“The Governing Authorities”
Attorney General Sessions renewed a debate on Christians and government, by quoting Romans 13:1 to bolster up a controversial policy of separating children from their parents at the US-Mexico border.
Sessions said:
“I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order. Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.”
This raises the question: what devotion do we owe our government? Do they really have a blank authoritarian check, as it were, from God?
| Ancient empires such as the Qin dynasty (221-207 BC) in China have commanded elaborate shows of devotion, such as the thousands of terracotta warriors and entertainers buried with the emperor. |
Parables and Power
To answer this, I want to consider the context of a famous saying of Jesus’: “render to Caesar.” In Matthew 21-22, Jesus has just finished telling a couple of parables: one about the owner of a vineyard who first sends servants, and then his son to the tenants to whom he has left his vineyard. The tenants abuse and kill the servants and son, and lose (we are left to assume) their status as tenants.
From this we can glean that, when God entrusts someone with a responsibility, it matters how that responsibility is carried out.
| A vineyard. Presumably well-run. |
In another parable, people spurn a king’s wedding invitation, killing the messengers, and are consequently put to death. Then, others are invited in their place. One of these newcomers has the audacity to show up underdressed, and is kicked out of the wedding into the outer darkness. Again, people’s response to God is foregrounded, here.
| The Wedding at Cana (depicted here by late-renaissance painter Paolo Veronese). Perhaps this parable reminds us of the first public miracle of Jesus at the wedding depicted here… |
What Do We Owe God?
It is pretty clear from the context that the pharisees and the religious elite are Jesus’ intended target in the parables preceding his “render to Caesar” remark: “ When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them” (Matthew 21:45). By extension, we might include ourselves as Christians in this. We have, after all, been entrusted with God’s truth. How have we handled it?
In the case of the religious elite, Jesus’ rebuke does not cause them to alter course; instead, they press the attack on Jesus, by asking whether or not it is lawful to pay the tax to Caesar. As a state and people subject to the Romans, the tax was mandatory, but also something that I imagine a subjugated people chafed at. Either Jesus would disappoint the Roman authorities or the Jewish people–with dire consequences.
To avoid both of these possibilities, Jesus commands: “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21b). But, what does this mean for us today?
The Government as Idol
Jesus’ statement recasts any discussion of government as a discussion of allegiance. Does our decision to support a government and its policies stem from its rightness in the eyes of God, or from a misplaced allegiance to the government as god?
To further explore Jesus’ statement, we might turn back to Romans 13, where Paul echoes Jesus’ saying: “Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.” (Romans 13:7). By Paul’s formulation, here, we can safely imagine that there are people and institutions not owed certain levels of respect. Or, to put it as Jesus did, some things are God’s, not government’s.
The government which we are to obey has some key characteristics:
- It is not a terror to good conduct (v. 3). In other words, doing good is always acceptable.
- It has a right to certain levels of respect, including the payment of taxes. (v.7)
In addition, the government is established by God, as an instrument of God’s justice. Yet, history is replete with examples of unjust governments. And just prior to this passage, in Romans 12:21, Paul encourages his readers: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
I humbly submit that if our allegiance to government asks us to abandon what we know is right for something evil, that our responsibility to persist in doing good is clear. Anything less than this is idolatry.
The government is far from the only idol the world offers us. But, it is a common one. In many cultures, the ruler is envisioned as divine, or semi-divine and worthy of some sort of veneration or worship.
| The god, Shamash, gives Hammurabi the law in his famous code, signifying the connection in authority between the gods and the ruler. |
This was the case in Rome, as well.
“The imperial cult helped to focus the loyalty of provincials on the emperor at the centre of the empire, and in some regions (such as Gaul), there is evidence that Roman authorities took the initiative in setting it up, presumably for that very reason.”
When Jesus’ followers confronted this level of devotion to the emperor, they could not go along with worshipping the emperor (who was elevated to the status of a god after death). But, there were some levels of devotion that were appropriate, such as the payment of taxes.
Intimations of a Way Forward
Paul was a man who would not be silenced, even by prison, from spreading his message. So, there is a level at which he resisted the government and authorities over him, ultimately paying the price of beatings and jail–and according to tradition, his life.
What is demanded of Christians is not blind allegiance to government or approval of all its policies. It is rather the discernment to know what things belong to Caesar, and that our ultimate allegiance and responsibility–like that of the governments established by God–is to God, not people. Otherwise, how could the apostles confidently declare, when ordered to be silent about Jesus, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:27)?
The Foreigner and the Child
Returning to Jeff Sessions’ statement, there are some questions we as Christians must ask ourselves:
What led to my initial, gut response to this issue?
Is the policy of enforcing immigration laws moral or immoral, by God’s standards?
Is the policy of separating all children from parents at the border moral or immoral by God’s standards?
- The response to this question might indicate some form of idolatry. If I believe the government is the only or primary defense between myself and threats from abroad (instead of a tool God can use), then perhaps I ascribe to government a power possessed by God.
- If enforcing immigration laws is itself immoral in God’s eyes, then we would go against God to support such a policy. I believe God would want sensible and just laws, and we must ask ourselves if the laws on the books are such. For a thorough discussion of this issue, I commend to you Mark Amstutz’s exploration.
- Let us assume (for the sake of argument) that immigration laws, as they are in the US, are just. This does not mean that the implementation of these laws is just.
If we follow a God who “watches over the foreigner, and sustains the fatherless and the widow” (Ps. 146: 9), and a God seen being worshipped by “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Revelation 7:9)–it seems to me that we cannot overlook the plight of a person regardless of their point of origin, or presence in a country legally or illegally.
Can we value the family as a key unit of God’s design for humanity (as demonstrated by the creation account in Genesis and the book of Proverbs, which views the family as a place of instruction and security) and support a policy that separates families, categorically?
President Trump has since issued an executive order reversing the policy of child separation, but this issue is an important test of our allegiance: is it to God, to a person, to a country, or a policy, or our own sense of security–or even to categorical opposition to the current administration? None of these is worthy of our allegiance.
We should render to God what is God’s.
