Christians and the Law.

Recently I have been involved in some conversations about law.  Some folks are of the opinion that somehow our national laws are above mere politics.  They should therefore be enforced as vigorously and pitilessly as possible.  This is particularly the case when the laws are aimed at people they hate and fear, like immigrants and refugees today.

In defense of this rather high view of law, they will attempt to drag in the Bible on their side, as if the Bible were all about our duty to obey and rigorously enforce the laws of the State.   The passages usually cited in this argument are Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-17.  Some seem to believe that ripping these passages out of context and injecting them into a discussion automatically terminates all disagreement.  As if God has now spoken conclusively and categorically, and now we have no choice but to submit.

But context is important.  In fact, context often determines meaning.  The actual situation in which words are uttered or written matters.  To ignore the historical context is to unconsciously impose the reader’s own context on the text.  

In the 1st century, the church was a tiny, oppressed community trying to survive in a hostile empire.  Christians refused to worship the Roman emperor, which made their movement inherently and necessarily illegal to begin with.  The kind of advice the apostles give in passages like Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 is that followers of Jesus should not make unnecessary waves that would make the authorities to take notice of and come down on them.  (Just like the parents of African American boys have to teach them to be particularly respectful and cooperative in any encounter with police.)  It is more a matter of acting as if the State were doing its job of maintaining order and justice, even when it isn’t. 

So these passages do not in any way legitimize Roman law or authority that at the time was engaging in active persecution of the church, a persecution which would dramatically intensify in the next couple of centuries.  They certainly should not be taken to mean that Christians must disobey Jesus' explicit teachings in order to obey Roman law.  That would have been to make Jesus subject to the State.  It would have been the death of the church.  That would be to reject the sacrifice of countless martyrs who refused to obey the laws of evil powers.  The idea that the apostles would have us keep every law promulgated by the State, no matter how destructive or wrong, is therefore ridiculous.  Indeed, the very men who wrote this advice for the church, Peter and Paul, were also both, like Jesus himself, executed by the State for being incorrigible law breakers.

Should Christians in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany have submitted to those legally constituted authorities and participated in the evil they were doing?  Should Christians renounce their faith in countries where Christianity is against the law?  Should obedience to the laws of any State take precedence in the life of a disciple over the teachings of Jesus?  Of course not.  

When the State makes and enforces laws that transgress God’s law, revealed in Jesus Christ, Christians have an obligation to resist and even break those laws, accepting the consequences for doing so.  When the State concocts laws contrary to God’s will, and then enforces them with mindless ferocity, Christians are called upon to side with Jesus, who sides with the oppressed victims of such laws.

Passages like Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 do not demand that Christians compromise their discipleship in order to uphold State law.  Rather, they call upon the State to live up to God’s vision of peace, and become worthy of people’s obedience. 

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