Nothing like ending a good political argument by inserting divine wrath into the debate. Arizona’s new laws on illegal immigration are attracting attention on a variety of fronts. One of my favorite radio hosts, Phil Hendrie, who is by no means a conservative (and the funniest man on air), thinks the law is sane even while he thinks that Arizona is not the brightest bulb on the U.S. Christmas tree of states. He has commented specifically on the irony of liberals showing great distrust of the blue-collar, union-abiding workers also known as police, who will supposedly engage in racial profiling to enforce the law. Would liberals assume coal miners or truck drivers or automobile assemblers were as prone to misbehavior as cops? Phil doesn’t think so. And could this distrust of cops be the hangover from the days when liberals were young and radical and referred to police impolitely as pigs (which is not to say that police have not been without their thuggish moments).
And then along comes Jim Wallis (thanks to John Fea), doing his best impersonation of Charles Finney, with a press release calling the Arizona legislation immoral and wicked. (Wallis’ reaction is patently unloving, so much for a charitable read of his fellow citizens’ actions or motives.)
The law signed today by Arizona Gov. Brewer is a social and racial sin, and should be denounced as such by people of faith and conscience across the nation. It is not just about Arizona, but about all of us, and about what kind of country we want to be. It is not only mean-spirited – it will be ineffective and will only serve to further divide communities in Arizona, making everyone more fearful and less safe. This radical new measure, which crosses many moral and legal lines, is a clear demonstration of the fundamental mistake of separating enforcement from comprehensive immigration reform. Enforcement without reform of the system is merely cruel. Enforcement without compassion is immoral. Enforcement that breaks up families is unacceptable. This law will make it illegal to love your neighbor in Arizona, and will force us to disobey Jesus and his gospel. We will not comply.
I had thought that one of the hallmarks of political conservatism is respect for and promotion of the rule of law. This doesn’t mean that every law is good or that laws in the American form of government cannot be repealed or amended. But to say openly and without qualification that a duly constituted polity and its lawmakers need to be disobeyed is not very conservative or, for that matter, very biblical. Wallis seems to suffer the affliction of most evangelicals who, because they believe they know the contents of a higher law (or sense they are inhabited by the Holy Ghost, feathers and all), all lower laws can be disregarded. One wonders whether Wallis has ever considered telling illegal immigrants that living and working somewhere against the laws of that place is disobedient and sinful.
Don’t get me wrong. Evangelicals don’t have to be conservative (they certainly aren’t religiously). Being conservative politically is not the same thing as being Christian and if evangelicals prefer to be biblical rather than conservative, then God bless ‘em. But if they are going to be biblical, they might want to submit fully to God’s word when it says submit to the powers that be. And if they want to be conservative, then they better try a form of political argument that does not rush to inflict divine judgment. An appeal grounded in American law, both state and federal, would be good, for starters.
Update: Jon A. Shields, in his study of the democratic virtues of the Christian Right writes the following:
. . . the vast majority of Christian Right leaders have labored to inculcate deliberative norms in their rank-and-file activitists — especially the practice of civility and respect; the cultivation of real dialogue by listening and asking questions; the rejection of appeals to theology; and the practice of careful moral reasoning. Movement leaders teach theese norms because they have strong pragmatic incentives to do so. Public appeals, after all, are most persuasive when they are civil and reasonable. Movement leaders further ground these norms in scripture. For instance, activists are regularly instructed to practice civility because the Gospels command Christians to love their neighbors, and they are encouraged to be honest because God forbids believers from bearing false witness. (Shields, The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right [2009], p. 2)
Shields makes this point to contrast the fundamentalist leaders of the Christian Right, like Falwell, from the rank-and-file evangelicals. I can’t imagine a better example of the difference between fundamentalism and evangelicalism than that between Falwell and Wallis. And yet when it comes to style and mixing theology and politics — not to mention the lack of charity for political foes — it’s hard to tell the difference.
Old Life 
I’m a little confused. Are you implying that Jim Wallis is a conservative? Jim Wallis?!!!
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Vern, evangelicals are indeed confusing. Evangelicals are conservative, Jim Wallis is an evangelical; ergo, Jim Wallis is conservative. that’s often the logic of cub reporters.
But it gets better. Wallis’ implicit appeal to divine law is akin to the Baylys’ use of divine law. And they do think of themselves as conservative.
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And yet Wallis is a self-described Progressive (code name for Liberal) who will appeal to the OT prophets as a basis for social law in the US.
I am curious to know how Wallis, not a citizen of Arizona as far as I know, plans on disobeying this law.
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Your right, Hendrie has one of the best talk shows out there. Even when I think he’s wrong, he’s funny, and that goes a long way in my book.
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BTW, I used to listen to Phil Hendrie while at WSC. Some of his shows were hilarious, no doubt.
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Matt, I think Wallis will be taking names of Christians who obey the law.
I was crushed when Phil went off the air in 2006. I can remember where I was when I heard his announcement. It is a thrill to have him back to his old antics. But no Philly station has picked him up yet. Thank goodness for the Back Stage Pass.
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Exactly what law does Wallis appeal to? I don’t remember anything in particular in the Bible that addresses the subject of border security.
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So if the law is bad enough should Christians simply flee to some place where that law is not on the books? Were Christians like the Ten Booms wrong for what they did? Since you’re an elder, can you help me understand how my conscience can be clear about obeying bad laws? I obey them because I think I am commanded to, but I feel kind of dirty at the same time.
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Exactly what law does Wallis appeal to? I don’t remember anything in particular in the Bible that addresses the subject of border security.
Likely texts such as Ex. 22:21 or Dt. 10:19. These are probably the texts used to justify civil disobedience the way Baylyittes might use something like Psalm 139 to do the same when the political issue is abortion. The key is to dispense with Christocentric texts like John 5:39 which tell us that all Scripture is about Jesus; then dispense with Ro. 13 which says stuff like, “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.” Then find your favorite social victim and their oppressors.
And, voila, the American religious right and left, both of which have more in common with each other than either would be willing to admit, which is to say way more American than Christian.
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I live in southern Arizona, not far from the border. Wallis doesn’t have a clue–and this type of overblown rhetoric–“this law will make it illegal to love your neighbor in Arizona”–is incredibly offensive. Nice going, Jim.
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When you swallow feathers, they molt in your belly, causing indigestion and crankiness. Case in point.
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While agreeing with the thrust of your article, the following sentence seemed lacking in nuance:
“But to say openly and without qualification that a duly constituted polity and its lawmakers need to be disobeyed is not very conservative or, for that matter, very biblical”
Was Rosa Parks in sinful error whenever she refused to give up her seat on the bus? What of the American founders? Is all civil disobedience sinful?
Without taking a side in the immigration debate, how is Wallis planning his non-compliance? I wonder if he is planning to renounce his American citizenship and move to Mexico in an effort to cross back into the U.S. “illegally” and refuse to show his newly minted Mexican visa when he is stopped for jaywalking? Wouldn’t that make a statement for Christianity (sarcasm alert)! Maybe he simply has jurry nullification in mind. Either way, his threat of non-compliance seems a bit over the top…
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Zrim said, “Likely texts such as Ex. 22:21 or Dt. 10:19….”
I’m not sure how these texts are related to border security. Can you explain? Were towns and cities in Israel built with or without gates?
The requirement to treat “foreigners” [in this case residents of another State] with equity is built into the comity clause of the U.S. Constitution: “The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.” (Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1).
In Israel, visiting foreigners were to be treated well, and oppressed foreigners seeking asylum were to have it granted. In our time, the US already grants asylum to oppressed foreigners (e.g. Cubans), and we have laws protecting foreign visitors.
But again what do the verses you cite have to do with illegal immigration or border security? What is it about ILLEGAL that is so hard to understand?
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Was Rosa Parks in sinful error whenever she refused to give up her seat on the bus? What of the American founders? Is all civil disobedience sinful?
These seem to be rhetorical American questions with the requisite American implications for answers. But the question for Christians isn’t where are our 21st century values propped up? It is where is civil disobedience warranted in the New Covenant? I know civil disobedience is a virtue in the annals of American devotion, but it’s a vice in the Bible. That doesn’t solve legitimate questions of polity for American-Christians, but it would seem that if we put more of an accent on the Christian part of that compound phrase than on the American part these questions might answer themselves.
I’m not sure how these texts [Ex. 22:21 or Dt. 10:19] are related to border security. Can you explain? Were towns and cities in Israel built with or without gates…what do the verses you cite have to do with illegal immigration or border security? What is it about ILLEGAL that is so hard to understand?
Vern,
I’m only suggesting those texts because those who want to make allegedly biblical cases about border security one way or another (send them packing or let them unpack) seem to use them. So, while I’m you in that I’ve no idea their relevance, it may be for different reasons: the relevance of the texts doesn’t turn on legality/illegality but on worldly/eternal. The Bible is about questions of eternal citizenship, not temporal citizenship.
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Richard, I’d say that Romans 13 applied as much to John Witherspoon as it did to Rosa Parks (if she were a Christian). If she’s an American, I’m not sure where U.S. laws protect civil disobedience.
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Zrim,
Just curious here: Could there be a NL argument for civil disobedience, like when natural rights are disregarded on the basis of unjust law? Was Rosa Park’s civil disobedience an assent to a higher law?
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But Zrim, as Hodge argued, there is something of an overlap [not identity] between the state and the church in respect of certain moral issues. I agree with him as over against Thornwell.
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Zrim – The discussion pertaining to the legitimacy of civil disobedience should not so easily be dismissed as an American phenomenon; as if ethnocentricity defines the debate (Ref. the Egyptian Revolution of 1919, Gandhi, former Soviet states, Israel, etc…). However, I believe it “meet, right and salutary” to be reminded of the influence modern thought has on each of us; especially in a nationalistic context. The Church should transcend both intellectual fads and geographical boundaries.
“…where is civil disobedience warranted in the New Covenant?”
Is this not answered a few lines down?
“The Bible is about questions of eternal citizenship, not temporal citizenship”
My earlier question was asked in all sincerity (my apologies if it came across as rhetorical); is ever civil disobedience justified? What if the country (I’m thinking of an anonymous country north of Mexico – but you may have somewhere else in mind) was founded on the expectation of an activist citizenry who were provided a means of checking the powers of government? In other words, what if varying degrees of civil disobedience (protests, jury nullification, etc…) were legal and encouraged by the very ideas undergirding a state’s formation? Should Christian denizens of such a state be expected to provide unjust rulers free reign? What then of conscience (Rm 13:5)? Separate, but related, what are we to make of Christians who – by their very gathering together on the Lord’s Day – are engaged in civil disobedience?
Perhaps the phrase “civil disobedience” – like the word “culture” – encompasses too broad a spectrum for purpose of this discussion… everyone knows what it means but few can provide a precise definition.
SDG
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Jim Wallis said: “This law will make it illegal to love your neighbor in Arizona, and will force us to disobey Jesus and his gospel.”
What does Wallis mean by “disobey… his gospel”? Is he simply confusing law and gospel?
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Could there be a NL argument for civil disobedience, like when natural rights are disregarded on the basis of unjust law? Was Rosa Park’s civil disobedience an assent to a higher law?
Jed,
If CVD is lurking he might well thrash me. But here goes. I suppose there could be a NL argument made. But my standing concern is how it passes the biblical test of something like Romans 13: if it’s true, as Paul says, that to disobey the civil magistrate is to disobey God then how does any argument get around that, and how does any Christian honestly set that aside? Probably a more sanctified mind (maybe one that understands how union is the hub instead of justification) could do it, but the hobgoblins of my sinful mind seem to keep me from grasping it.
But don’t get me wrong, this isn’t to say there aren’t unjust laws, nor even that justice shouldn’t be pursued. But, first, let’s make sure we have in mind proximate or penultimate justice (those who speak of social justice seem to be presuming something much more exact or ultimate); and, second, I just don’t see how a Christian can legitimately work against injustice by being civilly disobedient. Paul forbids it.
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rhp997,
You’re right, this shouldn’t be easily dismissed as merely an American phenomenon. But the modern spirit that abhors notions of authority/obedience/submission/good order does transcend time and place, which is to say that what fuels Ghandi fuels MLK that fuels Mandela. It, like sin, is an equal opportunity affliction. (I’m currently reading “A Fine Balance†by Rohinton Mistry, set in 1974 India. What strikes me is not only how Indians have a sense of obedience that should shame most Americans, but also that the modern spirit which prizes individual rights as much as it denigrates notions of civil obedience is alive and well everywhere.)
I’m still unclear about how civil disobedience is justified in the New Covenant. Help.
…what if varying degrees of civil disobedience (protests, jury nullification, etc…) were legal and encouraged by the very ideas undergirding a state’s formation? Should Christian denizens of such a state be expected to provide unjust rulers free reign? What then of conscience (Rm 13:5)? Separate, but related, what are we to make of Christians who – by their very gathering together on the Lord’s Day – are engaged in civil disobedience?
This is my point. Mark 12 seems to suggest that, yes, believers are expected to provide unjust rulers free reign. What is it about “render unto (that God hating, self deifying, civil rights trampling megalomaniac) Caesar his God appointed due†that suggests believers are to rise up and slap his wrists? I mean, there was good reason “they were amazed†in Mark 12. And forget far away places. Our very existence is the result of rebellion. We are nurtured on the virtues of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, warnings to “not tread on me†and entreats to bestow liberty or (gulp) death. We have a polity that invites, encourages, even rewards, dissent and a piety that is supposed to be about the opposite of al that. But, again, how do those who want to carve out legitimate space for civil disobedience reckon with Romans 13? I’ve no idea what Romans 13:5 has to do with encouraging disobedience because of conscience when the whole context is obedience.
And Christians who gather to worship on the Lord’s Day when the government says not to are being cultically disobedient (per Acts 5:27-32), not civilly disobedient. The Bible demands the former, forbids the latter.
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NL, and the Lex Talionis especially, seem (to me, anyway) to clearly demonstrate how unjust many States really are. Victimless crimes are a real problem from the vantage point of LT. Indeed, any law that does not reason something like “X must/must not happen due to the nature of this world and the kinds of beings we are” would appear to be unjust. Yet Romans 13 tells us that we must submit to those laws anyway.
But this also brings to light the problem I am increasingly experiencing with the issue of war. It is not simply in the abstract world of hypotheticals that Christians from State A are commanded to join State A’s armies in going to war against State B. However, the same thing is happening in State B: Christians from State B are commanded to join State B’s armies in going to war against State A. So Christians line up opposite other Christians and proceed to kill each other. Don’t flame me for raising the question, but is it at least possible that our confessional statements about the State and war owe more to the effects of Constantine than to the effects of the biblical authors? It seems impossible to transcend the effects of Constantine on Christian thought, but I don’t think that some effort to resist those effects would be a bad thing.
I mean, the reasoning that goes something like “Christians are commanded to obey the State; The State commands some Christians to engage in war which means killing other Christians; Therefore, Christians are obligated to engage in war which means killing other Christians” is deductively compelling. It is deductively a necessary consequence, but I’m pretty sure it is not a good consequence. That is not the only problem, though. The whole theory of just war presupposes that there is such a thing as UNjust war. Who gets to decide if a war is just or not? The State? When will the State ever declare its own war unjust? Does the Church get to decide if a war is unjust? If so, how can the Church be sure it has all the information necessary to arrive at the right answer? And in light of Romans 13, why does it matter whether a war is just or not? If the State says to go to war, you go to war. Right? What am I missing?
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Zrim – Thanks for your willingness to engage and clarify; I’ve greatly benefited from reading your comments (still cogitating the cultically/civilly division) both here and in other forums!
“I’m still unclear about how civil disobedience is justified in the New Covenant. Help.”
When does an unjust ruler cease to be a “ruler” (properly defined) at all? Likewise, when might an unjust law be deemed a “perversion of law” and “no law at all”? It seems to me – and I really am without expertise in the matter – that beginning with Augustine, Christians throughout the ages have made a natural law case for civil disobedience. Am I wrong in this assumption? The American experiment in particular seemingly owes its roots to English Common Law – and especially John Locke – both of which are rooted in a similar definition of natural law (again, my amateurish assumption). Provided this context, I believe proponents of civil disobedience often approach Romans 13 from a standpoint of a *just* (and therefore properly defined) government; “an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer”; “For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong”. Clearly, an unjust law becomes unjust whenever it punishes the “rightdoer” – and therefore ceases to be a law at all. Otherwise it might be difficult to reconcile the conscience-laden Israelite midwives in Ex. 1 – and even Jesus’ refusal to answer the King (Herod) when the law demanded compliance.
Separately, I find it interesting that Rome utilizes Mark 12 (actually the same account in Mt. 22) not in defense of a Christian’s obligation to pay taxes (they use Rm. 13 for that), but rather in *justifying* civil disobedience (see Catechism questions #2242 and #2242) whenever a law or ruler is contrary to God’s moral law. Thus, my earlier appeal to “conscience” in Rm 13:5. Granted, Rome is probably not the safest of subjects here – but I believe the historical context of Mark 12 implies a subtle sedition. It seems to me that Jesus is saying to the “hypocrites” – “Everything belongs to God” (“Mine is the silver and mine the gold”), there is but one God (see Shema references that immediately follow Matthew’s account), Jesus is God (the antithesis of “Tiberius Caesar Divi August Fili Augustus”), and “choose this day whom you will follow”; God or Caesar? Like Rome, I don’t really see Mark 12 and Romans 13 to be advocating the same position…
SDG
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…I believe proponents of civil disobedience often approach Romans 13 from a standpoint of a *just* (and therefore properly defined) government; “an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoerâ€; “For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrongâ€. Clearly, an unjust law becomes unjust whenever it punishes the “rightdoer†– and therefore ceases to be a law at all.
r,
The problem, though, is that from a biblical perspective there doesn’t seem to be any room made for believers to determine for themselves (individually or corporately) what is an unjust ruler, nor consequently whether they will obey him. Indeed, whenever Jesus or Paul or any NT writer tells us to submit to civil authorities they can only have in their own minds rulers who came well before any modern notions of “just government.†Their rulers made human candles of us, something any modern would say makes them unjust rulers undeserving obedience. But think of the crucifixion itself: Roman law punished the only right doer in human history (by what moderns consider a “cruel and unusual punishment,†more reason to resist). If there was any grounds to resist that would seem to be it. Yet, there is no hint in the NT at all that based on this injustice civil authorities should be opposed. In point of fact, just the opposite. Sort of puts resisting seating arrangements on buses into perspective.
Re Mark 12/Romans 13, certainly that Jesus is Lord of all is one clear take away. But I still fail to see how there is any hint of a subtle sedition to earthly rulers. Ro. 13 seems to make it clear that civil magistrates are Jesus’ servants, and to disobey them is to disobey Jesus.
Re the cultic/civil disobedience, often the argument is made in reference to Acts 5:29 that “we must obey God rather than men.†What is meant is that the only law we are free to disobey is one that is contrary God’s moral law. (My aim isn’t to make a case to violate God’s moral law, rather to question this line of reasoning which seems to put individuals in the autonomous position of determining which authority they’ll obey and which they won’t.) But verse 29 has to be read in light of all the others. The whole text is about testifying to the resurrection of Jesus. The civil authorities are forbidding it, and Peter and the apostles are saying they cannot obey this prohibition. It has nothing to do with any moral law, but with preaching the gospel. This is what I mean by cultic disobedience. There is a biblical tension when it comes to obedience: there is no room to civilly disobey, and equally no room to obey laws that forbid the preaching of Christ. And like all tensions, I don’t think it wise to relieve it by finding ways to circumvent either (subtle sedition or being relatively silent on the gospel).
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Clearly Acts 5.29 extends to cultic disobedience (as in the case with Daniel in Dan 6 and SM&A in Dan 3). But on what grounds do you limit it to cultic disobedience? Why would the “we must obey God rather than men” principle stop at the church door?
Don’t the actions of Rahab and the Hebrew midwives speak to obeying God rather than men in civil matters also?
And in Daniel 1, we have Daniel resolving “not to defile himself with the king’s food” and going vegetarian. Is this a matter of cultic significance?
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Jeff,
Pardon, but I’ll have to answer your question with another: where are there any grounds in NT teaching to be civilly disobedient? This is what I keep asking. But I can hear the protest, that now I’m radically separating the Old and New Testaments, etc. But I think the same can be said of the OT examples you bring up. If we read the OT with covenantal and redemptive-historical lenses then the midwives weren’t so much saving babies against infanticide as they were protecting the seed that would crush the serpent’s head (though NT, and with apologies to well meaning lifers, same with Mary and Joseph when they fled from Herod’s edict).
And Daniel makes me think of Joseph, both of whom were put in absolute charge of their pagan ruler’s kingdoms. Rulers have a way of only doing that with those who show a thorough-going obedience and no hint of subtle dissent. Do we imagine Rabbi Bret or the Bishop of Bloomington being asked to be Obama’s Chief of Staff? And, yes, I understand Dan’s apparent vegetarianism to be a matter of religious dissent, not a moral protestation because the veal was inhumanely slaughtered by immigrants captured by rogue border patrols, or some other moralist reason.
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Chris, take a look at Luther’s “Whether Soldiers Too Can Be Saved.” It’s a good argument for why Christians can fight just wars even against other Christians with a clear conscience.
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DGH,
Thanks for the reply. You recommended that work to me in the past, and it was helpful in keeping me from being an absolute pacifist. But Luther’s reasoning is not fully convincing at points. For example:
“Why does anyone go to war, except because he desires peace and obedience?” [My comment: I can think of some other reasons…]
He goes on to say that justice must be the mistress of law (even the law to go to war) [My comment: I still need help understanding the application of just war theory. And aside from the question of who gets to decide justice/injustice issue, what is to be done if a war is unjust? While I can see the wisdom in his argument through the lens of warfare that involved literal swords, I don’t know how bombs, nuclear or otherwise, chemical/biological weapons, etc., can fit in such a scenario. Those things don’t usually protect house, home, wife and child.]
Luther’s argument from Matthew 7:12 is puzzling to me. I don’t want anyone to invade America and kill me, so I’m not going to invade any other country and kill them. And yet, if the President MAKES me, I guess I have to.
In addition to all of that, do you think there is anything to the idea that we might have confessed things a bit differently had it not been for Constantine?
What should I read on just war theory and its application?
Thanks, DGH.
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At the risk of reviving a thread nearing extinction, I proffer the following:
[Zrim] where are there any grounds in NT teaching to be civilly disobedient?
Might good and necessary inference here be used in understanding Christ’s summation of the Law in Mt. 22; love the Lord your God (in obedience, see also Acts 5) and love your neighbor? Perhaps the argument is better framed around Bonhoeffer’s “The Church and the Jewish Question” – instead of Rosa Parks and seating assignments. Should the Church feel compelled to stand alongside the victims of injustice (“dem Rad in die Speichen fallen”)? Do ever circumstances warrant a collapse of the two kingdoms? What of situations (such as Daniel) where cultic dissent is civically enforced?
[Zrim] …to determine for themselves (individually or corporately) what is an unjust ruler, nor consequently whether they will obey him.
Is not this very idea fundamental to the notion of “natural law”? The law written on the hearts of the believer and unbeliever alike (which we are all guilty of suppressing)? An inherent understanding of right and wrong, just and unjust? Thinking of C.S. Lewis’ example in Mere Christianity provided me a bit of merriment this afternoon – yet another seat on the bus example!
[Zrim] …well before any modern notions of “just government.”
Do you think it an overreach to conclude both Jesus & Paul as being influential in arriving at the modern notion of “just government”? Put another way; were the subjects of the New Testament the crucible that shaped political theory thereafter (even in the East)? My modern, pragmatic bias leads me to believe LED streetlamps (energy efficient, of course) an improvement (and thus a step forward) over human candles…
[Zrim] If we read the OT with covenantal and redemptive-historical lenses then the midwives weren’t so much saving babies against infanticide as they were protecting the seed that would crush the serpent’s head…
This is an excellent point! I do, however, believe the “P’shat” or most direct explanation also holds true.
Again, thanks for everyone’s comments (the “Just War” thread is fascinating to me as well); I’ve gained much from this conversation!
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r,
We can up the temporal ante from seating arrangements to genocide, but the spirituality of the church still says that the church doesn’t so much stand alongside victims of (social) injustice as it is to administer grace to undeserving subjects of God’s justice. And before anyone wants to suggest the church should be all things to all men, to say her mission is the latter plus the former is the ecclesiastical version of the soteriological notion that we are saved by faith plus something else.
And, yes, I do think it’s an overreach to conclude that we wouldn’t have all the things we westerners prize were it not for Jesus and Paul. (Actually, overreach is putting it mildly.) If we didn’t need Moses to descend Sinai to tell us murder and stealing were wrong, what makes anytone think we needed Jesus to condescend so we could invent jurisprudence, medicine, democracy, education, toilet paper and LED streetlights? In other words, their mission was eternal, not temporal.
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“The problem, though, is that from a biblical perspective there doesn’t seem to be any room made for believers to determine for themselves (individually or corporately) what is an unjust ruler, nor consequently whether they will obey him. Indeed, whenever Jesus or Paul or any NT writer tells us to submit to civil authorities they can only have in their own minds rulers who came well before any modern notions of “just government.†Their rulers made human candles of us, something any modern would say makes them unjust rulers undeserving obedience. But think of the crucifixion itself: Roman law punished the only right doer in human history (by what moderns consider a “cruel and unusual punishment,†more reason to resist). If there was any grounds to resist that would seem to be it. Yet, there is no hint in the NT at all that based on this injustice civil authorities should be opposed. In point of fact, just the opposite. Sort of puts resisting seating arrangements on buses into perspective.”
Zrim,
I would say the best Greek and the Roman thinkers spent a lot of time dwelling on what justice is and how to justly govern the people in their domains. Frankly, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero and Seneca probably had a better grasp of justice then all American and modern politicians do today. Whether their governing leaders actually put this into practice is another story. IT usually slid into a bloody and gory politics of power which the above would have condemn them for. Plato’s idea of the philosopher king is not the same as the Ceasar’s megalomania. Modern notions of justice, it could be argued, are not as profound as ancient notions of justice. Jesus was not crucified according to Roman law but was handed over to the Jews who determined he should be killed for blasphemy. Pilate was the coward who did not uphold the Roman law but allowed the Jewish law to take precedence.
If we disobey the moral law in thought, word or deed what makes us think we do not disobey the civil law in thought, word or deed also? This is why I almost totally concentrate my time on the spiritual kingdom these days. Politics is even more confusing then theology. I must say though that Two kingdom theology and natural law has increased my optimism that we can actually make some headway politically though. It certainly brings both domains into a more clearer perspective. But, I have not heard all the arguments against it yet and they seem to be coming in larger doses recently.
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Modern notions of justice, it could be argued, are not as profound as ancient notions of justice. Jesus was not crucified according to Roman law but was handed over to the Jews who determined he should be killed for blasphemy. Pilate was the coward who did not uphold the Roman law but allowed the Jewish law to take precedence.
John,
Ancient notions of justice may be superior to modern ones, both both are inferior to the gospel. And Pilate may have handed Jesus over to the Jews, but both systems, admirable as they were (insurrection and blasphemy are serious business), seem to also be shown up for their miserable failures–superior human law is still folly to God’s justice. I know it’s standard to cast both Pilate and the Pharisees as bad guys, but they actually upheld what those consumed with law more than gospel hold as virtuous. It seems to me unwise to easily string up these guys instead of realize that the point seems to be to understand the profound antithesis between law and gospel.
That said, I’m also not sure that the take-away from 2K is to be either pessimstic or optimistic about politics. I think it means to put a realistic perspective on politics, to lower the stakes while maintaining the diginity. Politics imperfectly orders our public life, helps us get from day to day with some measure of order. That’s all. It seems to me that the cause of a pessimistic view of politics is an unwarranted optimistism of just what politics can do in the first place.
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Zrim,
What I find interesting about the trial of Jesus is that it combines both the providential realms (Roman justice) and the redemptive realms (Jewish Torah) in the drama. My point was that the Roman law written and implanted on the heart did its job and could not convict Christ of any wrong doing. Paul seemed to have a deep respect for Roman law and appealed to it often. It got him out of trouble on numerous occasions. I think Romans 2 and Acts 17 shows the deep respect Paul had for this biblical notion of natural law and seemed to find it in lots of places in his travels and conversations with Gentiles that he did not find in the Jewish community. I was not trying to cast Pilate and the Pharisees as the bad guys. It was a misinterpretation by the Jews that allowed him to be crucified as they did not recognize him as the Messiah. Of course, every other human being who has walked the face of the earth would have done the same thing as it was in God’s eternal plan to allow him to get crucified in order to remedy our sin situation.
In regards to the take away from 2K- that was very well said. You are very good at that stuff and I always listen intently when you speak about it. No flattery intended.
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