”Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.” – Henry David Thoreau
“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God” – Benjamin Franklin
The demand for obedience is not the way of Jesus; obedience is driven by fear.
“If she had just obeyed…” Those are the words of Empire, not of Jesus.
Anticipatory obedience is when we adapt without reflection or consideration of the moral implications. Unfortunately, Christian authoritarianism has created followers who believe that obedience is the ultimate virtue.
When we’re conditioned to obey, we become capable of the most horrible things imaginable; we become capable of endorsing cruelty and excusing murder. We will become the people who commit unimaginable horrors without even being told.
Christian authoritarians abuse Romans 13 and Ephesians 6 to convince their followers that obedience is the ultimate Christian virtue and that disobedience (sin) leads to death. That is slavery and it is the opposite of the Gospel.
Christianity proclaims that Jesus came to set the captives free.
The Gospel message is that disobedience no longer results in death; the law of sin and death has been ruled null and void.
Because of Jesus, the rules changed. Obedience is no longer the measure of righteousness; the new measure of righteousness, under the new covenant, is love.
But obedience is what is taught in many churches – obedience to the arbitrary application of the Bible and obedience to authority.
The way of Jesus is freedom!
Let’s talk about Romans 13.
Paul told the people to obey the government, because their freedom in Christ did not mean they were immune from local laws. One cannot steal something and then claim diplomatic immunity because Jesus died for my sins.
Paul was writing to a small enclave of Christians living in the city of Rome, it was not a democracy, they had no power. As far as Paul knew, Rome had been there since the dawn of time. In that context, it makes sense for him to say that governing authorities are established by God. Rome is.
In the passage in Romans, Paul was specifically addressing the consistent and reasonable use of power. He was not compelling his followers to submit to the arbitrary use of power.
The arbitrary use of power is tyranny. It is abuse.
When obeying makes us complicit with injustice, we are compelled to resist. Justice is the higher virtue. Truth is the higher virtue. Mercy is the higher virtue.
Love is the highest virtue.
What do we do?
We must know what it is to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk with humility. What is justice?
What does justice look like in your home, in your workplace, in your church? Those are the areas where we need to begin.
Sometimes doing the right thing means being disobedient. We need to know what that means. We need to have difficult conversations with ourselves and with our friends and family.
What are you willing to sacrifice? Are you willing to go to jail, leave your job, or lose friends?
What are we teaching our children? Are we teaching them to be obedient or are we equipping them to make good decisions?
Obeying in advance, in this moment, is self-censoring, it is keeping quiet in the face of injustice, it is accepting what we know is propaganda as truth, it is giving into the inevitable.
It is not inevitable.
It is not inevitable.
This is inspired by my reading of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons Learned From the Twentieth Century, by Timothy Snyder as part of my effort to offer Christian insight to those wondering what to do in this moment.
This part 2 of a series, read part 1 here.
Journey Through Scripture 