Can Christians disobey the Government?

[Jereth]

The Bible commands us to obey secular rulers and governments -- Matt 22:15-22, Romans 13, 1 Peter 2:13-17

However, Christians have at various times in history felt it appropriate to disobey or even revolt against their governments. A well known example from the 20th century is Dietrich Bonhoeffer who participated in a plot against Adolf Hitler. Some Christians have conscientiously objected to the draft on grounds of pacifist ideology or disagreeing with a particular war.

In this state, Christians regularly turn a blind eye to the state's "religious vilification" laws when they preach that Islam, Buddhism, etc. are false religions.

In these current times we have the Catholic church encouraging its medical and nursing staff to disobey proposed abortion legislation with its "conscientious objection" clause. Christians health professionals of all colours are likely to break the incoming law unless it is amended. I have written to my upper house MPs telling them that I intend to break the proposed law..

excerpt from Jereth's letter to his Legislative Council MPs wrote:

Secondly, I urge you to support an amendment which removes the "conscientious objection" clause which demands that all doctors and nurses who have a personal moral objection to abortion must provide a referral to another practitioner who will provide an abortion. The clause as it stands represents a serious breach of the freedom of thought and expression which we enjoy in this democracy. Many doctors, including myself, will be forced on grounds of conscience to break the law if this clause is not removed.

My question for discussion is: are there grounds for such civil disobedience when our infallible Scriptures so clearly command civil obedience?
(I have my own understanding of this which I might share later but I want to hear what others think)

Jereth

[Andrew Moody]

Not can. Must.
But only when the state demands that you disobey God by commission or omission (Acts 4:19) - clearly this is true for doctors under this evil law.

I don't think that means we can disobey unjust governments generally* - they are set up by God and answerable to him. We are not entitled to break the law to stop abortion,† though we must not take part in it.

Of course there are many complications on these questions generally eg.:

- how do we judge whether a government is a legitimately instituted authority? For example was Hitler due to the honour demanded by Rom 13 given that he acceded by putsch?
- to whom are we supposed to loyal when different arms of government (eg. parliament vs king) go to war?
- what happens when a government acts unconstitutionally or breaks its own external treaties? (The Russian dissidents made use of this in the Soviet era).
- Should we withold our taxes if we our money is going to fund abortion? (Tricky question! Though I suspect governments in the NT age would have been doing equally wicked things with taxed supply and there is no mention of this caveat).


* ie. I don't think Christians are entitled to be revolutionaries (pace Samuel Rutherford)
† It always strikes me as odd how people who are gung-ho for Bonnhoeffer and MLK etc. are very down on those who attack abortion facilities. Surely we are either allowed to reform society by principled usurpation or we are not. Of course I am very happy to live in a constitutional monarchy and enjoy the fruits of the English Revolution :-) hmmm.

[Jereth]

Andrew Moody wrote:

† It always strikes me as odd how people who are gung-ho for Bonnhoeffer and MLK etc. are very down on

does MLK = Martin Luther King?
If yes, did he actually break laws/revolt against his Government, or were his protests conducted within the law?
Jereth

[Justin Denholm]

Yes, I think that the statements Archbishop Hart and the Catholic hospital boards have made is very reasonable and faithful practice, and they should be commended for it.

It is worth noting that the statements they are making, rather than being disobedient to the government, are actually about being obedient. Before the law is passed, they are signalling their difficulties and trying to provide the government with a means by which they can obey the law while still being faithful to God; ie by the introduction of provisions for conscientious objection. Should the government ignore this and press on in full knowledge that the legislation asks things Christians cannot give in good conscience, then they must be aware that consequences such as these will follow.

[Jereth]

Thanks for the responses, chaps. Some further thoughts:

I ask this question about civil disobedience very seriously. Being the fundamentalist biblical inerranist that I am, I need a robust reason to go against the clear biblical commands about obedience to Government. At first glance, those texts -- Matt 22:15-22, Romans 13, 1 Peter 2:13-17 -- don't appear to provide any qualifications, caveats or exception clauses. Jesus doesn't say "Give your taxes to Caesar except when..." and Paul doesn't say "be subject to the governing authorties except when...". I believe we must take these scriptures very, very seriously.

Therefore, I think that I would err on the side of obeying Government unless doing so created a moral emergency.

So my responses to Andrew (with an element of devil's advocacy) are:
- should we be picking hairs about whether Governments are "legitimately instituted"? How many Governments in the history of this world have been "legitimately instituted"? Was Nero Caesar (the ruler in Paul's day) "legitimately istituted" or did he grab power for himself like Hitler? Paul says: For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist [irrespective of how they came into existence!] have been instituted by God
- Does it matter who sends a country to war? Unless the war is blatantly unjust/immoral I think a Christian should go so long as the war has been commanded by a legitimate Government whether that is an emperor, king, queen, parliament, president or military dictatorship. If I had been drafted into WW1, WW2 (on the Allied side), Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq I would have gone -- even though with the exception of WW2 and Afghanistan all of these wars were (with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight) rather ill-conceived -- because none of these wars (I would argue) were fundamentally immoral in what they sought to achieve
- re: constitutions and treaties- I think it would still depend on whether what is happening is fundamentally immoral. Again I don't see anything in those Scriptural texts which allow an easy exception to be made on these sorts of grounds
- Much as I detest abortion, and am nauseated by the thought of my tax money going to abortion, I believe we must still pay our taxes in obedience to Jesus' command. Otherwise we go down a slippery slope where anything about a Government's policy that I don't like is a reason to withhold taxes! And I'm sure that's not in keeping with Jesus' understanding of render unto Caesar.

I am still after a robust explanation, grounded in solid Scripture and theology, of when it is appropriate for Christians to be disobedient to Government. Without this I will not be prepared to disobey a clear Scripture such as Rom 13.

cheers
Jereth