Dan,

I asked this on Josh’s site, but I’d be interested on your take on this:

“But surely the crux of civil disobedience is not the speaking out or otherwise against a regime, rather it is the breaking of the law.

My question would be this: when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on that bus in 1955 (and lets presume such WAS illegal rather than debate the specifics of the driver’s request), was it is sin? If the law was broken and she refused to submit to the authorities in that matter, did she sin?

If not, why not? What were the factors making her civil disobedience unsinful?”

I think it is essentially to understand the context surrounding NT commands for civil obedience first. For example, what abuses did Peter anticipate his audience might suffer while remaining submissive? I’ve attempted to respond to the question of civil submission in the American context based on an exegetical understanding of 1 Pet 2 here.

Rex, several people have commented on this, and have suggested (rightly, I think) that paying taxes is not something that Christians can really get out of. The Roman government wasn’t entirely guilt-free, but Paul didn’t suggest that believers could stop paying taxes.

Jim W., I think you may be referring to the head doctors, but I was asking the question about the rank and file. And for them, your statement is not true. An article in Wikipedia is not really the best source of information on the Nazi doctors. A far better source is Robert Jay Lifton’s book, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide (a book that is actually cited in the Wikipedia article, though only the first edition of 1986 rather than the later second edition). Lifton wrestles with the question how these Nazi doctors, who had agreed to the Hippocratic oath, came to view genocide and euthanasia as something that was compatible with the Hippocratic oath. But that’s exactly his point: they DID come to that conclusion. It wasn’t Hitler’s mandate (whether written or oral) that alone, or even primarily, got the physicians to commit murder. Nevertheless, you raise a significant point that Hitler’s memo is not the same as HR 3200 as far as euthanasia is concerned. I certainly hope you’re right, but I have my doubts.

Dr. Wallace,

Thanks for the clarity. It seems then that Jesus and Paul agreed that civil disobedience is appropriate in instances that asked believers to compromise their allegiance to God and the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So here is a question: Is government use of tax-payer money to pay for abortion a point in which the believer is asked to compromise the his/her devotion to God and/or the gospel of Jesus Christ? I guess we need to define what we mean by “devotion” and “the gospel.” Thoughts?

Rex

Dr. Wallace,

In response to your question “Why did the German doctors go that far?” (i.e., killing the “incurable” without their consent).

They did so because they knew that was the policy that Hitler wanted. There is a very detailed article on Wikipedia on the Nazi Euthanasia program which gives the main highlights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_T4

It is clear from Hitler’s discussions with the people in charge of the program that this is what he wanted and it is entirely consistent with his racial and totalitarian ideology as he proclaimed it. The doctors did not come up with the application of the memo on their own. Again, this is why I don’t think the memo is a good parallel or analogy with the health-care bill. The social and political context of the two documents is different.

Rex, those are some good insights, but I think that they need a bit of nuancing. I think there are some ways to look at this in terms of trajectories. Jesus’ aphorism, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” forms the fundamental principle for Christians. In principle, this surely means that we must not give to Caesar what is due to God alone; thus, Jesus was not at all subordinate to the governing authorities when such subordination interfered with his devotion to God. He refused to give an answer to Pilate and spoke pretty defiantly to the Sanhedrin, for starters. And he condemned the religio-political leaders of his day in many ways.

As for Paul, he spoke about submission to the government (e.g., Rom 13), but there was an implicit understanding that this would not be in everything. For example, Paul was strongly against the Imperial cult of doing obeisance to the emperor. His message to the Romans shows this: he spoke of the gospel frequently in this letter (57 of the NT’s 73 instances of ‘gospel’ occur in Paul’s letters, with 9 of them in Romans, the most of any of his letters). The word ‘gospel’ had strong imperial connotations, referring to the accession to the throne by a new emperor, his birth, etc. Paul says that the real gospel is about Jesus Christ, and that he is the one who is worthy of worship rather than the emperor. Thus, there is the implicit resistance to any authority that tries to tell Christians whom they should worship, to whom they should offer their greatest allegiance.

Dr. Wallace,

In regard to whether civil disobedience is ever o.k., I often struggle with what I call my “perceived difference between the politics of Jesus and Paul.” Jesus seems to be pretty neutral to governing authorities. I am not sure I would say that Jesus was ever insubordinate to governing authorities, but he just doesn’t seem to think they’re a big deal. He’s not at all impressed with them.
Paul, on the other hand, has a very clear expectation that Christians should be in subordination to the governing authorities. There is little wiggle room for civil disobedience in Paul. Do you have any insight to offer my “perceived difference”?

Thanks,
Rex

Jim W., I think that’s an excellent point. Just to clarify: I’m not suggesting any view, nor am I espousing any view. Rather, I’m just pointing to some issues, parallels (whether real or imagined), and ethical concerns that might crop up.

But as to parallels, two other things need to be aired here: in spite of our judicial review process, a number of things have slipped through the cracks. Typically, federal laws are put in place unless and until someone can bring a valid complaint to the Supreme Court (or an appellate court). But there are hundreds of laws on the books that many would say are a violation of the Constitution, yet the court system has ignored any requests (if they even came forward) to review them. It’s no wonder that several states have symbolically passed legislation affirming the tenth amendment. This would not be necessary IF the federal government were acting within its limits, as far as these state legislatures are concerned.

Second, Hitler’s memo was secret. Although he had sovereignty over Germany, one wonders why he would make this memo a secret document. Perhaps he even knew that he was taking things farther than would be allowed if the public knew. Yet the wording of this secret document doesn’t explicitly mandate euthanasia. So, why did the German doctors go that far?

Mr. Wallace,

I think the similarities (in ambiguous language) between Hitler’s diktat and the current health-care bill are not as significant as you suggest. In Nazi Germany, any diktat from Hitler was the law and only depended upon his own interpretation. In fact, sometimes he promulgated “laws” or proclamations for foreign consumption or propaganda and not really for internal use. The Nazi judiciary was totally subject to the Fuhrer’s determination on judicial matters. As such, it really didn’t matter that much if the diktat was ambiguous, clarification would be sought from the governing bueracracy or Hitler himself and then carried out according to his wishes.

In the US the rule of law and an independent judiciary make ambiguous language in a bill subject to a judicial review process. Therefore, it is much more likely that in the implementation of the law the application of the law will be ironed out. While the result of that review process may be detrimental as far as Christians are concerned, the process itself will at least give the public an opportunity to engage in a debate over the specific application of the law. This is something that was never allowed in Nazi Germany.

@13-I am not a fan of most of those government initiatives either.

Roads are one of the ones where I’m hesitant to call the government off. However, recently there have been some neat developments with private companies running roads in high traffic areas (and much more efficiently and profitably).