How tyrants use religion — and how Scripture exposes them

A common strategy among tyrants is to use religion and a veneer of piety for their own political goals. Those in power — or those seeking power — can further legitimize their rule by cleverly manipulating religion and sacred texts for their own ends.

This strategy isn’t confined to politics; it’s prevalent in the Church, too. Have you ever heard a sermon, a devotion, or a town hall report where the leader declares that what God is doing aligns exactly with their personal agenda?

Jeroboam exemplifies this disturbing strategy: a leader who uses religion and piety not to offer true worship to God, but to accomplish his own political goals.

Here’s the story. The 10 northern tribes split from the house of David and formed their own kingdom, with Jeroboam as ruler (1 Kings 12:16–20). But Jeroboam’s very first act reveals that he would not trust God to establish his kingdom through worship and devotion to the Torah. Jeroboam knew that Israel’s religious center, as mandated in the book of Deuteronomy, was in Jerusalem, where the kings of David reigned. He also knew that if his kingdom continued worshiping God there, it could spell disaster for his kingship and his new kingdom’s survival.

So, Jeroboam built two rival sanctuaries, one at Dan in the north and another at Bethel in the south (1 Kings 12:28–30). A creative and religious innovator, he established sacred shrines, temples, altars, priests and festivals to rival Jerusalem. He forged two golden calves and declared to the people: “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt” (12:28). Jeroboam both established and ran these new religious centers himself. His motive was clear: He feared that his kingdom, having already rebelled against the house of David, might revert back to Rehoboam without its own temples, priests and festivals. In other words, Jeroboam co-opted religion to serve his political agenda — and in doing so, made his kingdom idolatrous.

First and Second Kings repeatedly cite the sin of Jeroboam as the reason for the northern kingdom’s later destruction. Despite God’s promise to establish Jeroboam’s kingdom if he walked in the ways of David, Jeroboam instead used religion to establish and maintain his personal political rule. For this, he is consistently held up as the evil antithesis of the good king — the opposite of a true worshiper of God who does what is good for the people. Most of Israel’s kings, in fact, are described as walking in the sins of Jeroboam (1 Kings 15:30, 34; 16:19, 26, 31), and Jeroboam’s sins ultimately bring God’s judgment on the northern kingdom (1 Kings 14:16; 2 Kings 17:21; 23:15).

Scripture offers two warnings to protect us from using worship for self-serving ends.

The first: Worship of God is by nature insincere if one claims to love God but fails to love one’s neighbors. The prophets continually remind Israel that worshiping God while oppressing or harming their neighbors is false worship. One can offer sacrifices in the temple, fast and pray — but God rejects this as insincere and fraudulent if one fails to share bread with the hungry or clothe the naked (Isa. 58:1–7). God even says He hates the people’s sacrifices, their observance of feasts and festivals, and their prayers (Isa. 1:10–15). He will accept their worship only if they “learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (Isa. 1:17).

The prophet Jeremiah goes further, castigating the people for believing they are immune from God’s judgment simply because they have the temple and offer sacrifices:

“Here you are, trusting in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are safe!’ — only to go on doing all these abominations?” (Jer. 7:8–10).

The temple offers no protection for a people who continue to “oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow” (Jer. 7:6). True worship of God requires love and justice for one’s neighbor.

King David articulates the worship God truly desires in the Psalms. Psalms 15 and 24 offer particularly poignant and beautiful commendations of true worshipers as those who “speak the truth from their heart” and “who honor those who fear the Lord; who stand by their oath even to their hurt” (Ps. 15:2, 4). In Psalm 24, David asks, “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?” His answer is succinct: “Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false, and do not swear deceitfully” (Ps. 24:3–4).

The second warning against insincere worship comes from Jesus, who reveals His deep knowledge of the human condition and the temptation endemic to all who desire to worship God: doing what is right, but for the wrong reasons. Jesus calls this hypocrisy — the outward appearance of pursuing God, betrayed by an inward preoccupation and obsession with oneself (Matt. 6:1–18). The chief goal becomes not sincere worship of God but being seen by others as religious and pious.

Joshua W. Jipp (PhD, Emory University) is associate professor of New Testament at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of several books, including Reading the Gospels as Christian Scripture, Pauline Theology as a Way of Life, Saved by Faith and Hospitality, and The Messianic Theology of the New Testament. Jipp also serves as coeditor for the Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.