GOD'S POLITICS? PART VI

GOD'S POLITICS? PART VI

"WE MUST OBEY GOD RATHER THAN MEN"

Alright, so I've been promising for awhile now that we would have at least a day devoted to the topic of civil disobedience. Not that I think there are many of you just chomping at the bit to be civilly disobedient, but I don't think you can really address the topic of "God's Politics" without discussing the issue. After all, the Bible's statements about the role of government don't seem to allow much room for lawbreaking:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. (Romans 13:1-2)

And yet, didn't the early Christians resist the law that told them they must worship Caesar? Chinese Christians today resist the laws of their land by smuggling in illegal Bibles all the time don't they? Converting to Jesus, according to law in Saudi Arabia is punishable by death, yet are there not still some Arabian Christians (at least in hiding)? These folks were and are by definition being disobedient to the civil authorities. How do we reconcile this disobedience with what we read in Romans 13?

The answer is found in one little verse in Acts 5:39. In this story, Peter and John are dragged before the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin for preaching Jesus' name. The Sanhedrin demanded that the Apostles stop preaching Jesus at once, to which Peter and the Apostles answered, "We must obey God rather than men." That's it, and yet the implications of this verse have been far reaching. For the Apostles and us, it would be disobedient to God to stop preaching Jesus' name, and so because the law of God is higher than their law, the law of God wins out. So here's the principle: If the governing authorities ever call you to do anything that is called sin in God's word, than you have an obligation to resist them.

(Now I have to give a word of caution here, because people define "sin" in all sorts of ways and use this verse to pull all sorts of shenanigans. As much as we may not like taxes, we are to "pay what we owe" to the government; the government is not forcing us to do something sinful by telling us to pay taxes ( you may have sinful thoughts spring up in your heart when you see how much they're taking from you, but that's another issue entirely :). If the government tells you that a certain kind of weapon is now outlawed, then you must get rid of the weapon. If you believe it's an encroachment on your freedom, then work to get someone elected into office that will work to make it legal again. This is the way it works folks.)

That being said, what does Christian civil disobedience look like then?

Let's say you were a Christian woman living in China and the authorities tell you that you must abort (murder) your baby because the child is female (this is real by the way, the real law of the land known as the "one child only" policy), what would it look like to put this principle of obeying God rather than men into practice? Of course, it would mean a refusal to abort.

Let's say a society demands that you treat black citizens as less than human, by forcing them to drink from different fountains, go to different schools, and sit in different seats. As a Christian who believes all men are created in the image of God and are therefore completely equal, you have an obligation to "obey God rather than men," so what would that look like? Now things are getting a little more sticky and complicated. According to federal law in this country, you can protest. You can organize rallies and speakers to come and speak against the injustice; you can refuse to shop at stores that would segregate against people because of the color of their skin; you can vote for politicians that will work to end this injustice through legislation.

Let's say you're a Christian living in Germany in the 1930's and you see Hitler come to power. Slowly but surely he reveals just how evil his plans are for Jews, for Gypsy's, for Gays, for Catholics, etc., etc. What do you do? To sit by and follow the laws of the land, you are allowing a tyrant to kill millions. There is no free speech and so if you try and organize a protest, all of you will be arrested. The vote is completely rigged in Hitler's favor; you can't obey this government's laws that tell you all Jews must be handed over, taken away to "worker camps" i.e. death camps. As a Christian, how do you obey God rather than men in this circumstance?

Tomorrow, we'll show how three different people involved in World War II answered this question, and hopefully through their stories gain some more insight into how it is we "obey God rather than men."

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Erick

RECEIVING FROM CHRIST...GROWING IN CHRIST....GOING WITH CHRIST....