A far better place than a blog to read up on this issue would be to pick up Samuel Rutherford’s classic work, Lex Rex. I am currently hard at work writing a children’s American history text and am right now writing on the American Revolution. It is an event that defines us, that we celebrate, but, truth be told, I’m not so sure it was right. That said, on the other side stands not only generations of flag waving Americans but at the time of the Revolution the most robust defenses of the war flowed from the pens of Presbyterian pastors.
The church has long held, on the basis of the fifth commandment and Romans 13, that Christians have an obligation to obey those who are in authority over them, whether it is citizens under a government, laity under elders, children under parents, unless or until the authority commands those under that authority to do what God clearly forbids or they forbid those under authority to do what God clearly commands. This is why Peter told the authorities that he had to obey God’s command to preach Jesus, and defy their command to cease (Acts 5).
There is, however, a great chasm that separates a commitment to disobey someone in authority over me and seeking to seize that authority for myself. My own reading of Romans 13 leaves little room for the latter, no matter how robust an understanding we give to Acts 5. Even so, I’m sympathetic to one argument in favor of the American Revolution.
There were some in the time of the Revolution, and some in our day, who argued that while the war was just, it could not justly be called a revolution. These scholars would argue that our founding fathers were fighting not for revolution, but against it. The colonies were chartered institutions under the authority of King George III. When he sought to put them under the authority of the British Parliament, he became the revolutionary. Parliament was all too willing to claim authority they did not have, and our fathers boldly objected.
The greater issue, however, than whether our fathers were in the right more than 200 years ago, but if we are ever called to follow in their footsteps. We are in the midst of steep cultural decline. Our lawmakers are behaving with increasing lawlessness. They are likewise increasingly aggressive in their claims to be able to override our own consciences. Could it happen again? Should it happen again?
Here is one more place that it is critical that we would be more focused on our own sins than on the sins of others. The overwhelming message of the Bible is submission, peace, obedience. And it in turn tells us that all of us, not just those tyrants who rule over us, are prone to abusing power, and are wont to rebel when we should not. Complacency in the church, a contented spirit watching our culture circle the drain is a genuine and widespread problem. Most of you reading this, and the one writing it however, fall off the other side of the horse. We tend to be impatient, hot-headed, cock-sure, pseudo-Jacobins. We would do well to get a firm grip on our call to submit to the Word of God, and its call to submit to the governing authorities. And to avail ourselves of all biblical means in the pursuit of justice.