Here's another scenario for the "Romans 13 means the government can do whatever it wants until it violates God's law" section of the church. What do you do when policy or the law demands an action of the police, but the police refuse to uphold it? I'm not sure if this exact incident is a violation of Colorado state law, but I would be surprised if it isn't:
The Colorado Springs Police Department is refusing to release the arrest report of a man who claims he was punched by a decorated policeman after he filmed officers kicking another man.
Earlier this month, The Gazette uncovered a federal civil rights lawsuit filed against the city and Officer Peter Tomitsch by Marc Johnson, a Colorado Springs man who claims he was the victim of police brutality.
Since the police are charged with enforcing the law, if they choose to not obey the law, then the law enforcers become a law unto themselves, rendering the governor and legislature's orders and bills powerless diktats. How do you force the enforcers to enforce the law on the enforcers? Occam's razor would suggest that certain groups of Christians would simply bend over and take it lest they become a law unto themselves and be in rebellion against the established authority (ironically missing the point that in-name-only agents of the established authority are the ones who are actually in rebellion against the established authority, and that the private rebellion against them is actually morally licit in that it ironically affirms the established authority).
The "Romans 13 means the government can do whatever it wants until it violates God's law" interpretation is all well and good, but it misses the practical like a blind deaf-mute looking for a safe trail through the Amazon. If the police refuse to enforce the law, or do so very selectively (and without good justification), they have become a law unto themselves. Once that happens, there are three factions: the public, the enforcers and the established authority. It would be interesting to see the people who take that interpretation of Romans 13 have to deal with a scenario similar to what happened in Rome when the Praetorian Guard became a law unto itself and surreptitiously become the real power behind the established authority that Paul mentioned in Romans 13.
I mentioned this not too long ago somewhere... Or I intended to. Anyways, its a rather ridiculous thing. If the cops have nothing to hide, as they are saying, then releasing that report would not be a problem. But on the other hand, that video is available but hasn't been released, per the direction of the man who took the video. So there is much yet to be established.
That being said, Colorado has had numerous instances of cops going far beyond the law and getting away with it. That hasn't been overly much of a problem in Colorado Springs, but its been an issue with the Denver area cops for some years now. In the springs cops just tend to ignore traffic laws when they don't want to be bound by them. I used to report them but after a while I got the message that there was never going to be any action taken to reign them in so I gave up. One bright spot is that the Sheriff's dept for El Paso County has been quite reliable in being peace officers and obeying the law while dealing justly with the citizenry. Certainly ever since Sheriff Anderson took office. And having said that I just pulled up the El Paso County Sheriff Dept. website. Not too happy about <a href="http://shr.elpasoco.com/Office+History.htm">this pic</a>
You may want to get some nourishment, and a drink. This is going to take a bit of explaining.
The church errs in applying the Romans 13 guide to the US government. Romans 13 is correctly applied to monarchs and dictators. In the USA, the People are sovereign and as such are individually and collectively responsible to God for the behavior of the government. In the USA, the government can be fired for unlawful conduct and any agent of the government, when acting outside his lawful authority is not in fact an agent of the government and need not be obeyed by Christians.
In the USA, police are merely public employees, no different under scripture than employees at Walmart.
When the police are acting in their lawful capacity of enforcing laws, duly enacted by the legislature, they are then acting on behalf of the People (the sovereign) and therefore should be obeyed by Christians under Romans 13. Any abuse of their authority or acting outside of it places them back into "just another guy" category and need not be obeyed.
The laws and customs in your area may lead you to a different conclusion, but that is the Romans 13 side of it.
Our form of government is substantially different than those endured by 1st century Christians. But the principles are the same. The sovereignty is with the People, not the government, not elected leaders, not judges, not legislatures not states. Revolt by such people against a government that is indifferent to its lawful demands is not revolt at all but the sovereign authority chastising an outlaw employee and bring them to the magistrate for punishment of their offenses.
Mike,
I'm one of those "Romans 13 means the government can do whatever it wants until it violates God's law." One of the hard "sayings" of the Gospel is that there are wrongs that we must endure without a temporal remedy. Even when "the powers" fail to follow their own just laws, or promulgate unjust ones. At least in a republic we have the remedy of voting against them or using various accountability metods (FOIA, courts, media, etc.) Nothing wrong with that: Paul appealed to Caesar, after all.
It's hard to believe that Romans 13 (and II Peter) don't anticipate bad governments. They were written under NERO of all people, who would go on to execute the two apostles that pened those epistles.
The problem I have with this mostly Protestant view [FYI: I am not a Catholic] of Romans 13 is that Protestants almost never define what exactly is "God's law." We know what God's law for civil society is from the Old Testament, and it does not include the power to arbitrarily deal out death, to rape a man's wife a la "prima nocta," rob someone of their property or to take someone who is minding their own business and sell them into slavery, among other things. God's law is actually very clear and universal, and doesn't authorize a large number of the evils that Christians have felt obligated to permit under Romans 13.
You are correct that Paul did appeal to Caesar, and that is the choice that he should have made given the circumstances. However, it was also a legitimate public dispute in that context which Caesar could have provided lawful arbitration. One should also not forget that it is the right of a government to take reasonable means to suppress sedition, revolt and subversive behavior. I know that may shock most people in your camp, but I don't believe the general course of action which was perverted by Nero here is inherently an illegitimate state function. A government has a duty to its people to suppress subversive behavior, it merely **abused** that power in the case of the Apostles. However, in cases like the Communists' for example, coercive suppression of that sort of subversion is a legitimate state function.
The philosophical conundrum here is whether or not government leaders can do whatever they want. I contend that the Bible gives them no such authority whatsoever, as their being an agent of God requires them to act in total compliance with God's will. Our response to their sin may be limited as Christians, but I think that that is more of a tactical and practical matter, not a matter of principle. The martyrdom of the early church served a powerful purpose of exposing the wickedness of the authorities as they continued to slaughter when the church did not fight back. Thus their murderous ways were made clearer to the pagans watching the fight between the Roman state and the early church, and the pagans saw the evil for what it was with the Roman state rendered morally defenseless.
It is important to keep in mind that rebellion against authority is a sin precisely because it means that we shall not submit to legitimate authority. If one in authority commits blatantly criminal acts, then they are not immune from the course of justice like anyone else. As long as a Christian's pursuit is justice in accordance with the natural law, they cannot be said to be in rebellion against authority because their very goal is to defend God's established authority.