusing to recognise Henry VIII’s divorce, the break with the church of Rome and the act of supremacy making Henry head of the church in England , further reading today has suggested that he did not actually refuse to recognise Anne Boleyn as Queen, but rather took the view that you could say whoever you like was Queen and crown her to be so , but that he did NOT recognise Henry’s annulment to his first wife Catherine of Aragon, meaning that if she was still his wife then she was the rightful Queen, and not Anne, but he did this without denying that Anne was Queen .

St. Thomas More died saying ..I die The Kings good servant but God's first ..and this got me thinking about our loyalty to both government and to God ...How would that statement be implied today , especially in a world of increasing right wing Christian fundamentalism ?

In my view , being God's servant in this day and age does NOT mean wanting to shoot or hang the leaders of your government and publishing hate speech about them, such as we often see here in the UK referring to The Prime Minister as a Nazi . We should even if we cannot respect the holder of a position of power, show restraint by respecting the office they hold and not insulting it. Today in the House of Commons, Jeremy Corbyn leader of the Labour Party, well leader for now, but hated by many of his party members of Parliament, was told by one to 'sit down and shut up' as he criticised the Iraq War after publication of the Chilcot report. Jeremy Corbyn has a huge mandate from the ordinary Labour Party members who voted him as leader but is very unpopular among the parliamentary Labour Party and is being blamed by them for the referendum failing to keep the UK as a member of the European Union. However, many believe that this is being used as an excuse to unseat him as the Chilcot report was due for publication and was known to be likely to put Tony Blair in a very bad light when he is still seen as their hero by many of the parliamentary Labour Party. Not so Jeremy Corbyn who would like to see him on trial.

Also, I do not think that being God's good servant means going about whipping up racial hatred and fear of others of a different race like the leave Europe brigade did here, resulting in the big part it played in the awful referendum result for whether the UK should leave or remain in the European Union. Since the referendum, the £ has dropped in value to its lowest for 31 years and rocked the economy of the world with it .

The Bible teaches us that governments are established by God and Romans 13 shows that all authority comes from God ~ New International Version
Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.

I am, as indeed are so many, proud to be British and for all its faults, immensely proud of the institution recognised the world over as The Houses of Parliament. I am not proud however, to know that what we have come down to is members of that institution telling the leader of their party to sit down and shut up when giving a speech on something as important as the Iraq war ….

I have mentioned often in my writing that the UK now has a very right wing government that has operated a policy of removing state welfare support from even the most severely sick and disabled and forcing them to seek work, this is the extreme that Christian fundamentalism can and does support, and those who support it believe that they are being good servants of God. However, this policy has seen people drop dead from heart attacks while looking for work or going to work programmes, committing suicide because of the strain of having no money due to their benefits being stopped and even people in a coma being declared fit for work.

“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.” Said Howard Zinn and “The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.”
― Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

To increasingly larger numbers of people, it has now become patriotic and Christian to support these policies, but support for the makers of policies like this owes more to idolatry and idolatry of an ideal than it does to Christianity, and nothing to patriotism. Remember that we are not so many years from a time, still in living memory when an idol was made of Hitler and 6 million Jews were killed. Many are now in danger of making an idol of right wing extremism, both in politics and the church rather than true Christianity.

I and others see that many passages in scripture referring to work are being taken out of context in order to suit this right wing agenda ~
2 Thessalonians 3:10 ESV / 455 helpful votes
For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.

Proverbs 10:4 ESV / 284 helpful votes
A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.

2 Thessalonians 3:6-9 ESV / 106 helpful votes
Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you.

It is certainly true that God wants us to use our talents, to work and to earn our living and contribute to society and his intention is to provide for us through our work , he gives us all abilities of different kinds and as I discovered when health issues prevented me from continuing to work in a physically demanding job, I still had other God given talents and found that I can use the experiences I had and things I learned while trying to start a new career , to help others by writing about the things I discovered . If we use our talents wisely and for good, then God gives us more says Rick Warren

However, our talents were not just given to us for ourselves , but also so that we can help others less fortunate and able to use their talents , it is neither a patriotic duty to our country nor a Christian duty to God to let the unfortunate among us starve , for as we have stated so often the past few days while thinking of the American Declaration of Independence ~ We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Be careful not to get caught up in and convinced by forms of patriotism and religion that are really more about idolatry of an ideal for ~

“In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People."
(Canton, OH, Anti-War Speech, June 16, 1918)”
― Eugene V. Debs, Voices of a People's History of the United States

And so ~ therefore
“On my honor, I will do my best
To do my duty To God AND my country”
― Boy Scouts of America..and the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides of the United Kingdom too