The driving force behind this festering lump of spiritual nonsense is the supposedly noble belief that all authority comes from God. Yes, all authority, even the evil kind.
Since all authority emanates from God, a good Christian should not overly concern himself about humbly submitting to evil authority because, you know, God’s in control, and there must be some mysterious reason why He chose to put evil in charge.
From Francis Berger's blog - read the whole thing.
One of the stupidest, but commonest, assertions from self-identified Christians is that there is a duty of obedience to "authority".
Oft-cited in support is the "render unto Caesar" passage in the Bible, and Romans 13:12 "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation."
I really cannot take this type of proof-texting argument seriously; by which I mean that it is only ever deployed expediently; that is, it is never deployed to excuse someone whose obedience to authority leads to horrendous atrocities (e.g. prolonged and fatal torturing of children) or violates some ethical principle of importance to the arguer.
As Frank also implies, I think the real issue here is a failure to repent those evils that we commit.
The debate takes place in a situation in which Christians grossly underestimate the whole nature, hence prevalence, of sin - so much so, that they suppose that humans can and should avoid all sinning.
Whereas the reality is that we Just Are Sinners - and sin nearly all the time, and it is utterly impossible that things could be otherwise.
I do not mean that we are thoroughly rotten at core; but that nobody (except Jesus Christ) has ever been wholly and lovingly aligned with God all of the time. Sin is any departure from this state of loving alignment - and for us, it is attainable only after death and resurrection, in Heaven.
But those who regard sins legalistically, as a check list of prohibitions and duties, naturally must keep this list down to a manageable number - and therefore they must neglect all the innumerable ways of sinning that are intrinsic to living in the world-as-is.
(My favourite example is dishonesty. Most people, especially middle and upper class people, are untruthful to a significant degree (including misrepresentation, misleading, selectivity and deliberate ignoring) with every paragraph they write, or whenever they speak for more than five minutes
This entails pretending that when we obey authorities such as politicians, bureaucrats, employers, the police (in a suitable 'umble frame of mind) then this is not just intrinsically OK - but indeed much better ("more Christian") than would be using our innate discernment and the guidance of the Holy Ghost to recognize that much of the time we are being asked to commit sins.
Of course, we will probably often choose to commit these sins anyway since the consequences of disobedience are too many and too adverse to contemplate.
But that does not stop them being sins.
This is why Jesus made repentance - acknowledgement of our endemic sinning, and the inner desire to live in full alignment with God - to be the requirement for salvation.
It was Jesus's enemies among Pharisees and the like who claimed that not-sinning (wrt a finite list of transgressions) was possible, and the ticket to salvation; and who consequently were intrinsically what Jesus called hypocrites.
Which is exactly the nature of those who assert that to obey authority is necessarily virtuous.
4 comments:
To state the obvious for any regular reader of this (or Francis Berger's blog), this principle and the Romans verse you cite were the main self-exculpatory justifications used by all of the churches and individual Christians to excuse their acquiesce to all of the birdemic and peck-related dicates and mandates. And as Bruce implies, the problem was not just using this principle as an excuse to comply, but using this principle as a justification not to repent.
@Daniel - It was really embarrassing to see this. People were just spouting convenient excuses, apparently without the slightest thought of the implications. They didn't even notice that their stance contradicted multiple Gospel reports of how Jesus actually behaved on many occasions.
I’ve been wanting to comment on this one but don’t really know what to say except yes, I see this constantly! And so much the worse because there’s a sense in which it is true- as you’ve said, He would not keep us alive and in this world if we could not benefit from it. But the belief “God is in control” becomes a tool of rationalization psychologically in most Christians, and when that further hardens into doctrine there is no limit to the evil a church can push.
@Mia - It really is remarkable how much emphasis is placed upon particular interpretations a very few specific Bible passages, while the general trend of the gospels points the other way - and not only by Bible-focused Protestants.
Among Roman Catholics, the rationale for specific necessity of the Roman church to salvation, and that the church will survive in true essence until the second coming, is supported by a handful of (on the face of it isolated and ambiguous) verses.
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