“Obedience … in the Lord”

The current public debate concerning events at the nation’s southern border, especially the separation of families and the detainment of small children, exposes the profound degree of Christian disunity regarding issues of church-state relations, ethics, and biblical interpretation. Unfortunately, Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ citation of Romans 13 seems typical of the level of familiarity with scripture and sophistication of biblical interpretation characteristic of broad swaths of the American church. On their face, such appeals to scripture as warrant for “obedience” to government open contemporary proponents of the view at least to charges of special pleading, and more likely, to accusations of hypocrisy. Where were these appeals during the Obama administration when the same voices called on those like-minded to ‘take our country back’? Such inconsistencies alone indicate that the Jeff Sessions of our country entertain a flawed – that is, not only incoherent but also inconsistent with the totality of scriptural witness – understanding of the proper relationship between church and state that extends to individual believers and their stances on public policy.

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Sessions and others who cite single passages of scripture as though to trump (pun intended) an opponent’s position (“weaponizing” scripture as I have recently heard it put) manifest, it seems to me, an unfortunate by-product of the Reformation assertion of the priority of Scripture as the source of authority, sola scriptura, “Scripture alone.” One often sees a modern bumper-sticker (per)version of this motto: “God/the Bible said it; I believe it; that settles it”; or, emphasizing the authority of the divine Word even over human faith: “God/the Bible said it; that settles it.” Its political cousin, “America: Love it or Leave it,” shares its absolutist spirit.

Not surprisingly, Romans 13 has suffered a long history as a “weaponized” text. Southern slave owners invoked it in support of the status quo just as, in the next century, the Nazi-sympathizing “German Christian Church” employed it as a central argument against the “Confessing Church,” and in the 1950’s and 1960’s it justified opposition to Civil Rights, women’s rights, and the anti-war movement. Totalitarian governments in Central and South America favored it as a tool for controlling the poor (see further https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/romans-13/562916/).

Even the Reformers, however, knew that their sola scriptura motto is hyperbolic, in a sense. Luther and Calvin knew that Scripture can sometimes be ambiguous or ambivalent. Both recognized the problem, for example, of relating some OT passages to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Consequently, Luther argued that one must apply to Scripture the principle of the Word within the word; that is, Luther interpreted all scripture through the lens of the Word revealed in Christ Jesus. Similarly, Calvin appealed to the analogia fidei, the analogy of faith. The Reformers tacitly recognized, then, that Scripture alone will not work. One could invoke here the so-called “Wesley Quadrilateral” involving Scripture, Reason (one must be able to read, preferably well), Tradition, and Experience. The Reformers also tacitly acknowledged that, in this discussion, Scripture must refer to the totality of revealed Scripture – not just an isolated text – as the starting point for gaining understanding of God’s character and purposes.

Obedience to God is a major biblical theme, of course. In the Trans-Jordan, Moses enjoined Israel, “You shall follow YHWH, your God…and obey God’s voice…” (Deut 13:5[4 Engl], all translations mine). This divine claim to obedience underlies every metaphor for God’s relationship to the world and those of us in it. God is king, lord, father, mother, creator, redeemer, and sustainer.

Yet, Romans 13 stands alongside a number of other biblical texts that enjoin obedience to human authority, too. The anonymous author of Hebrews encouraged members of his community to “Obey your leaders…for they are standing watch over your souls…” (Heb 13:17; all translations mine). Twice (Eph 6:1; Col 3:20), Pauline literature encourages children to obey their parents. A comparison of these two texts, however, suggests a problem inherent in the duty to obey human authority, even to one’s parents.  Colossians calls for children to obey their parents “in all things,” while Ephesians apparently substitutes the phrase “in the Lord” (with P⁴⁶, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and scores of others over against Vaticanus, Bezae [corrected], and a hand full of later witnesses, which omit the phrase altogether) for “in all things.” Paul, the Pauline author of Ephesians, or, perhaps, an early copyist recognized that even parents can sometimes direct children to do things that they should not do. Consequently, the text makes it clear that even parental authority, arguably the most fundament authority exercised in the realm of human behavior, does not merit obedience when it contradicts the will of God.  This recognition also underlies the disciples’ response to the Sanhedrin when it instructed them to stop teaching and preaching the Gospel: “But Peter and the apostles answered, saying ‘It is necessary for us to obey God rather than men’” (Acts 5:29).

Therefore, the Bible, taken as a whole, knows that even “divinely ordained” human authority can conflict with God’s will, and that, in those cases, God’s will takes priority. The next question, then, concerns how one discerns the will of God in such cases, especially those involving obedience to the government. Obviously, when a parent tells a child to kill his baby sister, the child should disobey.  The parental command contradicts the commandment against killing (and universal human sensibilities).  When the state seeks to separate children from their parents because of the state’s notion of its own sovereignty, does one simply acquiesce, or can other biblical texts and theological principles contribute to one’s understanding of the problem?

Significantly, the positive image of government found in Romans 13 represents a minority position within scripture. John the Revelator describes the same Rome in relation to which Paul admonishes obedience as the Great Whore Babylon, in league with the Dragon (Rev 14:8; 16:19; 17:5; 18:2, 10, 21). Famously, Jesus suggested giving Caesar what Caesar is due (Mark 12:17 and parallels; i.e. the obedience he deserves, and no more?). Jeremiah put it more positively in his advice to a first group of exiles in the original Babylon when he suggested that, since they were going to be in exile for a while (70 yrs; three generations), they should “seek the welfare of the city,” but not that they should assimilate to Babylonian culture and religion (cf. Daniel).  Were there times when Jewish exiles understood better what would be good for the city than the native Babylonians did?

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A number of entities claim my “allegiance” – God, my family, my nation, my students, my calling, my community, etc. An important question – no the central question – addresses the proper relationship between these entities, their proper priority. Christians, I hope, will quickly and readily admit that obedience to God far outweighs any obligation we may have to the state. In the best-case scenario, of course, the fulfillment of one’s responsibility to family, nation, and one’s self will align with obedience to God’s will. Unfortunately, however, nation, the entity more pertinent to this discussion, can and often does ask its citizens to do and to endorse things that contravene God’s will. If the state cannot justify a policy morally, then it cannot claim divine sanction. A blanket appeal to Romans 13 attempts to put the stamp of divine approval on actions that are anything but godly.