For as much as I am going to stress that statism—the worship of the State and the adoption of its ideology of violence—is Sin and put great emphasis on this point, we might well go ahead and qualify this for those in the back who think that such an emphasis would forget other things like adultery, fornication, or lying, or some other thing that is typically emphasized by Christians.

Statism is Sin. Most people have never heard this. But the false gods that men worship in the scriptures are frequently the kingdoms of men, and not just themselves in the mirror or something like that. It is violent political systems—Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, etc—that are the main objects of idolatry and support for evil in the scriptures, and the main subjects of God’s judgment upon sinful societies that have gone backward. Amen.

God smashes false gods and their systems.

“This is what the Lord GOD says: I will destroy the idols and put an end to the images in Memphis. There will no longer be a prince in Egypt, and I will instill fear in that land” (Ezekiel 30:13).

But statism is not the only manifestation or example of sin in society, and I don’t wish to downplay sins that might be said to be more “personal” than “social” in character by focusing on this very evil manifestation of it.

They all go hand-in-hand. Sin in general empowers violent political systems, and these violent Babylonian systems like ours produce further moral and cultural degeneracy. Indeed, statism in the scriptures—the whore of Babylon—is often likened to whoredoms, adultery, etc., showing just how bound up they are.

It is no coincidence that a highly statist society like ours has great moral sins of the heart in our men (pornography, strip clubs, alcoholism, drug use, promiscuity, etc., that preachers are not wrong to tell us about), or (conversely) that a society of people like this have found themselves in Babylonian captivity.

It’s all the same problem. Sin has social ramifications, and it serves as the basis of Egyptian slave societies of people who believe that the only way to find protection, safety, public health, etc., is through Pharaohs. And worshiping the State is one of the greatest displays of the sins in man’s heart, for supporting States is nothing more than glorifying violence, theft, prisons, plunders, murders, wars, and other polititcal schemes against society.

And one will often find that sins in general point right back to the State, such that “pride” is associated with the political plunderers (Proverbs 16:19) and those who hold power (Leviticus 26:19); that any “personal” sin has “social” effects anyway, such that a sinful and morally degenerate society is going to be a politically evil one too; and that it is all these things on a small scale—lust, covetousness, stealing, adultery, promiscuity, and other evils of the heart—that work to make statism seem like a viable way to manage society.

Let no one think that “other sins” are being minimized for a focus on the political one. Indeed, they are all connected. These sorts of small-scale sins, like stealing from your mother, scaled up into social sins, lead to the systems that rob hundreds of millions of people and call themselves a “government.”

And this is the issue here for speaking of the late-stage effects of sin (e.g., statism), the progression from the individual candy-bar thief to the people who plunder whole societies. So we’re not even downplaying the host of personal moral sins to point to the state. Indeed, the State is sin manifest on a social level. (So pervasive I guess, that others haven’t even seen it and were more worried about the child stealing candy than the gang that just robbed them of thousands of dollars last April).

Another reason for the emphasis on the sin of statism is that it’s the one that leads to societal captivity and economic, social, and cultural collapse, which is arguably more dangerous than someone vainly focusing on their appearance, flipping through their phone, using social media, and other things often listed as the sins we need to be most worried about.

However, we shouldn’t dismiss any of these things either. Which is the point of this post. They are the precursors to societal robbery by a State.

But interestingly, men, in their sin, generally only condemn individual crime and not crimes committed by those in badges, robes, and suits and ties. If anything is dismissed, it is not the host of sins as applied to individuals, but where such things lead to (e.g., political plunder societies).

Christendom seems to have not emphasized the grievous idolatrousness of state worshiping, and has mostly left this patent idolatry, murder, and theft—Sin—of statism entirely out of the picture! Scarce is a Christian talking about state-worshiping, even though God’s word basically never stops. Indeed, you’re more likely to find a “Christian” worshiping the State. You won’t hear it in your typical American church where the pastor is ranting on about pornography for the hundredth time without ever making mention of Babylon herself. (If anything, things like pornography are promoted by the regime to distract and placate their subjects from noticing Babylon’s abuses).

Many people (e.g., conservatives) are just starting to get angry at the side-effects of statism today (moral degeneracy, cultural decline, the-kids-these-days), without ever addressing the idolatrous Babylonian system, which they have supported and ignored, that leads us to places like this.

Men criticize the late-stage effects of Babylon without recognizing their own involvement in her existence through their idolatry. They somehow didn’t see that worshiping states was going to lead us here, even though this message drips from the pages of scripture.

The scriptures often tell a story of men worshiping false gods who enslave them, not men sneaking away to vainly obsess about their beauty and getting punished for it. And it tells about statist societies that have just become so degenerate—full of political violence as much so as sexual perversions—that God can’t tolerate the likes of it anymore.

The ignorance of statism as sin has allowed state-worshipers to think they had no part in the cultural degeneration that is becoming more apparent to them.

And yet the “big” idolatry God’s word points out is bowing to human kings and treating them as gods. Democracy, socialism, communism, fascism, and statism in general, are all tricks of the devil.

Idolatry, theft, and murder weren’t just problems for the personal life of individuals, though they are that too; they translate on a social level to statism, which is surely one manifestation of sin that God wanted to protect us from by commanding us away from those things.

So it is natural to talk a lot about the sin of statism given that it has the greatest social ramifications, i.e., that it leads to labor camps and world wars, not just kids who steal candy bars from the store.

As the Christian anarchist Kevin Craig said,

“Today the most prevalent and dangerous idol is ‘the government.’ In fact, this was the most dangerous idol in Biblical times. ‘Moloch,’ for example, means ‘king.’ ‘Moloch worship’ is ‘government worship.'”

And he is not wrong to call it “the most dangerous idolatry.” As he added, “Porn might be an idol, but it’s not the most dangerous one.”

The sin of statism will be a relentless subject here not only because God was unrelenting against it, but because it has the most severe consequences for our society. The idolatry of supporting governments has more grave ramifications than lying to your grandmother (though, again, we have here the roots of what manifests into societal slavery).

But it’s still fair to say that worshiping human rulers and their institutions (statism) is one of the worst forms of sin in regards to its social effects because it brings such enormous destruction to society as “world wars,” “great depressions,” and Gulags.

There shouldn’t then be any confusion about the emphasis on the political-ideological sin of statism, i.e., worship of the state and adoption of its philosophy.

Again, Kevin Craig,

“The State, which is a cult, is the largest organized crime syndicate on the planet — larger than any ‘private sector; mafia, cosa nostra, or drug cartel. ‘The United States’ is the largest ‘church’ in this global cult, and is the most evil and dangerous church on the planet. It is the enemy of God and humanity.”