Skip to content
The Historic Faith
Sign in

Jumpstarter 3 of 10

Ideas to help restart your discussion
In God We Don't Trust  /  Chapter 15: Refusing to Pay Caesar  /  Discussion Questions
All Questions
Question 3
The chapter describes smuggling as a society-wide system involving shipowners, merchants, buyers, dockworkers, and even churches that “turned a blind eye”; where do you see modern parallels of broad, normalized “small” lawbreaking that many Christians indirectly benefit from?
Another way to ask: Smuggling involved almost everyone, and even churches looked away. What are some “small” laws people often break today that many Christians benefit from without thinking about it?

Direct Answer The transcript doesn’t name modern examples, but it highlights a pattern: lawbreaking becomes “normal” when it spreads through an entire economic ecosystem and when even churches “turn a blind eye.” A reasonable inference is that modern parallels would involve widely tolerated forms of dishonesty that lower prices, create jobs, or increase convenience.

Support from Transcript:

  • Smuggling wasn’t isolated: it involved “shipowners,” “merchants tied to smugglers,” and “colonists who knowingly bought smuggled goods to save money.”
  • It supported ordinary livelihoods: “Smuggling provided jobs for sailors, dockworkers, shipbuilders, and warehouse owners.”
  • He emphasizes scale: “In one form or another, the largest part of American society participated in this law-breaking.”
  • The church response is part of the indictment: “most colonial churches turned a blind eye to it.”
  • The temptation is economic: people cooperated because they could “sell their goods more cheaply” or “save money.”
Discussion Follow-ups What “everybody does it” behaviors do you excuse because the cost savings feel necessary? How should a church respond when a community’s prosperity is tied to questionable practices?

Jumpstarter 3 of 10
Back Questions Next