As the Supreme Court just heard the arguments for the Masterpiece case, I feel as if now is a good time to define how Christians should view religious liberty. My arguments are based out of the passages in Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2. Both of which, command Christians to submit to governing authorities.

We are to submit to government because God put the governments in charge, and as we listen to God, we must listen to our governmental commands if they do not contradict the commands in the Bible. Our government says that in our nation, we are granted religious liberty. And even though that idea is becoming more and more restricted, it is still the law of the land so we must obey it.

This sounds like every Christian's dream, until we realize that religious freedom is not just for us. Muslims must have religious freedom. Hindus must have religious freedom. Buddhists, and Jews, and Animists, and Atheists, all must have religious freedom.

The government is not meant to be led by the church, this was so people have the choice to follow Christ. This means that as Christians, we can not always expect a "free religion" government. Christ not only warned us of persecution, but told us to expect it. So why are we so naive as to think that we should be safe? The world hated Christ and it will hate us to; but only if we are acting like Him.

We were granted freedom by God, in the beginning, to chose Him or sin, and obviously, we chose wrong, but God did not force us to have faith in Him, therefore we should not force Christianity down people's throats through the government. Christ gave people the choice to follow Him or not, as seen with the rich, young ruler, so we cannot have a theocracy with Christianity and expect everyone to follow Christian standards.

As an electorate, we must vote for people with religious freedom for all, not just religious freedom for Christianity. We cannot claim to be a fair and just freedom, if we are the only ones getting fairness and justice.

We must quit expecting the government to enforce Christianity, because the government is not supposed to be the enforcer of Christian morality. The government is supposed to "punish those who do wrong and commend those who do good" (1 Peter 2:13). Even if the government is evil, we are still supposed to be submissive to it.

But our freedom does not come from government, it comes from Christ. So even when our government turns against us, we are still supposed to be submissive to it. Paul was saying to submit to Nero who would light his parties and orgies with the bodies of burning Christians. We submit because we fear God, and God told us to submit to the governments He put in place.

So what does this mean? We are to submit, but we must continue to obey the will of God. If the government tells us to sin, we must humbly and honorably refuse. Masterpiece should be able to refuse to celebrate what we as Christians think as sin, but this must also be applied if a Muslim baker is asked to celebrate a Christian idea. If he views it as wrong, he should have the right to refuse.

This is not a one-way street for us. God gave all of us the ability to choose Him, so we cannot take that choice away from others. So Masterpiece Bakery, should be able to stand up for the Biblical definitions of marriage, and the atheist should be able to stand up for homosexual marriage if they believe it is good, but neither group should have to bend to the other.

"If the government can mandate what you believe, or if the government can deny you the opportunity to live within your beliefs, then where will its reach end. What then keeps the government from controlling what you read or write, what you hear or say, or how you live. If God himself does not violate the will of man, then the government should not either."-David Platt

Again, thanks to Shelbi Renaldo for providing these beautiful photos. Check out her page if you want to book a session. https://shelbirainesphoto.wordpress.com