Census Consensus – Day 19 of Lent

2010Census  Reading: 1 Chronicles 21

Got a letter in the mail today from Utah Governor Gary Herbert urging me and other faith community leaders to promote the 2010 census with our congregations. Says the letter, "The 2010 census is extremely important to Utah's future. A complete count of all Utahns impacts so many things, from our representation in Congress to the allocation of federal dollars for programs that benefit us in so many ways. The responsibility of ensuring the most complete and accurate count in the 2010 census lies with every Utahn." 

Now, I'm fully aware that as soon as I post this there will be some who will start foaming at the mouth about government interference, "Big Brother" and the like. Some will even start quoting the fact that every time a census is mentioned in the Bible it's usually a bad thing. 

Take today's text, for example. "Satan" incites David to take a census of the nation of Israel and God punishes him and the whole nation for it. Here's where we need a lesson in biblical hermeneutics before we go all Glen Beck on the 2010 census. In this text, David orders the census essentially to pad his own reputation and compare himself to the other kings around him. It's kind of a macro version of what happens at clergy gatherings when pastors compare their numbers–no good can come of this. When we view people simply as numbers that support our own ego, we get in trouble. 

Then, of course, there's the Christmas text in Luke 2 where Caesar Augustus orders a census for tax purposes. This was fairly standard practice in the Roman empire, though the idea that the people had to return to their ancestral homes is really more of a Jewish idea than a Roman one (Rome tended to tax people where they actually lived and worked). Luke doesn't place any moral judgment on the Roman census–it was just a fact of life in the empire, where military conscription was also part of the census package. 

Comparing the modern census to the biblical census is thus an apples to oranges comparison. The modern U.S. census not only provides data for distribution of resources and representation, but it also provides communities with useful data about its citizens, trends, and problem areas. As a pastor, I value the information the census provides as it gives me a firmer idea of who we are called to serve. 

As American people, steeped in the ideas of liberty and independence, the idea of allowing the government to know even a little bit more about our private lives is often a tough sell. What we have to realize, however, is that we all live in community and knowing more about the community in which we live isn't a bad thing. We have to be careful that we don't become so concerned about our own privacy that we forget that we're also part of the public, with the rights and responsibilities thereof. 

I'll be filling out my census forms when they come and will do so believing that it's part of being a good citizen as well as a member of the community. I also look forward to learning from the data how we as a church can best serve our community, not so we can simply add more numbers to our own church census, a la David, but so that we can reach out to meet the needs of our neighbors.

PRAYER: Lord, help us to remember always that we are part of a community. Amen. 

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