The response of the religious left to the actions of ICE and the Border Patrol has sparked a debate about Romans 13 and what scripture teaches about the proper use of government power.
Russell Moore, who used to be a prominent leader within the Southern Baptist Convention, is aligned with the political left and has made certain representations about Romans 13 over the years. During Covid, he argued that Christians must succumb to government authority even when churches were closed and experimental vaccines were forced. Now, he says ICE must be regarded as suspect in spite of Romans 13.
Churches were vulnerable during the Covid-19 pandemic in part because they did not have a well developed political theology. That caused enormous harm as churches were closed for very prolonged periods.
David Mitzenbacher addresses Russell Moore’s contorted interpretations with an excellent article just published. He attempts to present a political theology consistent with Romans 13. Here are some key excerpts:
A properly ordered political theology does not begin with either reflexive suspicion or blind trust as emotional postures. It begins with understanding the God-given vocation of the civil magistrate. The magistrate is judged by whether he acts within the bounds of his God-given office. Where acts accord with that vocation, Christians are not wrong to begin with principled affirmation; where he exceeds it, Christians are not wrong to begin with principled resistance, in both cases subjecting his actions to sober moral evaluation against God’s Word.
Moore’s misapplication of Romans 13 does not arise from a stable doctrine of the civil magistrate. It arises from an asymmetrical moral imagination shaped by political priors, in which leftward uses of state power are interpreted as protective or necessary, while rightward uses of state power are treated as presumptively oppressive…
Romans 13 …requires Christians to affirm that coercive civil authority is legitimate and necessary. The magistrate bears the sword because God has entrusted him with the task of restraining wrongdoing and preserving public justice. Law enforcement, criminal punishment, and the maintenance of borders are not deviations from the magistrate’s vocation. They are ordinary expressions of it.
At the same time, Scripture places clear limits on that authority. The magistrate’s jurisdiction is civil, not ecclesial. He is not a minister of Word and sacrament, nor a governor of Christ’s church. When civil authority commands what God forbids or forbids what God commands, obedience to God must take precedence. Holding these truths together allows for moral evaluation of state action without dissolving the magistrate’s vocation. It makes principled submission and principled resistance possible…
By severing Romans 13 from a stable, confessional doctrine of the magistrate, a void is created. Into that void steps the “spirit of the age.” When a theologian consistently finds that the Bible’s “nuance” happens to align with the editorial sensibilities of The New York Times or The New Yorker, we must ask whether the Word is shaping the world, or the world is shaping the Word.
A political theology that readily grants the state authority over the gathered worship of the church, yet recoils at the ordinary exercise of civil authority in preserving public order, is not the theology of the Bible nor the Baptist tradition. It is a theology of social accommodation.
Reclaiming Romans 13 requires more than avoiding “abuse”; it requires a humble submission to the order that God has given to His creation including the magistrate’s God-given vocation. We must be willing to say “yes” to the sword where God has commanded it, and a firm “no” to the state where it seeks to seize the keys of the Kingdom. To do otherwise is to leave the church adrift, steered by the changing winds of secular approval rather than the anchor of Holy Scripture.
“Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist have been appointed by God.”
“…whoever resists that authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.”
“…for rulers are servants of God…”
These lines make one think of the Joseph Atwill theory that Christianity was created by one of the Flavian Roman emperors to better control the people.
Certainly those word from Romans are absolutely false. Trump or Biden are no more anointed by God than Stalin was.
During the Middle Ages indeed, Catholicism supported monarchy as strongly as Communist doctrine supported the Soviet Union.
I’m sympathetic to Mitzenbacher’s thoughts, but it is ultimately a weak reed.
J. Sobran, under the Christian worldview, God has sovereignty over all. He allows flawed rulers to lead. The doctrine is that we submit to lawful authority unless it is in conflict with God’s law or God’s explicit instruction to us.
I had seen someone comment online over the last week that the Founding Fathers likely would not have rebelled against the British monarchy if they had known what our current state is. Among the various forms of government, some are worse than others; and some are better than others. But scripture doesn’t guarantee to us a constitutional republic; and it doesn’t explicitly endorse it as the best form (even if we truly HAD a constitutional republic). The best we can say is that the Founders used biblical principles, at least in part, to create the structure outlined in the Constitution. John Adams famously said it would only work for a virtuous people.
Now that we do NOT have a virtuous people, what is the best type of government?
“Now that we do NOT have a virtuous people, what is the best type of government?”
The same kind as when you do have virtuous people: a very limited republic focused on policing crimes where one person violently harms or defrauds another and protecting us from foreign attack.
Such a govt encourages virtue by forcing people to honestly serve their fellow man in order to eat.
I’m not disagreeing with Adams that a culture of honesty and honorable habits doesn’t make everything more workable. But you need the same incentives regardless. I doubt autocracy & a multiplicity of laws has not fixed a single bad culture in history.
J. Sobran, that sounds good, although what happens when policing crimes is no longer possible? After all, that is nearly the situation we now face.
When I was growing up, I remember the adults at an extended family gathering discussing all the disorder that was occurring then. A great uncle (by marriage) made the statement that we need a benevolent dictator. There is ample record in history of people desiring a benevolent king, including in the Bible.
Dictators and kings obviously are not perfect. But our system is increasingly inadequate– in part because of a population that is not virtuous, and in part because of a corrupt, self-serving, socialist, indolent political class that mirrors the population.
Triad, re-read 1 Samuel 8:11-18 King James Version (KJV)
The king will take your sons and daughters and laborers [conscription] and ultimately make them his slaves. He’ll tax your grain and flocks and take your livestock for himself. “When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the LORD will not answer you in that day.”
“…what happens when policing crimes is no longer possible?” The malfeasance by mayors & governors (as in BLM riots and Minnesota presently) and the FBI is a visible and well-defined crime. (It is what we elected Trump to address. Alas, he is more interested in Davos than America.) But it is thus clear when govt is not fulfilling its simple purposes, and then you know action by the citizenry of Thomas Jefferson’s variety is called for.
J. Sobran, absolutely regarding that section in 1 Samuel, and in fact my recollection is that there was a penalty associated with wanting a king in the OT. There is no question that biblical teaching would also reject the paganism under which we are now ruled.
And you are right that citizens ought not accept when government refuses to do its job.
Trumpian TC.
Aside, when I was a Judicial Magistrate the NC General Statues authorized magistrates to marry couples.
Did you get to marry any, Fred?