We don’t celebrate July 4th. We celebrate Independence Day on July 4th. What are we celebrating? Do most Americans know?
The Declaration of Independence was a bold statement against tyranny. We live in a time of greater tyranny. The taxes were minimal in 1776, and yet the people were willing to take a stand against them. A number of states where the GOP is in charge are calling for massive tax increases to fund a growing Leviathan. There were other grievances. Take some time to read them here. Then compare them to what’s taking place today with legislatures and the courts forcing people to violate their consciences by refusing to accommodate same-sex marriage. Do you want to get an idea of what’s coming down the pike, then “Meet the Megadonor Behind the LGBTQ Rights Movement”?
Here’s the question: Are there times when it is legitimate to resist the government?
It is 1942. The Nazis who control your nation militarily have just announced a new policy requiring all Jews to come to the local city hall and register. The most prominent church leader in your denomination has recommended obedience to all ‘lawful’ directives of the German authorities. He has not recommended disobeying this new directive, and you have no reason to believe that he will. Your denomination will not speak directly to this issue, and you think the civil authorities will threaten to shut down churches or in other ways pressure the church’s leadership to remain silent or even recommend compliance with the order. Then a Jew you know comes to you and asks for asylum. He wants you to hide him in your attic or barn. You know that this would be illegal. Will you hide him or turn him over to the Nazis? ((Gary North, “Editor’s Introduction,” Christianity and Civilization: Tactics of Christian Resistance (Tyler, TX: Geneva Divinity School Press, 1983), xii.))
Was it wrong to disobey these laws? In terms of Nazi law, yes. But what about in terms of a higher moral law? How would your pastor respond if a similar law was passed today? Of course, there were consequences for defying Nazi law. People who hid Jews from the Nazis risked their own lives. ((Nechama Tec, When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).)) Those who spoke out publicly about the Nazi regime were sent to concentration camps. ((Basil Miller, Martin Niemöller: Hero of the Concentration Camp (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1942), 112.))
Resistance movements like those practiced by Christians during World War II have been accepted as morally justified by nearly all ethical thinkers. The Diary of Anne Frank and Thomas Kineally’s Schindler’s Ark (later made into the film Schindler’s List by Steven Spielberg) show the highest praise for those who defied what was a “legal” government policy.
In Give Me the Children: How a Christian Woman Saved a Jewish Family During the Holocaust, Pola Arbiser describes how her nanny defied the law and hid her and her sister from Nazi officers. The Jewish community of survivors has described these resistors as “righteous gentiles” ((As reported in Catherine E. Shoichet, “Christian nanny hid Jewish family from Nazis,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution (August 27, 2003), E1 and E6. See Pola Arbiser, Give Me the Children: How A Christian Woman Saved a Jewish Family During the Holocaust (Altona, Manitoba, Canada: Friesens, 2003).)) or simply “Christian rescuers.” ((David P. Gushee, “Christians as Rescuers During the Holocaust,” Must Christianity Be Violent?: Reflections on History, Practice, and Theology, eds. Kenneth R. Chase and Alan Jacobs (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2003), 71.)) These actions were considered moral even though they violated Nazi Reich law.
Will our government plant “spies” in churches where ministers preach from those parts of the Bible where the practice of homosexuality is condemned? It’s happened before, and it’s taking place in Canada. ((“Now, the charge against [Martin] Niemoeller was based entirely on his sermons, which the Gestapo agents had taken down stenographically. . . . . [W]ritten laws, no matter how explicitly they were worded, were subjected to the interpretation of judges. The totalitarian principle which governs Nazi Germany, as I have indicated before, includes religion as a function of State. Therefore, by recognizing Christ only as his Leader, Pastor Niemoeller was denying the right to divine leadership to Hitler. His offense was all the more serious because he had exhorted his followers to do likewise” (Leo Stein, I Was in Hell with Niemoeller [New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1942], 175).))
What will be the response of churches in America if the increasingly secular and anti-Christian courts rule that “discriminating” against “legally married” homosexual couples is a criminal act? For what may be in store for American churches, see Chuck and Donna McIlhenny‘s When the Wicked Seize a City__: A Grim Look at the Future and a Warning to the Church.
The civil rights movement in the United States had its turning point when Martin Luther King, Jr., defied a court order because laws discriminating against blacks were considered to be immoral and unconstitutional. In his account of the civil rights campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, King “speaks of a court injunction obtained by the city administration on April 10, 1963, directing that demonstrations be halted until the right to such activities might be argued in court. Dr. King continues: ‘Two days later, we did an audacious thing, something we had never done in any other crusade. We disobeyed a court order.’” ((Daniel B. Stevick, Civil Disobedience and the Christian (New York: Seabury Press, 1969), 1.))
If we take the position advocated by some that civil government is the final arbiter of what’s legal, moral, and right, with no higher law binding the magistrate, there can be no higher court of appeal. The most oppressive tyranny must stand as the people turn a blind eye to injustice and retreat behind a doctrine of impotent quietude. As soon as this happens, by default, the State has established itself as the new god to be honored, worshiped, and obeyed without debate or objection. R. J. Rushdoony describes the inescapable logic of denying a higher law ethic:
The universe of evolution and humanism is a closed universe. There is no law, no appeal, no higher order, beyond and above the universe. Instead of an open window upwards, there is a closed cosmos. There is no ultimate law and decree beyond man and the universe. In practice, this means that the positive law of the state is absolute law. The state is the most powerful and most highly organized expression of humanistic man, and the state is the form and expression of humanistic law. Because there is no higher law of God as judge over the universe, over every human order, the law of the state is a closed system of law. There is no appeal beyond it. Man has no ‘right,’ no realm of justice, no source of law beyond the state, to which he can appeal against the state. ((Rousas J. Rushdoony, “Humanistic Law, introduction to E. L. Hebden Taylor, The New Legality (Nutley, NJ: Craig Press, 1967), vi-vii. A revised version can be found in Gary North, Marx’s Religion of Revolution: The Doctrine of Creative Destruction (Nutley, NJ: Craig Press, 1968), 118-119.))
Many (most?) churches are not equipped theologically to deal with Christian resistance against tyranny. Too many pastors instruct their parishioners to “submit” no matter what the demand. This doctrine and mindset needs to change.
Our churches and pulpits didn’t used to be this way. There’s plenty of material to available to start changing it here and now.
(Get more of Gary’s extensive teaching on God and Government: A Biblical, Historical, and Constitutional Perspective.)
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