As July 4 approaches, we struggle with the political polarization in our nation and worry about our democracy threatened by the allure of autocracy. To use scriptural categories, we are living between Romans 13 and Revelation 13.
Romans 13 has been used throughout Western history to galvanize the “law and order” people among us and to prop up those presently in power. Listen to Paul’s words again:
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, the one who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed. … For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.
Stephen Shoemaker
We can easily imagine the troubles some have had with these verses. They have been used to support the divine right of kings. As someone satirized the circular logic of such a position, “If God did not put kings on the throne, why do they live in palaces?!”
We know the excruciating truth that many people have suffered at the hands of those in power — and not for “bad conduct” but for the color of their skin or for their religion, or for their political thoughts, or for their gender and sexuality.
Many worry about the seemingly uncheckable power of our Supreme Court with its hyper-conservative supermajority. This week, they ruled 6-3 that the president has total immunity for his “official acts” as president. And many worry about our politicians in power who have a taste for authoritarianism, as a growing number of Americans do as well.
As we talk with Paul about these verses, two things are important to see.
First, he was talking about local magistrates, not the Roman Imperium.
Second, he was worried, as we see from other letters as well, that there were many Christians who thought that because they were a special form of Christian, they need not bow to any earthly authority.
“The clock of our governance seems sprung.”
It used to be that the Republican Party would be favorable with Romans 13 because they were the “law and order” party. But now the Republican Party has been taken over by those characterized by lawlessness and a contempt for our judicial system. What are we to say about such things? Traditionally our two political parties have had balancing and complementary political virtues. The clock of our governance seems sprung.
It is important then to turn to Revelation 13. John, the writer of Revelation, was living in a time when the Emperor Domitian was waging war on the Christian communities throughout the Empire. The emperor was a terror to “good conduct.” John wrote the book of Revelation to unveil what was really going on in their time of crisis, and to reveal to the church that God would win the final victory, no matter how dark the times. Be, then, steadfast.
In Revelation 13, he paints the picture of how the Roman state had become the Beast who took its authority from the Dragon, or Satan. Listen again to the verses of Revelation 13:
And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with 10 horns and seven heads, with 10 diadems upon its horns and on its heads were blasphemous names. … In amazement the whole world followed the beast with wonder. They worshipped … the beast saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?”
The adoration of the beast in these words were a terrifying and ironic perversion of the words of the Psalmist in Psalm 89: “Who can compare … who is like the Lord?” The theologian Paul Tillich, who watched his native land fall to the blasphemous pretensions of Nazism and Hitler, defined the demonic as whenever something finite is taken to be, or claims to be, infinite.
We see such blasphemous pretensions in former President Donald Trump as he is running again to be president. He has described himself as a savior of American Christianity, the best friend the church ever has had. He has promised the evangelical church protection and to place into the law of the land their set of moral values. He has compared his “persecution” by those opposed to him with the persecution of Jesus Christ.
And now, after his federal felony conviction on 34 counts by unanimous vote of a jury of his peers, he again is describing his conviction like unto Christ’s suffering and crucifixion — as have his enraptured followers. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican representative from Georgia, said at a rally in Las Vegas soon after:
The Democrats and fake news media want to constantly talk about, “Oh, President Trump is a convicted felon.” Well, you want to know something? The man that I worship is also a convicted felon. And he was murdered on a Roman cross.
Postings on Facebook have gone viral that have said the same: “My Lord was a felon, and I still follow him!”
If we were ancient Jews, we would tear our robes in horror at the blasphemies of Trump and Trumpism. Whom, we may ask, are these Christians following?
A book was published last May. The author, John Molluso and the title, CHRISTRUMP: Persecution of A Man. The book cover says all we need to know about the book, a cross reaching the heavens with a long red Trump tie hanging from the cross beams. The author depicts Trump as a Christ placed in power by God.
So let’s return to Romans 13 and Revelation 13.
Is there a way beyond the designation of the state as divinely authorized by God and the state as the beast worshipped by its citizens as divine? We could say, I would, that democracy itself is a moral and political good because it places power in the hands of the people, as fallible as we humans are.
“Democracy is not the kingdom of God, lest we make an idol of democracy, but it is a check on despotic political power.”
Reinhold Niebuhr captured the importance of democracy for a humanity both glorious and flawed: “Man’s capacity for good makes democracy possible; but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”
Democracy is not the kingdom of God, lest we make an idol of democracy, but it is a check on despotic political power and provides for the flourishing of the nation in freedom.
We might also listen to Micah, whose reverent Hebrew name means, “Who is like Yahweh? Who can compare with Yahweh?”
“What does the Lord require of you,” he wrote, “but to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with your God.” Justice, mercy and humility help keep human life human and make a world more inhabitable for all.
University of Texas philosopher Robert Woodruff wrote a book on the political and civic virtue of reverence titled, Reverence: Renewing A Forgotten Virtue. Such reverence begins, he writes, “in a deep understanding of human limitations.” True humility recognizes the limits of human power, wisdom and goodness.
In a day of political pretensions which border on the theologically blasphemous, may we raise up leaders and a citizenry who know a truer reverence.
Stephen Shoemaker serves as pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Statesville, N.C. He served previously as pastor of Myers Park Baptist in Charlotte, N.C.; Broadway Baptist in Fort Worth, Texas; and Crescent Hill Baptist in Louisville, Ky.
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