Direction The Christian Community and Political Responsibility Romans 131-7
Direction: The Christian Community and Political Responsibility: Romans 13:1-7
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Spring 2003 · Vol. 32 No. 1 · 32-46Previous Next
Categories: Bible: New Testament, Ethics,
Peace/Justice/Nonresistance, Politics/State and Church, Theology:
Biblical and Systematic
The Christian Community and Political Responsibility: Romans 13:1-7
Jon Isaak
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for
there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that
exist have been instituted by God (Romans 13:1 NRSV).
Paul’s counsel in Romans 13:1-7 has had a significant impact on
Christian communities who are sorting out their political
responsibility (see Dick; Neufeld). Global and local crises continue
to cause much suffering and keep current the question, What is the
Christian community’s political responsibility?
The dominant western reading of Romans 12 and 13 promotes a
business-as-usual understanding of the relationship between the
government and the Christian community.
Interpretations of Romans 13:1-7 have varied through its history of
informing Christian reflection on political responsibility (Toews,
51-53). Initially the text was received as an exhortation urging
Christian communities not to resist the state’s efforts to govern,
without any endorsement of the state or its policies. However, by
the fifth century, it was read quite differently. Paul’s exhortation
originally aimed at Christians was reversed to make two rather
exalted claims about the state: (1) the state is justified in its
use of force (and even violence) to protect its interests (which are
argued to be derivative of God’s interests), and (2) the church is
responsible to lend full support to the state’s execution of justice
(which is argued to be derivative of God’s justice).
After the church’s rise to political power beginning in the fourth
{33} century, it was Augustine in response to the fall of Rome in
the year 410 that clearly set out a vision for a worldwide society
where the church played a major role. In his view the church was
part of the anticipated “Heavenly City” that used the means of the
“earthly city” in its “pilgrimage” toward “heavenly peace” (see City
of God, Book XIX, Chapter 17). Augustine’s vision for church-state
relations continues to inform contemporary western thinking.
The transformation of Romans 13:1-7 has been remarkable. A text that
initially said very little about the state was eventually read to
say much about the state and about the Christian community’s
political responsibility to align itself with the state. Many today
would argue that the contemporary western appropriation of Romans
13:1-7 with its strong endorsement of the state still resonates with
the thrust of Paul’s vision for Christian political responsibility.
Is this tenable? Perhaps the cultural and contextual factors that
led to the transformation of the interpretation of Romans 13:1-7 are
more significant than many allow.
In this essay I will again explore Paul’s much-debated exhortation
in Romans 13:1-7 in order to recover a sense of the early Christian
vision for political responsibility that drove Paul to write these
words in the first place. I will show that the contemporary western
interpretation cannot be accepted as a valid contextualization, but
must be seen as a significant reversal of the thrust of Paul’s
vision for Christian political responsibility. My aim is to clarify
Paul’s vision for Christian political responsibility by paying close
attention both to the social world from which the text emerged and
to the western social context within which this text has taken root.
The fruit of this enterprise will be to set out an alternative
reading for contemporary appropriation, one which resonates more
deeply with the vision for Christian political engagement that
characterized Paul and the early Christians. In our increasingly
post-Christian western world, I suggest that such an alliance with
early Christian communities may be increasingly more comprehensible.
THE DOMINANT WESTERN READING OF ROMANS 12 AND 13
Before beginning a close reading of Romans 13, it is helpful to be
reminded how Romans 12 and 13 are typically interpreted by
Christians in the western world. In the quote below, Skillen and
Pavlischek, respected Christian political analysts, articulate a
Protestant interpretation of Romans 12 and 13 (see Luther, 163-65;
Calvin, 280-81). In this view the government is understood to be
instituted by God and mandated to execute God’s judgments (note the
continuity with Augustine’s {34} Christian theology of the state).
While the paragraph is short, it gives a clear sense of what might
be called the dominant western reading of Romans 12 and 13.
To put the issues in sharp relief, I suggest that the paragraph be
read with the following three questions in mind: (1) According to
Skillen and Pavlischek, what role does Jesus now play in the church
and society? (2) How is the Christian to think about personal
justice and state-sponsored public justice? and (3) How is the
relationship between the church and the state conceptualized?
In Romans 12, we would argue, Paul is indeed affirming that the
people of God must not try to preserve themselves by means of
taking out personal vengeance against their neighbors. Such
violence begets more violence. That is the very reason why God,
not for the first time in Jesus, but long ago at the foundations
of Israel, established offices for the purpose of conducting
public, impersonal judgment. Those offices of judges and courts
and kings were commissioned to enact justice precisely so that the
cycle of personal vengeance could be stopped. In Romans 13, then,
Paul is reiterating the teaching about one of God’s gracious
blessings for all people that is fully consistent with the new
administration of the world by Christ. Divinely appointed
officials (not just in Israel) have been appointed by God to enact
a measure of God’s punishment against crimes to protect Christians
as well as non-Christians so they don’t have even to think about
exercising personal vengeance to achieve justice. (Skillen and
Pavlischek, 443)
In regard to the questions posed above, Skillen and Pavlischek claim
that Jesus heads up the “new administration,” but that things
continue as they have from the “foundation of Israel.” In other
words, it is largely “business as usual,” only now there is a new
boss; the means and exercise of power are the same as before (i.e.,
exclusion, scapegoating, violence, etc.). How then is the Christian
to think about personal justice and state-sponsored public justice?
According to Skillen and Pavlischek, these are meant to be
different. A Christian is morally prevented from using personal
vengeance (as in Rom. 12), yet the state is mandated by God to
execute public or impersonal justice (as in Rom. 13). The two are
not the same. The Christian as an individual is guided by one set of
standards and the state another, almost as if there are two {35}
kingdoms operating at the same time.
So how is the relationship between church and state conceptualized?
For Skillen and Pavlischek, while the gap between the two kingdoms
exists, the Christian community retains much confidence in the
state’s potential for good, because it has God’s endorsement and
governs in God’s name. Christians are told to be grateful that the
state executes “God’s punishment,” so that they need not “have to
even think about exercising personal vengeance.” There is direct
correspondence between God, the state, and the church. Furthermore,
the church aims to transform the state gradually so that, over time,
Christian values inform the state and in the end the synthesis is
complete: God, the state, and the church are one.
This is not the only way to read this text. In fact, it is unlikely
that this is how the Roman Christians received Paul’s instructions.
An alternative reading answers the above three questions quite
differently. A close examination of the text and of our western
context will yield, I believe, an interpretation that is more
christologically rigorous, more ethically consistent, and more
politically discerning. While it may seem presumptuous to reverse
centuries of interpretation, I join a vocal minority of voices
calling for a reassessment of Christian political responsibility
(see Yoder, Toews, Hays, Johnson, Wink).
PAUL’S VISION FOR CHRISTIAN POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY
A close reading of Romans 13:1-7 begins by noting that this text is
part of, and should not be separated from, a larger section in
Paul’s letter to the Romans (12:1–13:14) where Paul describes the
transformation associated with being identified with God’s people
(Yoder, 197). Paul has just completed a lengthy eleven-chapter
argument showing that God is indeed faithful, and God has not broken
the covenant with God’s people. Now, beginning with chapter 12, Paul
turns to spelling out the implications for Jews and Gentiles of
being identified with the newly reconfigured people of God, gathered
around Jesus.
In effect, Paul explains how Jesus’ faithful life serves to
reconstitute God’s people, to fill out the understanding of God, to
expose death-dealing powers for what they are, and to enable others
to follow Jesus’ way. Paul characterizes this movement as being “in
Christ” and as effecting a real moral transformation. Something new
actually happens to the person who becomes a Christian and is joined
to this newly reconfigured people. By joining the people of God, now
gathered around Jesus, people access their true identity and find
that Jesus’ story becomes their story as well. {36}
After Paul sets out the basis for the transformation of moral
consciousness (12:1-2), he then explores how the Christian
community’s corporate existence (as one body) reshapes its own
values (12:3-8). Next, Paul turns to several practical implications
for what it means to live this righteous corporate life
(12:9–13:10). It is in this last section where Christian political
responsibility is addressed. Paul proceeds to set out three “norms”
that characterize his vision for the behavior of the “new
collective” that gives witness to God’s newly redefined people.
Norm #1: Overcoming Evil with Good (Rom. 12:9-21)
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom.
12:21 NRSV). Paul begins by listing virtues that are standard moral
exhortations. His list of classical virtues—love, honor, hope,
patience, generosity, hospitality—would have been well-received by
first-century Romans (Johnson, 183). However, in a rather bold move,
Paul then subverts the standard moral theory by calling believers to
a life characterized by nonstandard behavior: “bless those who
persecute you,” “associate with the lowly,” and “do not repay anyone
evil for evil.” This is not typical behavior (Johnson, 183).
Instead, the norm for Christian morality is to be informed by the
life of Messiah Jesus. In contrast to the typical social code of
paying back enemies, Paul holds up the template of Jesus to counter
humanity’s natural desire for revenge (note the echoes of Jesus’
teaching from the Sermon on the Mount, Matt. 5-7).
Paul continues with reminders to “live peaceably with all” and
“never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath [of God]”
(12:17-19). For Paul, this is not passive acceptance of evil with
gleeful delight in imagining some future time when our enemies “will
really get it!” No, for Paul, the language of “wrath” is simply the
most graphic way of expressing the consequences experienced when
people deny their true identity as God’s beloved. “The consequences
of persistent rejection are horrible,” says Paul, because by
removing ourselves from God’s love, we cannot live. The potential
for such destruction cannot be minimized.
Important to note is the way Paul backs up his assertion:
vindication is God’s prerogative (12:19). What exactly does this
mean? It appears that God’s “vengeance” is different from human
vengeance. Typically people understand vengeance to be based on the
removal of previous good will. However, because God’s love for
creation does not change, God’s vengeance must have more to do with
the “public righting of wrong” (Kraus, 210).
At first glance, then, Paul’s picture of the ultimately redemptive
character of God’s vengeance would seem difficult to square with the
{37} obscure reference to doing good to enemies—in such a way that
it “will heap burning coals on their heads” (12:20). How could this
match with God’s redemptive vengeance? It sounds like a form of
psychological revenge: a manipulative technique to get the enemy to
say, “I’m sorry.”
While most commentators associate the cryptic image of “burning
coals” with punishment or shaming (in some way or other), it may
well be a reference to an ancient Egyptian reconciliation ritual
(Klassen, 343). Apparently, by giving coals of fire to the one you
have wronged, you show that you are sorry for hurting them (fire is
a valuable commodity for desert people where wood for cooking and
heating is not in abundance). Paul takes this ancient figure (Prov.
25:21-22) and modifies it for his purpose here—such life-giving
demonstrations of restored relationships are regularly to
characterize the hope the Christian community brings to all
interactions.
If this is the meaning of the proverb, Paul has used it very
effectively to illustrate the shape of Christian behavior in all
human interactions. “Heaping burning coals on the head” is not
manipulative. It is a significant life-giving act to heap
fire-starting coals into the neighbor’s—and even enemy’s—pot so that
they may carry them on their heads back to their campsites to use
and enjoy. In this way, the community is not “overcome with evil,
but overcomes evil with good.” Such behavior is not passive in the
face of evil. On the contrary, the Christian community aggressively
engages in a campaign to overcome evil using the “weapons” that
Jesus himself used: acts of love and kindness (Klassen, 348).
Norm #2: Nonaligned Submission to the Governing Authorities (Rom.
13:1-7)
“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities” (Rom.
13:1a NRSV). If the cultural allusion to “burning coals” is
difficult to imagine, these instructions in Romans 13:1-7 are even
more problematic for people living at the beginning of the
twenty-first century. Why? Quite simply, western society has quite a
different view of government. Unlike Paul, we live in a world where
democracy means governments are to submit to the will of the
people—not the other way around (people submitting to the will of
the government, as Paul seems to assert). Every politician I hear
says that this or that bill or proposition is good, not for the
government, but for the American people!
For Paul, the notion that government is the extension of the people
is completely unimaginable (Johnson, 186). Paul is describing a
worldview in which the emperor is the government. The emperor is
supreme. At the same time, in the Judeo-Christian worldview, the
emperor is somehow {38} “ordered” by God (Yoder, 203). What might
that mean?
Paul’s view of the state is rather ambivalent. Paul did not
experience Rome as an enemy (otherwise his later appeal to Caesar
for a fair hearing makes no sense), nor as a willing ally (as his
efforts to persuade Felix, Festus, and Agrippa of the truth of the
Gospel show). Instead, Paul seems to be granting things as they are
in his world. Governments have always exercised varying forms of
hierarchy, power, and authority (often domination and oppression),
and are to be respected as “ordered” by God—that is being “told
where they belong.”
Paul is simply voicing a classic Judeo-Christian worldview where
there are three basic levels in the hierarchy: God, the powers, and
humanity, in that order (Ps. 8:5; Heb. 2:7). Paul, like other early
Christians (Acts 5:29), was convinced that even though Christians
live now in qualified subordination to the powers, one day they will
join Messiah Jesus in judging/redeeming the powers (1 Cor. 6:3).
This will amount to an inversion of the hierarchy, which explains
the “heel” and “footstool” language that characterizes the final
“wrap-up” of the Messiah’s appearing (Ps. 110:1; 1 Cor. 15:25; Rom.
16:20; Heb. 10:13). At any rate, the Judeo-Christian worldview is
noticeably different from the pagan and the western worldviews.
In the pagan system, chaos rules and the gods fight among themselves
to bring order to the chaos. Humanity is obligated to one god or
another and in some way carries on the celestial conflict in a
parallel manner on earth against fellow human beings (Hiebert,
117-18).
By way of contrast, the Judeo-Christian worldview begins with God,
prior to the chaos (Gen. 1:1), who creates the cosmos and orders
“the powers” to carry out God’s purpose. Essential to this view is
that humanity is invited to participate in God’s ongoing creation by
giving {39} witness of God’s way to “the powers” and by completing
this process with Messiah Jesus at the end of the age (Hiebert,
118-23).
Contemporary western democracy is quite different from either of the
other two systems. Here elected officials derive their power and
authority from the people that elect them. God’s involvement (or
even that of the powers) is unnecessary for the logic of this
system. A “nonpowers” construal of the state would have been
unimaginable for Paul. To complicate matters further, not only does
contemporary western democracy say much less than Paul would about
the character of the state, but most popular Christian theology says
much more about the state than this text allows (Käsemann 1969,
205-6; 1980, 354). Paul should not be heard in Romans 13:1-7 to give
the state automatic endorsement nor to call for the church’s
automatic allegiance to the state.
For Paul, it was expedient to be on good terms with Rome. He
probably saw Rome as the means by which the gospel could be promoted
and extended into the world as it was then known (Johnson, 187). And
Paul had good reason to be optimistic. Rome was remarkably tolerant
of Christianity at first—until the beliefs of the early Christians
(e.g., refusal to give primary allegiance to the emperor) began to
threaten the authority of Rome later in the second and third
centuries.
Paul never imagined a situation like ours where government is “us”
and not “them.” So, what can we say? Is Paul’s vision so foreign
that it is inaccessible at the beginning of the twenty-first
century? I do not think so. A close reading reveals a much more
nuanced interaction with the social structures than is often
understood. I believe that it is possible to develop imaginative
analogies that can place contemporary faith communities within the
theological vision articulated by Paul on the occasion of a very
particular situation in Rome. Such an exercise will go a long way
toward helping Christian communities chart a vision for political
responsibility.
With this in mind, four ideals along with corresponding
implications—can be drawn from these seven verses.
(1) God orders the powers. Paul situates his instructions by drawing
on the Genesis creation stories, in which God brings “order” to the
chaos. However, just because God created the natural order and
called this ordering “good” does not mean that all that happens in
nature is good (floods, earthquakes, etc.), or that it is complete.
In a similar way, while governments operate under God’s order, what
they do may in fact be against God! Furthermore, God cannot be held
responsible for rebellious powers or for what they do, even though
ultimately God will “bring them into line.” {40}
For Paul, the powers include the civil authorities and the spiritual
powers they represent. These powers are not “ordained” (KJV),
“established” (NIV), or “instituted” (NRSV) by God. All three
English renderings suggest God’s endorsement and are too strong a
translation of the Greek word tasso. Instead, the powers are
“ordered” by God (Yoder, 203). The state can only claim qualified
endorsement by God. As “ordered” by God who is good, these powers
(governments) have a responsibility to do good—whether they do or
not is another question (they are faithful or rebellious to varying
degrees). Nevertheless, the church labors with God’s spirit to bear
witness respectfully to the rebellious powers, inviting them to
abandon their death-dealing policies and to resume alignment with
the life-giving purposes of God. This task is one that occupies the
church for the duration of these last days and is rightly
characterized as “revolutionary subordination,” or the “politics of
Jesus” (Yoder, 190-91). Voluntary subordination is a truly
subversive approach to the powers because it is a whole new way of
living within the current political system, whatever it happens to
be. It is also profoundly missional and is understood as witness to
the world (1 Cor. 7:12-16). Such is the political responsibility of
the Christian community—a community that will not be complete until
the eschaton when it joins the returning Messiah to bring all things
in line with God’s purpose (1 Thess. 4:17).
The particular occasion that generated Paul’s counsel for restraint
here in Romans 13:1-7 appears to be rooted in an attempt by some
Christians to join with their Jewish friends in an anti-Roman tax
revolt (Borg, 205-18). However, Paul reminds the Roman Christians
that they should not be insubordinate to the state, because it is a
temporary institution serving God’s purpose (how well it performs
remains to be seen and is subject to assessment). Paul likely saw
the payment of taxes as a way of showing love to the tax collectors.
A peaceful situation would need to exist between the Roman
government and the church if Paul was to use Rome as a base for his
westward mission to Spain (Rom. 15:28-29). However, this does not
mean all resistance (even tax resistance) is ruled out; it would be
hard to imagine Paul endorsing or participating in government
policies that went expressly against the foundational principle of
loving enemy that he just set out. Nor can Paul be held responsible
for the way later so-called “Christian states” twisted his words
into mandating patriotic duty.
Implication: Christians are to be self-critical citizens of the
state while subordinating themselves to its rule, thus giving
witness to God’s ongoing mission to order all creation according to
God’s purpose. {41}
(2) Christians should give government what it is due. Paul’s focus
is on the Christian community’s responsibility to exercise good
judgment. How are the various appeals that come from “the
authorities” to be sorted out? Again Paul draws on the Jesus
tradition. Jesus said, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s
and to God that which belongs to God” (Mark 12:17). Paul’s words,
“pay to all what is due” (13:7) are probably an early commentary on
that saying of Jesus (Toews, 52).
In this way, Paul reminds the Romans that while the coins stamped
with Caesar’s image belong to him, Christians are to give God that
which is stamped with the image of God: their very lives (12:1-2).
Christians are to test and discern the ethical value of political
policies. By what criteria? The claims of the state are to be
measured by the claims of love. Does the policy promote wholeness
and life? This is what love does.
Implication: The claims of the state are subject to evaluation; they
are not absolute, but must be measured by the claims of love.
(3) Christians are to stand under the government. Paul does not use
the most common word for obedience (hypakouo) in 13:1 and 13:5
(Yoder, 212). Instead he uses a more general word, meaning “to
submit” or “to stand under” (hypotasso). There is a difference
between societal obedience (that which is automatic and
unreflective) and internal consent (that which is offered only after
reflection and assessment). Such reflection and assessment is the
“middle step” that must be inserted in all church-state relations.
The middle step is necessary because conscience (or internal
alignment) is precisely that which is to be given to no one but the
Lord Jesus Christ (12:1-2).
Paul says the Christian community is to stand under government
because of conscience (13:5). In other words, Christians stand under
government because it is right for God’s children to be supportive
of good government—not simply because they are told by their
governments to do so. Notice the emphasis is on “good” or that which
aligns with God’s good purpose. When Paul asks, “Do you wish to have
no fear of authority?” (13:3), he does not answer his own question
by saying, “Then do what the authority says.” Instead, Paul says,
“Do what is good.” The middle step of discerning whether the action
of the government is good or not must be inserted into Christian
political responsibility. This middle step, which was obvious to
Paul because of his worldview, is one that must be consciously
reinserted because the western worldview masks “the powers” and
their influence on institutions like government. Westerners are
easily fooled into thinking that democracy by definition operates in
the interests of the people (i.e., government of the people, for the
people, by the people), when in fact it is often part of {42} a
larger system of domination that uses violence to maintain itself
(Wink, 39).
Unfortunately, there are many examples of church-state relations
where middle step discernment has not been activated. Too often
Paul’s words have been abused by so-called “Christian governments”
to silence any opposition to policies that are patently
“unchristian” (e.g., unjust economic and human relations). The
silencing of Christian opposition to systematic genocide and ethnic
cleansing in Nazi Germany, South Africa, Rwanda, and elsewhere
illustrates what happens when the middle step of discernment is not
consciously embraced. While “the powers” are not often able to
“hear” critique, because they are guided by self-interest and
self-preservation, this does not release the church from its
hope-filled and lifelong mandate to “unmask” the powers and invite
them to restoration.
Implication: There may be times when internal alignment
(conscience), which now belongs to God, requires serious and
responsible disobedience, such as when obedience to government would
mean disobeying God’s good purpose for the world.
(4) The government uses the dagger. The sword (machaira) in 13:4
refers to the small dagger used by the police to ensure compliance
(Yoder, 206). There is nothing said here about the state’s right or
duty to exercise capital punishment. Until the fifth century, this
text was understood as a call to peacemaking in relation to the
government; only after the rise of imperial Christianity was the
text reversed and used as the basis for a Christian theology of the
state and as a warrant for the state’s use of lethal force in
executing justice.
Contrary to that interpretation, Paul’s aim appears to be more about
calling Christians to a nonconformist (12:1-2) and a nonviolent
(13:1-7) stance in the world, including their stance toward
government. Just because God orders the powers does not mean that
rulers will always do God’s will. Yet, the Christian community is
called to faithfully give witness to God’s ongoing mission to order
all creation according to God’s purposes. Whether the authorities
pay attention is a different question (Toews, 53).
Implication: Paul’s reference to the dagger concerns the policing
function of the state. It does not legitimize execution or the use
of violence in defense of justice. Paul is saying Christians should
not take up arms for or against the government. {43}
Norm #3: Love Which Fulfills the Torah (Rom. 13:8-10)
“Love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10b NRSV). Speaking
about the obligations of citizenry, Paul says Christians are to owe
nothing (taxes, honor, respect). Then Paul moves in a different
direction. He circles back to Torah, Israel’s living guide. While
the social norms of respect, honor, and taxes are to be met by the
Christian community, there is one debt that remains. The Christian
community remains obliged to show love continually in an ongoing
manner. In so doing, the Torah is fulfilled.
So the whole reason for the community’s existence is grounded in
love. What does Paul mean by love? He claims that the whole law is
summed up by the command to “love your neighbor as [you] yourself
[would like to be treated]” (13:9; also Gal. 5:14; cf. Matt. 7:12;
Mark 12:31; John 13:34). While he does not say it here explicitly,
Paul considers the love of God to be embodied (demonstrated) most
concretely in Jesus. Paul is clearly in the mainstream of early
Christianity which saw in Jesus the self-revelation of God’s love:
“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we
ought to lay down our lives for one another” (1 John 3:16 NRSV; cf.
Eph. 5:2, 25).
The norm of love that Paul is talking about is one of adherence to
Jesus who binds the church’s destiny to his and makes the story of
the church his story. Authentic love calls people to repentance, to
transformation, and to life—all of which are seen most clearly in
the way of Jesus, which led to the cross and the resurrection. This
is God’s way of reaching out, and it becomes the way for all as well
(Phil. 2:5-11). In this way, the Torah is fulfilled. Not only does
Jesus fulfill the purpose of the law (Rom. 10:4), but he is also the
climactic expression of everything that the Torah pointed to all
along.
Assessing the Three Norms
So, how does this alternative reading stand up to the scrutiny of
the three questions I posed to Skillen and Pavlischek? What is the
fruit of this alternative reading?
The three norms drawn from Paul’s occasional instruction to the
Roman Christian community give expression to a vision for Christian
political responsibility that is rigorous, consistent, and
discerning. First, the alternative interpretation is more
christologically rigorous. Jesus, as the self-expression of God,
sets out not only God’s way of reaching out, but also the way for
all humanity as well. Second, the alternative reading is more
ethically consistent. The Christian community’s ethic of personal
judgment does not differ from its sense of what constitutes {44}
state-sponsored public justice because both are shaped by the way of
Jesus. Third, the alternative rendering is more discerning of
political responsibility. The church’s mandate as “sign” of the
kingdom is to give witness to all, including the state, by engaging
and inviting all creation to realignment according to the way of God
as demonstrated by Jesus.
APPROPRIATING PAUL’S VISION FOR CHRISTIAN POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY
TODAY
If in fact the alternative reading of Romans 12 and 13 given above
is at all representative of its earliest reception, what guidelines
might be set out for contemporary appropriation of these two
chapters? I suggest three guidelines for embodying the witness of
Romans 12:9–13:10 today.
First, the moral conversion to which all are invited to participate
goes deeper than traditional moral instruction. Certainly the
standard virtues of society (love, respect, and excellence) are
promoted, but more fundamentally, Paul is speaking about a moral
vision that drives virtues that are not traditionally valued. Paul
calls for a revaluation or reassessment of values empowered by the
transformation of the moral conscience (12:1-2) in order to be
aligned with God’s kind of love shown concretely in the life of
Jesus. Such revaluation should also give shape to the contemporary
negotiation of values. This will likely mean, as it did then, that
down becomes up, foolishness becomes wisdom, humility leads to
glory, and evil is overcome with good.
Each subsequent Christian community, as a “living sacrifice,” must
discern just how it should express (embody) the moral vision shaped
by Jesus and what this vision means in the face of global crises.
Essential to such a revaluation is coming to terms with humanity’s
identity as God’s beloved, which makes itself evident in
loving/living the way God does. In the middle of the many calls to
join state-sanctioned vengeance and retribution, the biblical
metaphors like “exiles” and “aliens” call the church to a different
way: one that resists Augustine’s call to employ the means of
“earthly city” to promote the “Heavenly City.” The church functions,
not as the Kingdom of God, but as a “sign” of the Kingdom of God,
continuing to invite all creation to the possibility of
reconciliation, healing, and life in Christ (Kraus, 173).
Second, a great deal of imagination is needed in order to
appropriate texts like Romans 12 and 13. The cultural gap between
Paul’s symbolic world and our own is significant. We may as well get
used to the fact that what Paul viewed as self-evident (e.g.,
burning coals as sign of restoration, state as representative of
cosmic powers, etc.), may not be {45} obvious for us. Bridging the
gap is difficult, but not impossible. The Christian community
confesses that these culture-bound expressions give witness to God’s
living Word, and that God’s spirit is sufficient to work with this
“problem.”
The promise that accompanies such a “problem” is that through
creative and imaginative discernment, people can be drawn into the
drama of God’s ongoing creation work. Christian communities in every
context are invited to develop metaphorical bridges that connect
Scripture’s prophetic/apostolic witness with their contemporary
contexts. Through community discernment, ways can be found to
appropriate the vision that drives the text and to reexpress it for
faith communities in different times and cultures. In this way, very
different cultural norms can still be transformed and shaped by the
deep structure of Scripture.
One practical way to “bridge this gap” is to insert the
“middle-step” of reflection and assessment back into Christian
political engagement. The step that was obvious (and unstated) for
Paul is not obvious today. Government policies that promote
domination, oppression, or enslavement will quickly become
self-evident when tested against the way of God as demonstrated by
Jesus.
Third, Romans 13:1-7 must be read with considerable care and
caution. It has a very negative history-of-effect. It has been
misread to promote the notion of a “Christian state,” to demand
unquestioning allegiance, and to justify the extermination of others
deemed as threats (Johnson, 189). So, while Paul is expressing a
predemocracy worldview, no longer valued by most westerners, the
hermeneutical gap can still be bridged by exercising imaginative
appropriation.
The moral vision that Paul tapped into calls Christians to choose
voluntarily to comply with and to engage the basic political/social
structures of the society within which they live without giving up
their primary allegiance, which is reserved for God’s rule/reign. In
this way, the Christian political responsibility involves subverting
the political system from within and inviting all creation to join
in God’s ongoing mission to bring life and wholeness to all. Given
this mission, it is conceivable that there would be situations where
civil disobedience (and not compliance) or where “running for
elected office” (and not detachment) would in fact resonate with the
deep structure of Romans 13:1-7, yet in ways that Paul could not
have imagined. {46}
WORKS CITED
Augustine. 1998. The city of God against the pagans. Translated by
R. W. Dyson. Orig. ed. 462. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Borg, Marcus. 1973. A new context for Romans XIII. New Testament
Studies 19: 205-18.
Calvin, John. 1960. Calvin’s commentaries: Romans. Translated by
R. Mackenzie. Orig. ed. 1540. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
Dick, Harold J. 1985. The Christian and authorities: Romans
13:1-7. Direction 14 (spring): 44-50.
Hays, Richard B. 1996. Violence in defense of justice. In The
moral vision of the New Testament: Community, cross, new creation:
A contemporary introduction to New Testament ethics, 317-46. New
York: HarperCollins.
Hiebert, Paul G. 2000. Spiritual warfare and worldviews. Direction
29 (fall): 114-24.
Johnson, Luke Timothy. 1997. Reading Romans: A literary and
theological commentary. New York: Crossroad.
Käsemann, Ernst. 1969. Principles of interpretation of Romans 13.
In New Testament questions today, 196-216. London: SCM.
______. 1980. Commentary on Romans. Translated by G. W. Bromiley.
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
Klassen, William. 1963. Coals of fire: Sign of repentance or
revenge? (Rom. 12:20; Prov. 25:22). New Testament Studies 9:
337-50.
Kraus, C. Norman. 1991. God our savior: Theology in a
christological mode. Scottdale, PA: Herald.
Luther, Martin. 1954. Commentary on the epistle to the Romans.
Translated by J. T. Mueller. Orig. ed. 1515-1516. Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans.
Neufeld, Matthew G. 1994. Submission to governing authorities: A
study of Romans 13:1-7. Direction 23 (fall): 90-97.
Skillen, James W., and Keith J. Pavlischek. 2001. Political
responsibility and the use of force: A critique of Richard Hays.
Philosophia Christi 3: 421-45.
Toews, John E. 1986. Peacemakers from the start: The Jesus way in
the early church. In The power of the lamb. Edited by J. E. Toews
and G. Nickel, 45-55. Winnipeg, MB: Kindred.
Wink, Walter. 1998. The powers that be: Theology for a new
millennium. New York: Doubleday.
Yoder, John Howard. 1972. Let every soul be subject: Romans 13 and
the authority of the state. In The politics of Jesus, 193-214.
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
Jon Isaak is Assistant Professor of New Testament at Mennonite
Brethren Biblical Seminary, Fresno, California.
The author wishes to express appreciation to Mark Baker, Larry Dunn,
Karin Enns, Kristin Fast, Bruce Guenther, and Jim Holm, who read
earlier drafts of this essay and offered helpful suggestions.
© 2003 Direction (Winnipeg, MB)
This article may be printed or downloaded for personal use only. No
articles may be additionally reprinted in any form without
permission of the Managing Editor, kindred@mbconf.ca.
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