Former Vice President Mike Pence and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions are both professing Christians. How they believed about these two biblical texts would have had a strong impact on decisions they made relating to President Trump.
What are these two texts in the Bible’s New Testament about? I have blogged about with a post entitled “Did Paul Teach Unconditional Obedience to Civil Rulers.” Jeff Sessions, who was President Donald Trump’s first attorney general, cited Romans 13.1-7 in defending total obedience to authorities. Many Christians do as well, not only due to their own reading of the these texts but because they are often taught that in church, especially evangelical churches.
I think Paul and Peter did not mean in these two texts that Christians should obey civil authorities no matter what they do. Most of the time, yes they should. But what if we lived in Germany in the 1930s? Would I have done whatever Hitler and the Nazis told me to do, including exposing the identity and whereabouts of Jews? No way.
Paul and Peter (in 2 Peter 2.13-17) were writing these letters to specific people in recognition of their own time in history, when civil authorities were not persecuting Christians and generally doing what was lawful. Paul refers to the Roman Empire of that time by saying, “whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgement. . . . if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:2, 4 NRSV).
The American democratic experiment makes no sense for Christians if they believe Paul taught unconditional obedience to governing authorities in Romans 13.1-7. I mean they would have to believe it was wrong-headed. In fact, there was somewhat of a division among colonial Christians at that time about this subject. Those who supported the American Revolution were called “patriots” or “revolutionaries,” and those who opposed it were called “loyalists.” “Loyalist” meant being loyal to the crown, referring to the King of England. Some of the Christian loyalists were opposed because of their belief about Romans 13.1-7.
Benjamin Franklin had a huge impact on the success of the American Revolution even though he never held political office. He and his son, William, who was governor of Connecticut, disagreed strongly about it. William’s two reasons for being a loyalist were that we should be loyal to the king, and he didn’t think most of the colonists would support war. William eventually cut off relations with his father and moved to England, where he lived for the remainder of his life. William was known for being more of a Christian than his father Benjamin, who publicly professed Deism. I wonder if William’s view of loyalty to the king was affected by his view of Romans 13.1-7.
I suspect that Evangelical Mike Pence’s constant choice to not cross President Trump in any way, not even telling him he was wrong about something, was partly due to Pence’s belief about Romans 13.1-7 just as it was with Jeff Sessions. But I don’t know of any evidence to support that idea.
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