“…while Jesus is neither a Democrat nor Republican, there are things he taught about morality, the state, and the church which a believer should factor into his political, social, and cultural thinking and practice.” - J.P. Moreland
Edmund Burke, on moving his Resolutions for Conciliation with the Colonies. House of Commons, March 22, 1775
Below are excerpts from the first fifth of the speech. The speech is public domain. All 24,000 words are available at Project Gutenberg.
“I would suggest that we can’t disobey a law or mandate just because we disagree with it, or it won’t work, or it’s stupid, or it’s an abuse of authority, or it’s applied selectively, or even because it’s unconstitutional.” - Dan Olinger
“We are most certainly to obey God, but as Romans 13 indicates, one of the ways we obey God is to obey those God Himself has sovereignly and providentially put in authority over us. This includes civil magistrates. Even those we don’t like. Even pagan Roman emperors.
Everyone is annoyed at times by a stupid rule or a bad decision by a leader. But lately, conservative Christian responses to government rules look and sound about the same as non-Christian attitudes on the political right: they’re dominated by anger, harsh judgments of motives, mockery, and defiance.
Sanctimonious defiance is still really just defiance. If you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still… etc., etc.
Christians are called to better attitudes—ones fueled by a different focus. Keeping some realities in mind may help chill the anger and judgmentalism and foster something closer to our duty to “honor all” and “honor the king” (1 Pet 2:17, KJV).
These days, there’s a lot to be said for tuning out the info-noise and basking in the bliss of ignorance. Why fret over what you can’t change? There is a Judge of All the Earth,1 and it isn’t me. “Fret not”!2
And, in the daily cacophony of clashing claims, who can sort the truth out of the mess anyway, right?
Well … not exactly.
Prakash’s book “offers a serious plan for the restoration of something closer to the original intent of the presidency and its relationship to our other political institutions.
“The Posse Comitatus Act has not changed much since that time [1876]. The law prohibits the use of the military in civilian matters but, over time, Congress has passed at least 26 exemptions to the act that allow the president to send troops into states.” - The Conversation
“This is one of the short videos I recorded for my church, which I’ve been doing daily since the COVID lockdown started. I recorded it before I knew about the rioting and looting in protest of the death of George Floyd. I had received questions from my flock about whether Christians may, or even should, protest police brutality, considering Romans 13 tells us to submit to government.” - Clint Archer
