In last night's news:
Putting Romans 13 forward, as if it were a clear manifestation of all the ways in which Christians relate to the state government, clearly misunderstands Paul. But, more importantly, it ignores the overwhelming way in which Christian discipleship shapes political life.
If you're going to read Romans 13, you also have to read Revelation 13.
Romans 13, specifically, sends chills down my spine when read in the way Jeff Sessions, and so many others in this current American administration, want me to read it. This text has been used over the centuries to justify every conceivable kind of oppression and tyranny. It has also been used to stifle criticism of the powers that be and to resist any effort at reform. This passage has been quoted at Sojourner Truth and Martin Luther King. To people who hang around Jesus, to quote the Bible in the way Jeff Sessions quotes the Bible seems repressive.
And it should.
But it hasn't always been heard that way.
Until the Nazi era, most German citizens were perfectly happy to read Romans 13 the way Jeff Sessions reads Romans 13. As Hitler rose to power, however, the German Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer found himself forced to rethink all that he had previously taken for granted. Sometimes it was necessary, he mused, "not just to bandage the victims under the wheel, but to put a spoke in the wheel itself. Such action would be direct political action". Bonhoeffer became that spoke through his commitment to nonviolence (you can disregard all those lies about Bonhoeffer being involved in some conspiracy to assassinate Hitler -- he wasn't) -- a commitment that ultimately cost Bonhoeffer his life, as an "enemy of the state".
Exercising the spiritual gift called discernment, Bonhoeffer had chosen direct political action against the Beast of Revelation 13.
Here's the thing Jeff Sessions -- and so many conservative American Christians along with him -- miss: Discernment is the genius of Christian discipleship. It's the spiritual gift that enables the people of God to distinguish and recognize, identify and expose, report and rebuke the power of death in nations and institutions. We affirm that the Word of Life in Jesus Christ exposes and rebukes any idolatry, but particularly that blasphemy that parades itself as divine political power.
I think what's necessary in our own time is the discernment of reading Romans 13 in light of Revelation 13. That is, Romans 13 only makes sense as a people committed to discerning those times and places in which the Beast of Revelation 13 demands obedience. Because, as Paul adds in Romans 13.11: "Always remember that this is the hour of crisis". This "hour" -- what Paul calls kairos in Greek -- is different from the "hour" that marks our daily time (chronos). This kairos is a seeing through the events of the day to perceive the activity of God in and through those events.
To quote Paul at some length here:
What Paul means is that the coming of Christ into the world, his crucifixion by the powers and principalities, his Resurrection from the dead and his coming in the future have overturned all previous perspectives upon human life in this world. The section in Romans 13 about the government sounds like ordinary conservative rhetoric about bowing down before the powers that be until you see it in its context. Our text is bracketed by, on the front end, Paul's radical world-displacing call, Do not be conformed to this age (Romans 12.1) and on the back end by you know what hour it is ... the night is far gone, the day is at hand. For most of the twentieth century, these dramatic texts have been the companions of Christians who have struggled against tyranny and oppression. Romans 13 in its context and Revelation 13 matched with it have created an extraordinary dialectic for reading the signs of the times.
Not so long ago I wrote a commentary on the Book of Revelation. I believe American Christians have been sold a bill of goods about that book that keeps us from reading Revelation 13 as a political statement that stands alongside Romans 13. Ours is a cosmic, political struggle that has been ongoing since before Jesus. But in Jesus, God won that struggle in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Both Romans 13 and Revelation 13 call government into question because both of them make clear that government is only provisional. Neither Paul nor Revelation give ultimate legitimacy to any human institution. Once we know this, it keeps us from taking any present arrangement with anything more than temporary seriousness.
That's what Jeff Sessions misses, precisely because Jeff Sessions represents the powers that be on that cosmic struggle.
If you're going to read Romans 13, you also have to read Revelation 13.
Romans 13, specifically, sends chills down my spine when read in the way Jeff Sessions, and so many others in this current American administration, want me to read it. This text has been used over the centuries to justify every conceivable kind of oppression and tyranny. It has also been used to stifle criticism of the powers that be and to resist any effort at reform. This passage has been quoted at Sojourner Truth and Martin Luther King. To people who hang around Jesus, to quote the Bible in the way Jeff Sessions quotes the Bible seems repressive.
And it should.
But it hasn't always been heard that way.
Until the Nazi era, most German citizens were perfectly happy to read Romans 13 the way Jeff Sessions reads Romans 13. As Hitler rose to power, however, the German Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer found himself forced to rethink all that he had previously taken for granted. Sometimes it was necessary, he mused, "not just to bandage the victims under the wheel, but to put a spoke in the wheel itself. Such action would be direct political action". Bonhoeffer became that spoke through his commitment to nonviolence (you can disregard all those lies about Bonhoeffer being involved in some conspiracy to assassinate Hitler -- he wasn't) -- a commitment that ultimately cost Bonhoeffer his life, as an "enemy of the state".
Exercising the spiritual gift called discernment, Bonhoeffer had chosen direct political action against the Beast of Revelation 13.
Here's the thing Jeff Sessions -- and so many conservative American Christians along with him -- miss: Discernment is the genius of Christian discipleship. It's the spiritual gift that enables the people of God to distinguish and recognize, identify and expose, report and rebuke the power of death in nations and institutions. We affirm that the Word of Life in Jesus Christ exposes and rebukes any idolatry, but particularly that blasphemy that parades itself as divine political power.
I think what's necessary in our own time is the discernment of reading Romans 13 in light of Revelation 13. That is, Romans 13 only makes sense as a people committed to discerning those times and places in which the Beast of Revelation 13 demands obedience. Because, as Paul adds in Romans 13.11: "Always remember that this is the hour of crisis". This "hour" -- what Paul calls kairos in Greek -- is different from the "hour" that marks our daily time (chronos). This kairos is a seeing through the events of the day to perceive the activity of God in and through those events.
To quote Paul at some length here:
... you know what hour it is, how it is full time now for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed; the night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light ... put on the Lord Jesus Christ ...So what does that mean in the same context as Paul's admonition to obey the government?
What Paul means is that the coming of Christ into the world, his crucifixion by the powers and principalities, his Resurrection from the dead and his coming in the future have overturned all previous perspectives upon human life in this world. The section in Romans 13 about the government sounds like ordinary conservative rhetoric about bowing down before the powers that be until you see it in its context. Our text is bracketed by, on the front end, Paul's radical world-displacing call, Do not be conformed to this age (Romans 12.1) and on the back end by you know what hour it is ... the night is far gone, the day is at hand. For most of the twentieth century, these dramatic texts have been the companions of Christians who have struggled against tyranny and oppression. Romans 13 in its context and Revelation 13 matched with it have created an extraordinary dialectic for reading the signs of the times.
Not so long ago I wrote a commentary on the Book of Revelation. I believe American Christians have been sold a bill of goods about that book that keeps us from reading Revelation 13 as a political statement that stands alongside Romans 13. Ours is a cosmic, political struggle that has been ongoing since before Jesus. But in Jesus, God won that struggle in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Both Romans 13 and Revelation 13 call government into question because both of them make clear that government is only provisional. Neither Paul nor Revelation give ultimate legitimacy to any human institution. Once we know this, it keeps us from taking any present arrangement with anything more than temporary seriousness.
That's what Jeff Sessions misses, precisely because Jeff Sessions represents the powers that be on that cosmic struggle.