Would Saint Paul Agree with Jeff Sessions? No

People who know me know that I believe that the Church should generally stay out of politics. The Church is charged with making disciples for Jesus Christ. That involves proclaiming the Word of God so that people come to repentance and saving faith in Christ. When pastors or church bodies get behind political candidates, platforms, or parties, they splinter their attention and that of those they're charged to reach with God's message.

Having said that, there are times when it's absolutely appropriate for the Church to speak on political issues. Examples:

• When the Church sees government acting unjustly. 
• When the government dares to use Christianity or the Bible to justify its actions or to quell disagreement or dissent.

I have, for example, felt no hesitation in speaking out against the profligate use of abortion. A compassionate society will make allowances for circumstances such as rape, incest, or the threat that pregnancy or childbirth may present to the life of a mother. But the Church has a responsibility to compassionately speak up for the voiceless and powerless, like unborn children. This is why I describe myself as pro-life.

I have also repeatedly spoken out against racism or discrimination of any kind. When government, at any level, gives succor or acquiescence to racism, the Church is called by the Lord of love to speak and to act against it. All people are made in the image of God. Period.

Today, the Attorney General of the United States justified the federal government's policy of separating children from parents seeking asylum in this country by citing a passage from the New Testament. One news outlet described it like this:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited the Bible on Thursday in defending the Trump administration's immigration policies -- especially those that result in the separation of families -- directing his remarks in particular to "church friends." 

"I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes," Sessions said. "Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves. Consistent, fair application of law is in itself a good and moral thing and that protects the weak, it protects the lawful. Our policies that can result in short-term separation of families are not unusual or unjustified."

The passage alluded to by Sessions is Romans 13:

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.  Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. (Romans 13:1-7)

These verses are part of Paul's letter to the first-century churches in the city of Rome. Scholars call the section in which it appears and ones like it that are in other New Testament letters, household codes. These codes, essentially, are places in which Paul and other New Testament writers tells believers grateful to God for the free gift of new life through faith in Jesus Christ how to conduct themselves socially, in their marriages and families, at the workplace, in the world at large. Paul says here to obey governments as a way of expressing gratitude and love to God for Christ.

But what should Christians do when governments act unjustly? Or how should we respond to those who run from places where government authority is non-existent or where government power is unjust?

Earthly governments are part of what Martin Luther described as God's emergency measures for a fallen world, measures required by the reality of human sin and only in force until Jesus returns to the world and makes all things right.

People who have been saved by grace through faith in Christ want to conduct themselves with love and respect for God and their neighbors. (Although we often fail to do so.) But because this is a fallen world in which not everyone is motivated to love God or neighbor, God establishes governments to ensure that citizens behave in ways that honor God and neighbor, whether the citizens (or the governments) believe in God or not. (For example, not driving 85 miles an hour in residential areas honors human life and the One Who gives life.) When governments function in this way, they fulfill the will of God for establishing governments.

But when governments fail to fulfill God's will for their proper functioning--when they engage in injustice, when they foster, not peace and community, but chaos and fragmentation, Christians are called by God to speak out, to seek justice for our neighbors, and to stand up to the presumption of those in government who believe that God's ordination of governments gives them a blank check to do whatever they want.

The Declaration of Independence and American Revolution were predicated on the idea that when a government, like a flooding river overflowing its banks, transcends its God-ordained bounds, it becomes the obligation of citizens to work to make things right. Christians believe this as a matter of faith. In my own Lutheran tradition, for example, when we affirm our baptismal covenant with God, we are reminded to "to work for justice in all the earth."

Sessions' statement today was chilling. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis invoked the same words from Romans 13 to justify the Holocaust and other terrors they visited on the world. "You must obey," the Nazis told the Church. And the Church largely acquiesced, putting swastikas on altars and submitting to the madness of Hitler and his henchman.

But a few people in what came to be called Germany's Confessing Church, like the Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, rejected the lie that the Church is always obligated to obey, even when rulers or rules are tyrannical or unjust. These brave Christians pointed to other passages of Scripture that should be considered when deciding whether to oppose government actions or governments.

For example...

In that same letter to the Roman Christians, the apostle Paul writes: "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind..." (Romans 12:2) When the governments of this world command obedience to what is wrong, the Christian must disobey or disavow such commands.

In the Old Testament, we're told, "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8) When governments act unjustly, Christians need to make their voices heard, whether in private correspondence or public protest or both. (Illegal entry into a country is a crime, as Sessions rightly points out. But whether those seeking asylum are committing a crime is open to adjudication. And, in any case, the children of adult asylum-seekers aren't the perpetrators of any alleged crime; from the Biblical perspective, they're the victims of injustice.)

And in the New Testament, after being ordered by authorities to never again speak in the name of Jesus, the apostle Peter said, “We must obey God rather than men." (Acts 5:29)

God doesn't give governments blank checks.

Some may read this and conclude, "It's as I suspected. You can make the Bible say anything you want it to say."

Not true!

Christians believe that all of Scripture must be read through the interpretive lens of Jesus Christ. Jesus is God's definitive self-disclosure. "No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known" (John 1:18).

When we look at Jesus, innocent and just, wrestling with our evil on the cross, then being raised by God the Father, we see the heart of God, the love of God, the will of God. All of Scripture then is to be read in what might be called "the key of Jesus."

What does reading God's Word in this way show us on the question of whether we are always obligated to obey a government?

(1) Jesus never railed against the existence of governments in this world. He didn't tell the Roman commander who believed in Him that He needed to give up his job as a government worker and soldier (Luke 7:1-10). He commended the man's faith and left him to do his daily work.

(2) Jesus did rail against injustice. When the leaders of the temple in Jerusalem turned this place to which people went to honor God into a "den of robbers," a palace of extortion, He not only roared in protest, he overturned their tables and set loose their inventory. (Luke 19:45-46)

(3) And Jesus did criticize rulers who acted unjustly. When told that King Herod wanted to prevent Him from going to Jerusalem to fulfill the will of God, Jesus told Herod's emissaries to go tell "that fox" that he would not be stopped. (Luke 13:32) And Jesus was true to His Word, going to Jerusalem for the purpose of dying and rising to save all who trust in Him from sin, death, and darkness.

The Church and its pastors then, must speak and act when injustices happen. This is why I have been an avid writer of letters and emails to public officials all my life. It's why I have often taken time to discuss matters of justice with the members of the congregations I've served as pastor.

Those Christians who are presently speaking out against the horrors of separating asylum-seeking parents from children, whatever laws govern immigration, are on solid Biblical ground. In Old Testament times, God told His people Israel, who spent much of their history as refugees and immigrants, "The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God." (Leviticus 19:34)

And the preacher in the New Testament book of Hebrews tells Christian believers, referencing an Old Testament incident in which God, in the guise of angels, appeared to the Jewish ancestors, Abraham and Sarah, "Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it." (Hebrews 13:2)

Jesus Himself told us that when we care for those in need, treating them with respect and love, we are really honoring Him. (Matthew 25:31-46)

Look: As a Christian living in a pluralistic society, I don't expect those who serve in government to be Christians. And I reject efforts by both liberal and conservative Christians to use politics and government to legislate or adjudicate their particular version of Christian ethics on the larger society. It's wrong and it's not Christian. Our call is to share Christ and His gospel so that others will come to faith in Jesus. Not by coercion, but by the power of God's love and God's Holy Spirit. 

But when injustice is perpetrated--and I don't know how separating little kids from their parents seeking asylum from violence and gang warfare, among other things, can be characterized as anything but injustice--the Church has every right and every responsibility to speak out.

And when a government leader invokes God and the Scriptures behind a policy, any policy, it's the responsibility of the Church to give witness to what the whole of Scripture seen through the prism of the crucified and risen Jesus has to say.

Jeff Sessions may have been making a wholly political statement today. But when he invoked God's Word, he made what he said a spiritual matter. And he was wrong.

Here's a video of Sessions' invocation of Romans 13:



[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Are Governments Necessary? (Part 12, The Augsburg Confession)

What is the role of governments in God’s plans for the world? How should Christians relate to governments? Should Christians be involved in government?

Before you go to to sleep realizing what today's sermon is about, remember that these are important questions!

The Lutheran Confessions’ answers to them come straight from God’s Word, the Bible, and are different from the answers given by other groups of Christians through the centuries.

So, what does it mean to be a Lutheran Christian living in a world of governments and politics? Please turn to John 19:10-11. These verses are part of the Gospel of John’s account of Jesus’ arrest, trial, and crucifixion, which we read during our Good Friday services last week. Jesus, under arrest, is standing before Pilate. We’re told:

...Pilate said to [Jesus], "Are you not speaking to me? Do You not know that I have the power to crucify You, and power to release You?" Jesus answered, "You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given to you from above...” 

Jesus says that Pilate’s power and the power of the Roman Empire to decide Jesus’ fate and Pilate's power to govern, didn’t come from Pilate or the emperor. In fact, contrary to what Thomas Jefferson would write in the Declaration of Independence in 1776, Jesus is saying that governmental power doesn’t even come from “the consent of the governed.” It comes “from above,” from God.

The apostle Paul underscores this when he writes to Christians in Romans 13:1-7:

Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is [pay attention to this and in place of the word, authority, put words like president, senator, judge, sheriff, commissioner] God’s minister [The word translated as minister there is, in the Greek in which Paul first wrote it, diakanos, deacon, and it means servant. The political authority is, Paul says, God’s servant] to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’s sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.

In other words, from the standpoint of God and His Word in the Bible, there is nothing evil or dirty about serving in governments. Whether Christians work as presidents, generals, VISTA volunteers, NASA engineers, fighter pilots, FBI agents, or IRS case workers, the Bible says that they’re functioning as ministers of God, installed in their positions by God Himself in order to do God’s work in the world. And Christians not in government are to obey, honor, and support their governments and pay their taxes as our service to God.

But, you may think, I thought Jesus Christ ruled over God's people. Why do we have to give consideration to governments?

Lutherans believe that, in passages like these and others, the Bible teaches that God rules over this world through two different kingdoms at the same time.

First, there’s the kingdom of God. It’s made up of those who have been saved from sin and death by the charitable grace that God gives to all who repent for sin and believe in Jesus Christ.

Martin Luther said that the citizens of this kingdom--Christians--don’t need to be forced into treating their neighbors with Christian love. They strive to do so out of thankfulness to God for saving them from sin and death through Jesus Christ!

But not everybody in the world lives voluntarily under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. So, God also rules the world through another kingdom. This is the kingdom of worldly authority.

It exists because all human beings are sinners. We are, by nature, prone not to love God or our neighbors, but to love and only look out for ourselves.

The sinful behavior of human beings won’t be controlled by the Gospel of God's charitable grace if people don’t seek to daily surrender their lives and wills to Jesus.

Through Jesus Christ, God sets Christians eternally free from sin, death, and the devil. So, in the kingdom of God, God rules through the Gospel, through His grace.

In the kingdom of the world, God rules through the Law, through force, through penalties, fines,  regulations, incarceration.

Through the kingdom of this world, God institutes governments, in part, to make the world safer for Christians who voluntarily live with Jesus as their Lord.

But, God institutes governments for another reason: They act in service to the other kingdom, the one of which God wants all people to become citizens for all eternity, the kingdom of God.

Let me explain: Do you remember when you were kids and you had a substitute teacher, how you would always spend the first few minutes of class, seeing how much you might want to get away with that day?

When a substitute incapable of maintaining discipline took over for my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Goldsberry in Room 17 at Westgate School in Columbus, we all decided that we could act like convicts. And we did. The lunatics took over the asylum! And nothing that poor substitute tried to teach us got through.

But then something happened. Miss Grener, our principal showed up. We all loved Miss Grener. I had never even seen her angry. But when she walked into that classroom, filled with 35 fifth-graders acting up, throwing paper wads, cracking jokes, and generally misbehaving, Miss Grener was clearly mad. She made it clear that we would behave or there would be grave consequences.

All of a sudden, each of us became model students. We listened. We learned.

God rules through the kingdom of worldly authority, through law, through school principals and others in authority, in order to clear away the chaos that exists in world where sinful people behave sinfully so that, somehow, we have a chance of entering the Kingdom of God by hearing and absorbing the Word about Jesus Christ that can transform us from enemies of God to children of God and transfer us from the kingdoms of this world to the kingdom of God!

So, governments aren't inherently bad, evil, or corrupt. In fact, they can serve God's purposes, tamping down chaos, immorality, and lawlessness enough to let people hear the Word of God that tells people, "God so loved you that He gave His only Son so that all who believe in Jesus Christ--entrusting their sins, lives, hopes, and dreams to Him and letting Him be the authority of their lives--will not be eternally separated from God, have eternal life in God's kingdom!"

This is what Philipp Melanchthon was getting at in Article 16 of The Augsburg Confession, one of the basic confessional documents of the Lutheran movement. It says:

Our [Lutheran] churches teach that lawful civil regulations are good works of God. They teach that it is right for Christians to hold political office, to serve as judges, to judge matters by Imperial laws and other existing laws, to impose just punishments, to engage in just wars, to serve as soldiers, to make legal contracts, to hold property, to take oaths when required by a magistrate, for a man to marry a wife, or a woman to be given in marriage...

Now, having said that, we know that governments can veer off-course from God’s intentions for them. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to us. Government personnel are human beings. That means that they are sinners tempted to sin, perpetrate injustice, even taking power only God can wield. The ruling regimes of Nazi German, the Soviet Union, or contemporary China all show how governments go wrong.

What then? Are Christians supposed to support governments like that?

Look at the last three sentences of Article 16, please. It says:

...it is necessary for Christians to be obedient to their rulers and laws. The only exception is when they are commanded to sin. Then they ought to obey God. 

Notice that Melanchthon there mentions Acts 5:29, from the New Testament. Turn to that passage, please. Peter and the apostles have been told by the temple authorities never to speak of the crucified and risen Jesus again. Acts tells us:

But Peter and the other apostles answered and said, "We ought to obey God rather than men.” 

The history of God’s people--from Old Testament figures to the Christian martyrs of today--is filled with examples of people of faith choosing to obey and honor God rather than governments who commanded that they sin or put the governing authorities in a place higher than God. Just a few examples suffice to make that point:

• Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego endured the fires of an oven rather than worship the king instead of God; 
• Daniel went to the lion’s den when he refused to stop praying to God when commanded to do so;
• Early Christians accepted martyrdom rather than renouncing Christ and worshiping the Roman emperor; 
• Martin Luther came under an Imperial Ban, meaning that anyone had the authority of both Church AND State to kill on Luther on sight because he told the truth that human beings are saved from sin, death, and the devil by the grace of God through their faith in Jesus Christ and not by adherence to laws and traditions established by churches or governments. 
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer went to a concentration camp, where he was executed, rather than giving homage to Adolf Hitler.

Christians are to honor governments and those who govern in order that there can be some level of civic peace within which people are able to hear the gospel of eternal life that belongs to all who turn from sin and give their lives in trust to Jesus Christ.

But when governments command their citizens to sin or when they try to take the throne that belongs only to God, Christians must speak up. In his most famous essay on this subject, Luther said that the Church is bound by God to speak out against injustices perpetrated by governments.

You and I are blessed to live in the United States. There have been massive injustices perpetrated in the history of this country. Some are ongoing. But a central theme of US history has been to always move toward the eradication of injustice, more and more, usually too slowly but still moving in the direction of greater justice. Our leaders make mistakes; they’re human. But we’ve never had a despot or a king who would command Christians to disavow Jesus Christ or violate our creeds.

And I suppose that’s made us comfortable. Maybe too comfortable.

We take the peace and order God has granted us through our government in order to share the Gospel with others and instead of sharing the Gospel, we waste much of our lives on self-indulgent pursuits.

The result is predictable. The percentage of Americans saying they have no religious affiliation rose from 15% five years ago to 20% today. And our own denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, experienced a steeper decline in membership in 2012 than any other mainline Christian denomination in this country.

The book of Ephesians warns us though, “Be careful...how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.” This world, remember, for all its beauty and blessings, still groans under the weight of sin. Many of the people you and I meet each day aren't yet citizens in the Kingdom of God, Jesus' kingdom of grace.

How wise are we Christians living in these evil days? (I know that I don't use as much of my daily life honoring God or spreading the good news of new life through Jesus as I could!)

In these days before Christ returns, judges the world, and fully establishes the kingdom of God, we need governments.

But whether we serve in governments or as good citizens, our call as followers of Jesus Christ is our highest priority. It’s the call the risen Jesus gave just before He ascended to heaven and told Christians like you and me:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.  (Matthew 28:19-20)

God, by His grace, allows you and me to live in a free land kept in relative peace and order by governments He establishes.

Let’s take advantage of these blessings by sharing with as many people as we can that they can have everlasting life with God when they turn away from sin, trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior and King, and become citizens of the only kingdom that will last for eternity, the kingdom of God.