Christian Pacifism and Submission to Authority

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.   Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.  For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.  Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. – 1 Peter 2:11-17

The key to understanding Peter’s statements about submission to authority is in verse 12 -- Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. 

Christianity was a much-maligned religion, from the very first.  The religious leaders of Jerusalem brought Jesus before Pilate and accused Him of “…misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king” (Luke 23:2).  The early Church was considered a heretical cult and frequently attacked with egregiously false accusations as can be seen throughout the Book of Acts.  Christians were being persecuted on the basis of lies and rumors, charged with disloyalty and disruption.

In order to counter these allegations, Peter advised all followers of Christ to live as wisely and quietly as possible for the sake of their neighbors by – as much as was possible – being law-abiding and loyal subjects of Rome.  He commanded the Christians within the Empire to live circumspect and holy lives to the betterment of their own souls, and also that those who lived around them might see the indictments leveled against the followers of Jesus were baseless.  Their attitudes and actions would "...put to silence the ignorance of foolish people".

Essentially this has nothing to do with opposition to tyranny, oppression, injustice, evil, or unrighteousness.  There is a historical context in which Peter’s words make perfect sense and can be clearly understood.  The founding of the Church in the midst of a pagan, polytheistic society happened exactly one time in history.  There is one unique moment in the flow of time (eternity is another matter as we discussed recently) when Jesus was crucified, when the message of the Cross began to be proclaimed openly, no longer in types and shadows. 

The Church was established and the world has been changed ever since.  The Founders were children of a Christian culture.  They might know Aristotle and Plato, Horace and Virgil, but these ancients were filtered through Paul, Aquinas, and Augustine.  The Cross did its work in bringing truth into focus.  The foundation had been laid.  America was built upon what existed. 

When the king claims to be a Christian yet acts and rules in a way that is contrary to Christian principles, the circumstances are very different than acts by an avowed pagan or a secularist ruler.  The Founders understood that King George III expressed the same faith and values as the majority of his colonists – in general.  He could be held accountable for his views against the plumb line of revelation. 

So today we who are Christians in a somewhat less Christian, we might say, post-Christian world are yet in a different situation than that to which Peter spoke.  The principles apply, but the exact situational constraints differ.  We must be witnesses of holiness and righteousness, living godly lives that testify to our faith.  This has not changed.  However, we need not submit to whims of the despotic and dictatorial.  We are free to resist laws and requirements that violate the God-given rights of the individual as revealed not only in Scripture and the traditions of Western Civilization but even those encoded in the Constitution, usually acknowledged as the supreme law of the land, as a restraint upon an oppressive, overreaching central government. 

I can choose to willing surrender my own rights, my own property, even my own life rather than resist totalitarian dictates.  I cannot choose to surrender the rights, property, or lives of others.  I must and will do what I can to support and defend those who are being robbed, defrauded and abused whether the agent of injustice is an individual, a mob, or a state.  

Friends, if you saw a man snatch a purse from an elderly lady in the parking lot of Wal-Mart, you would have every right to run him down and beat him if need be in order to restore that woman's property.  It does not matter if the city passes a law forbidding such action.  That makes it illegal.  It does not make it wrong.  The law itself is wrong.  If the attacking thug is wearing a TSA uniform and has the permission of his or her superiors all the way up to Washington, D.C., abusing a citizen is still wrong and no law will ever make it right.  

You can draw your own conclusions and follow your own conscience.  I give no advice or counsel other than to say, pick your battles carefully and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.