Introduction
The battles are heating up and the combatants are employing more precision-targeted weaponry. The culture war wasn’t really about so-called “gay marriage” (whatever that is) or abortion or name your social conservative issue that the left has claimed victory over using the activist court system. If the culture war was about those issues, the war would be over. Peace would have been declared and we would have entered into what the left conceived of as an era of progressive enlightenment. That is far from reality.
The culture war was always about what the Bible says about these issues. That’s why this war will always be with us until Christ returns or, perhaps, revival embraces the land.
In the meantime, the left has always wanted to stifle your speech and confine your faith to your homes and churches. They once feared the fact that their opponents’ grassroots network assembled weekly (they called it “the Church”). But rulings from activist courts have obviated all of that fear and many see the Church as powerless to be “the pillar and foundation of the truth” as Paul puts it in 1 Timothy 3:15. But this is precisely what the Church can and should be.
In the court of public opinion, which matters to them, the left has always wanted their behaviors “normalized.” In their minds, they’re free to celebrate sin in the streets, but you must celebrate your God in private. And they will always be after your religious freedom and your ability to exercise your faith in public. We, of course, didn’t write the Bible, but because we study it, believe it, preach it, live it, pass it on to our children and their children, and do so publicly, the bullseyes are on us.
Need some proof from recent weeks?
- President Trump’s nominee to lead the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is an Obama administration activist holdover who, while a lesbian, embraces people of faith but won’t agree with them. This from The American Conservative last December: “[She] believes this sincerely and with passion, and clearly . . . against the vast majority of opinion of her own community. And yet when push comes to shove, when religious liberty and sexual liberty conflict, she admits, “I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.” And this from a Trump administration nominee.
- Just this last week, the Supreme Court heard a challenge to a California state law that requires pro-life crisis pregnancy centers to state loudly and clearly that their patients can get free abortions paid for by the state. Apparently, California is asserting a right to restrict the free speech of pro-life crisis pregnancy centers.
- Businesses with Christian business models are targeted economically. Bakers, photographers, and florists have been taken to court. The States of New Mexico, Colorado and Washington are asserting a right to restrict the free exercise of religion for proprietors. Look for a Supreme Court decision this summer regarding those bullseyes.
- Just in this state we now see legislation offered that restricts counselors from addressing issues (like unwanted same-sex attraction) with their patients. Apparently, Colorado, like many other states that already have, is asserting a right to inject the state into the counseling session.
- And then there was David French’s recent piece in National Review entitled “The True Sin of American Evangelicals in the Age of Trump.” Here’s an excerpt: “Until the progressive community understands the gravity of its attacks on Evangelical institutions, there is little hope for understanding — much less changing — an increasingly-polarized American political culture.” You should read that entire article here.
So then why now start a series on what the Bible says about respecting a civil authority? If the battles have become more precision-targeted at the Church and our religious freedoms, what benefit will these columns achieve when people of faith are already feeling defeated and angry and frustrated and depressed? If on our watch we have allowed the Church of the Living God to be silenced, what good will it do that we submit to the governing authorities? And why all of this during Holy Week, just before Easter?
Frankly, there has never been a better time to reflect on what the Bible says in this regard. There has never been a more important time for Evangelicals to review these verses and understand what they mean. The entire notion of civility in our discourse should begin and end with the moral law—the very definitions of right and wrong, good and bad. And the many examples of civil disobedience played out in the Bible are inspirational in desperate times. Certainly, things couldn’t have seemed any more desperate for believers than when our Savior Jesus Christ willingly gave up His life on a Roman cross.
But more importantly, whatever we may feel about what besets our religious freedoms and expressions does not replace the reality that Christ has already carried the day and won the war because of what He did on that cross. Today, He looks to us to spread that message.
In times when evil seems to have no boundaries, Christ himself has defined them. “Love must be sincere,” Paul tells us in Romans 12 and this is love that is without pretense or is a means to an end. Love is the culmination and completion of Christ’s example to us. Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross completely defines love. Love is the end.
And then Paul continues by stating what love does. Love hates. Well, actually, love hates evil. “Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” Christ’s sacrifice also defines the boundaries for evil. And evil is not really the opposite of love. That would imply some sort of equivalence between the two. Evil exists for sure, but within the bounds set by an almighty God.
When Paul wrote this letter, the emperor Nero was on the scene in Rome and yet Paul did not shy away from proclaiming this truth of respecting civil authority for the Church in Rome. In fact, Paul’s message, like ours, is one of hope in the face of evil itself. When faced with a Hitler or Stalin, there is hope in Christ for Christ has bounded the evil in the world. Satan is not the opposite of God. There is no equivalence between the two. Satan is not omniscient, omnipresent, or omnipotent. In fact, I would assert that he cannot control the forces of evil he unleashes in the world.
So, this week we will look at what the Bible says in Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 as well as other verses about this subject more closely, especially in these times of religious freedom oppression. Even in times of a Nero or Stalin or Hitler, the Bible has much to tell us that, when understood, gives us hope in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. “We will not fear for God has willed His truth to triumph through us.”
Tomorrow: What is the freedom we seek?
Wednesday: What is (civil) authority?
Thursday: When is civil disobedience appropriate?
Friday: What’s Love Got to Do with It?