Texts: Romans 13. 1- 14, Luke 22. 47-53
“Those who think religion has nothing to do with politics don’t understand either religion or politics.” This statement is attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, one of the spiritual and political giants of the last century. What has religion to do with politics? If we look at the history of religions or even at the more limited vista of the Christian Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation we can see that this is not an empty question. Many different answers been offered to express this complex relationship.
It is rich and complex discussion, replete with examples from every age. A significant part of the tradition is the striking declaration of Paul from Romans chapter 13: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority except from God and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. (Romans 13.1) Coming in the book that many recognize to be Paul's programmatic declaration of the Christian faith, this statement is sometimes seen as definitive, as closing out the debate. Can anything else be said about the Christian view of submission to the governing authorities once we have read Romans 13?
Some want to look more deeply at the history of God's people. We want to explore the implications of the prophetic tradition where men and women inspired by God stood up to the anointed rulers and denounced their sins or announced their destruction as did Samuel and Nathan, Elijah and Elisha. Elisha seemed to relish the declaration that the dogs would lick up the blood of Ahab and that Jezebel would meet a grisly and cruel death: he certainly incited Jehu to rise up and kill both King Ahab and his Queen.
The seers Daniel, Ezekiel and John of the Apocalypse foresaw the overthrow of kingdoms and empires, the chariots of judgment with flaming wheels and the horses of the Apocalypse with their terrifying riders thundering into human history from the sky. For those with eyes to see the Gospel story itself, especially as told by say Mark the evangelist, is profoundly political - the story of the collision between Jesus’ announcement of the Kingdom of God and all of the kingdoms of humankind.
Through large swathes of 2000 years of Christian history this text from Romans has been a foundation stone of political disengagement on the part of churches. In one tradition it has been an important part of the theology of two kingdoms in which Christians are advised to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. Their loyalty and obedience in earthly affairs belongs to Caesar and their service to God is focussed upon the coming kingdom and the otherworldly dimensions of Christian faith. It was just such a theology that underpinned the attitude of the German National churches to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Against this stood men like Dietrich Bonhoffer and Martin Niemoller, who understood that when rulers and their policies stand opposed to God and his laws the allegiance of the Christian must always and only be to Jesus and his gospel.
Within our own Baptist tradition stands the involvement of many early Baptist pastor's in English Civil War. Many of our founding fathers took commissions in Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army and stood against the forces of the King Charles and the armies of the Presbyterians from the north. Among their number were a group called the Fifth Monarchy men. These had read the prophecies of Daniel about four earthly rulers who had to find their end before the heavenly King would return to establish his kingdom upon earth – the so-called Fifth Monarchy. In their vision the task of the Christian was to sweep away every earthly vestige of government so that the way might be prepared for the triumphant return of Christ the King. They were Christian anarchists who took up the sword against any form of earthly authority.
All these, in the times of the Bible and in Christian history since the Bible, are a long way from the calm exhortations of Paul that we should be subject to the governing authorities because there is no authority except God. This very brief survey suggests either that these folks never read Paul, or that Christian attitudes to secular authority is a complex issue and not so straightforward as might first appear from the words of Romans 13.
When you are interpreting texts, as when you are buying real estate, the first rule is location, location, location. What is the social location from which this text arises? What issues does it address and what is the social experience of people who were hearing it? With a text like Romans 13 nothing is more important in hearing what the text is saying than reflecting upon the social location of the listeners. (three social locations)
Throughout Christian history this has been a very precious and reassuring text for those who are comfortable and safely ensconced in wealth and power. Within an ordering of social arrangements and political reality that has delivered us security and social respect it is only natural to be greatly encouraged that the existing state of affairs is ordered by God! This is seen very clearly revealed in some hymns which see the ordering of human affairs as having been intimately arranged by the personal direction of the Creator:
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
GOD made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate. (From All things bright and beautiful)
For some reason this verse doesn't appear in the latest edition of our hymn book. I wonder why? Perhaps it is because we can recognize the thinly veiled class interest that is served by the singing of this hymn and the politically and socially offensive character of the theology expressed in it. And yet in a hundred subtle ways the idea that all authority that exists has been ordained by God and serves his purpose is very comfortable for those who are seated in the armchair of life with good jobs, nice houses, fine prospects and no worries. When the poor hammer on the gates of the castle (rather than sitting quietly and reverently beside it) many Christians blessed with comfortable armchairs turn to Romans 13 to judge and criticise those who protest or complain.
But if one is not sitting in a pleasant armchair with an armchair view of history the picture looks very different. In the Bible one of the greatest pictures of suffering is that of Job. With his fortune, and his family and finally his health taken from him, covered from head to foot with loathsome sores, Job took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself and sat upon the ash heap in the yard. His situation was so dire that even his wife said to him “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God and die!” (Job 2.8-9). From the ash heap of his suffering Job raised a great complaint and questioning against God. Far from accepting the way that God had ordered his life and the world, Job raised a hue and cry against the divine ordering of the world in some of the most powerful poetry in all of Scripture.
From the ash heaps of history Providence does not look so benign. The suffering in every age and in every land cry out with deep questioning about that which oppresses them. They have no calm acceptance that every ruler comes from God but are ready to question the way the world is, even if it means questioning the very justice and fairness of God himself. Those on the ash heap of suffering read our text more thoroughly - even getting as far as verse 3: “For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.” (Rom 13.3). Those who suffer under bad government or evil rulers see this as a qualifying principle, a condition that must be met before the authority of rulers is to be accepted and acknowledged as coming from God. Without this qualifying principle, they ask, do we have to accept that Adolf Hitler was instituted by God simply because his authority existed? This appears to be (with little theological embellishment) the proposition that Robert Mugabi now commends to the world with regard to his own administration. From the armchairs of the Wolf’s Lair in Hitler’s beloved mountains, or Mugabe’s opulent palace in Harare, their power may seem divinely ordained and a truly providential ordering of the world, but from the ashes of the concentration camps and the hospitals where the beaten and hungry of Zimbabwe shelter, Paul’s principle in verse 3 that rulers must protect the good and restrain the evil is an accusation of such government that makes the calm acceptance of verse 1 impossible.
But there is a third location from which this text can be heard. Christians have not only occupied the armchairs of wealth and power or been reduced to the ash heaps of penury and suffering, sometimes they have been on the barricades of history earnestly and enthusiastically embracing the course of revolution and subversion.
I mentioned the Fifth Monarchy men of 17th-century in the English Civil War many of whom were committed Baptists. In the crisis of the German churches of the 1930s and 40s it was Christians like Dietrich Bonhoeffer who not only called the church to faithfulness but actively participated in the German resistance and the plots to kill Hitler and bring down the Nazis. In the 1970’s Liberation theology exerted strong influence in Latin America and parts of Asia and Africa calling Christians to analysis of , and resistance to, existing structures of power.
To Christians who sit in this place the words of Paul are words of rebuke and caution. From this social location Paul is providing a critique of the revolutionary spirit affirming the purpose of good government, not only in narrow terms of political obedience but in the spirit of paying what is due: taxes, revenue, respect, honour - all the dimensions of civic life that build up mutual trust and bonds of connection. In this context Paul is neither rubber stamping the existing order of things, nor heaping frustration and disrespect on those who suffer under corrupt government but putting a Christian case for the respect of structures of authority that ultimately reflect the authority and goodness of God, if they are honourably and properly exercised.
But what of the time of Paul? What was the social location from which he was writing and in which he was being read? The success of the Maccabean revolt in the second century BCE and the rise of the Zealot party during the first century CE raised aspirations of Jewish autonomy throughout the Roman world. In the first century such sentiments incited Jews to tax revolts and riots from Rome to Alexandria, and protests against the Emperor Caligula and Pontius Pilate, the Prefect in Judea.
We can be reasonably certain that Romans was written from Corinth in the year 57 of the common era (CE). It had only been eight years before in the year 49 CE when the Emperor Claudius had expelled Jews from Rome because, in the words of the Roman historians Suetonius, “the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus”. If this name Chrestus is a corruption of the Latin Christus (meaning Christ), then the historical context had a profound impact upon the shaping of the book of Romans!
After Claudius died in the year 54CE and the edict lapsed, Jews began slowly returning to Rome. The return of Jewish Christians to churches that had become increasingly Gentile during their absence may well have been the cause of the tension between Jewish and Gentile Christians that we have already identified as the near horizon against which the book must be interpreted. Against a far horizon of civil disturbance and accusation against the Jews, and by implication the Christians, Paul writing in one Corinthians 13 becomes a reassuring statement of Christian policy and rebuke against any who would cause trouble. If confirmation were needed of the restiveness of the time, it would only be nine years after Paul wrote that the Jewish zealots would launch a major war in Palestine (in 66 CE) leading to the destruction of the Temple and Jewish society.
Here we have the context into which Paul speaks. He is not speaking to those in comfort atop the social order who might use this text to protect and enshrine their prerogatives and privileges in the heart of a religious worldview. Nor is he speaking to those who are being ground under the heel of an uncaring empire or a ruthless dictator. He is speaking to context in which revolution is a real option, a choice that will be taken by many. He is outlining a Christian defence of the prerogatives and rights of government in time of widespread challenge and revolt.
What are we to do with this text? We who have been given such a comfortable armchair ride in life need to be very careful with this text. We must always be suspicious when the word of God seems to accord with our own economic and political interests. Whenever a Christian in the privileged armchair talk about this text with a sister or brother who sits upon the ash heap of suffering and oppression there is the risk of grave offence and injury against the very gospel of Jesus who pointed to the coming of the kingdom in which all would find freedom under the rule of God not the flawed and corrupt order of human affairs that we find the present world.
I think I have only understood this text once in my life in an encounter I had in 1983. I was sheltering under a bed in the home of the Baptist deacon in the Highlands of the Philippines as the bullets flew around outside. A militia group authorised and armed by the government come through the village and was shooting at family members of my host. When the firing stopped I was urged to go outside and hand out my business card that showed I was a pastor from Australia – “they won’t shoot you, you’re a foreigner” I was told. We finally made our escape piled into the back of a jeepney, not knowing whether our friends were safe or dead. One of the Deacons of the church turned to me to ask if I could give him 1600 pesos -the price of an M-16 rifle. And oh, I was tempted. Then, and only then, I really understood this text.
This text is tawdry self-interest when it is announced from the armchair of wealth and power, proclaimed from the cosy pulpits of wealthy churches with comfortable congregations of civil servants, businesspeople and professionals.
This text is cruel and deeply offensive when it is held over the heads of those on the ash heaps of oppression, loss and suffering. Romans 13.1 has no place in Zimbabwe today or in Darfur or Tibet. It is Romans 13.3-4 they need to be hear and understand. In such contexts the word of the Lord is not that all authority is ordained by God, but the grim word of Jesus: “This is your hour, and the power of darkness.” (Luke 22.53)
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