ROMANS 13:1-7: Did God Write The Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution?

Reading the Scriptures

I will never forget the first time someone told me that God forbids taking up arms and rebelling against the government as the American Revolutionaries did. 

I responded, "What are we supposed to do, then?" They said, "Raise our children. Live the Christian life. Do good deeds, etc."

That may have been the first time it dawned on me that the church and America were different, and that I could no longer view the two as the same any longer.

If America was founded by the willingness to rebel against England and take up arms as an organized group in defense of their rebellion, and God says to be subject to ruling authorities, then there's no way the American Colonists could have been obeying God in doing so. My realization about my country's origin affected my Christian identity, and I didn't know how to fill the void when it was detached from being American. 

In a bizarre way, it is not as upsetting now that America seems to be approaching, if not already at, the point where we can really question the veracity and legitimacy of the view of authority that most of us have been taught from the generations following World War II.

Stanley Hauerwas gives an insightful recommendation when interpreting Romans 13:1-7:

Never read Romans 13 without first reading Romans 12:14ff, because then you begin to see that “bless those who persecute you” applies also to Caesar... Then you’ll see how Americans have failed to read Paul well, because they want to read Paul as underwriting democratic presuppositions of government that assume, ‘somebody’s gotta kill somebody in the name of Jesus.’ Now, that’s what I don’t think Paul will let you do, if you read Romans 12 in relationship to Romans 13. That’s why we have so little good religious discourse in this country, because most American Christians don’t know how to read the Bible well. And they don’t know how to read the Bible well because they’re Americans before they’re Christians.

The part of Hauerwas' quote that stuck with me is, "that's why we have so little good religious discourse in this country" and also that "we don't know how to read the Bible well," because we are "Americans before we are Christians." Wow. This seems so true to me based on the authoritarian society that America has progressively become since World War II.

The Myth of Limited Government

This is Discretionary Spending not the Total Budget

The United States of today is a vastly different country from what it was before World War II. 

For example, virtually no income tax existed back then, but 75 years later, approximately 35% of the $3.9 trillion US budget is spent annually on the military industrial complex. 

The rise of Central Banks at the beginning of the 20th century, the resulting method of perpetual indebtedness, and the growth of the US Government in connection with Big Corporations is now viewed as necessary with little faith in viable alternatives. 

It seems that the American form of government has evolved to leave people with the meaningless power to vote for only two choices--a Warfare State or a Welfare State. It seems that the role of representative government is to spend as much money as they can borrow while keeping their subjects busy, one side blaming the other as the source of all problems, based on the myth that if "my side ran the government all would be better." 

No it wouldn't. 

There is only one side in American Government made up of two parties whose only concern is how to spend the money they receive through taxation. 

Questions Every Man Must Answer for Himself: Alexander Campbell's Address on War (Conclusion)

Alexander Campbell: Address on War, 1848

Campbell concludes his address making his most powerful appeals to reason and emotion:

JESUS' FOLLOWERS

"So far as any indignity was offered to them or any punishment inflicted upon them as His followers, or for His name's sake, they were in no way to resent it. But in their civil rights He allows them the advantages of the protection of civil law, and for this cause enjoins upon them the payment of all their political dues, and to be subject to every ordinance of man of a purely civil nature, not interfering with their obligations to Him."

"If a heathen man, or persecutor, smite you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If he compel you to go with him one mile, go two. If he sue thee at law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy mantle also," etc. These and whatever else of civil treatment they might receive, as Disciples of Christ, they must, for His sake, endure without resistance or resentment. But if in their citizen character or civil relations they are defrauded, maligned, or prosecuted, they might, and they did, appeal to Caesar."

 

"They paid tribute to civil magistrates that they might protect them; and therefore they might rightfully claim their protection. In this view of the matter, civil magistrates were God's ministers to the Christian "for good." And also, as God's ministers, they were revengers to execute wrath on those who did evil. Therefore, Christians are in duty bound to render to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's - to reverence, honor, and support the civil magistrate, and, when necessary, to claim his protection."

"But as respects the life peculiar to a soldier, or the prosecution of a political war, they had no commandment. On the contrary, they were to live peaceably with all men to the full extent of their power. Their sovereign Lord, the King of Nations, is called "The Prince of Peace." How, then, could a Christian soldier, whose "shield" was faith, whose "helmet" was the hope of salvation, whose "breastplate" was righteousness, whose "girdle" was truth, whose "feet were shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace," and whose "sword" was that fabricated by the Holy Spirit, even "the Word of God." I say, how could such a one enlist to fight the battles of a Cesar, a Hannibal, a Tamerlane, a Napoleon, or even a Victoria?"

"Jesus said, "All that take the sword shall perish by the sword." An awful warning! All that take it to support religion, it is confessed, have fallen by it; but it may be feared that it is not simply confined to that; for may I not ask the pages of universal history, have not all the nations created by the sword finally fallen by it? Should anyone say, "Some few of them yet stand," we respond, "All that have fallen also stood for a time; and are not those that now stand tottering just at this moment to their overthrow?" We have no doubt, it will prove in the end that nations and states founded by the sword shall fall by the sword."

"When the Savior, in His figurative style, indicating the trials just coming upon His friends, said, "You had better sell your outside garments and buy a sword," one present, understanding him literally, as some of the friends of war still do, immediately responded, "Lord, here are two swords." What did he say? "It is enough." Two swords for twelve apostles! Truly, they are dull scholars who thence infer that He meant they should literally use two swords to fight with!"

What Then Says The Bible on the Subject of War? Alexander Campbell's Address on War (Part 2)

Campbell at 65

THE BIBLE & WAR

Campbell continues his insightful argument:

"It certainly commended and authorized war among the Jews. God had given to man, ever since the flood, the right of taking away the life of man for one specified cause. Hence murderers, ever since the flood, were put to death by express divine authority. "He that sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." 

"He gave authority only, however, to one family or nation, whose God and King he assumed to be. As soon as that family was developed into a nation, He placed it under His own special direction and authority. Its government has been properly called by Josephus, a distinguished Jew, a theocracy."

"It was not a republican, an aristocratical, or monarchical, but a theocratical government, and that, indeed, of the most absolute character, for certain high ends and purposes in the destinies of mankind - temporal, spiritual, and eternal. God was, therefore, in person the king, lawgiver, and judge of the Jewish nation."

"It was not simply for desiring a king that God was at one time displeased with them. It was for asking a king like those of other nations, and thereby refusing God Himself and God alone as their king. Still, He never made their kings any more than viceroys. He, for many centuries, down to the end of the Old Testament history, held in His own hand the sovereignty of the nation. Hence the kings ruled for him, and the high priest, or some special prophet, was the Lord's mouth to them. Their kings were, therefore, unlike other kings. They truly, and only they, of all the kings on earth, were "the Lord's anointed."