Sunday, September 15, 2013

RESPONDING TO ROMANS 13

As a christian and an anarchist I often find myself under attack by members of both parties that I live by. It would be difficult to tackle both arguments at once so here is my response to Christians that oppose anarchy.
A Christians most basic response to an anarchist is to cite Romans 13: "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God." This is, in many peoples mind, concrete proof that God approves of the state. Under any amount of scrutiny however, this argument falls apart. If we as Christians are to obey the governing authorities, then shouldn't have Bonhoeffer kept his his mouth shut during the Nazi's brief reign in Germany? Shouldn't the Russian Christians in communist Russia silently accepted their fate as their churches were burned and their property seized by the state? 'Of course not. That was different, it was the Nazi's and Stalin, they were tyrants.' So if we have established that this passage does not apply to tyrants then we only have to ask : What makes a tyrant? The common understanding of 'tyrant' is someone who ignores the voice of the people, or one who suppresses the freedoms of the people. Our government is guilty on both counts. Not in such extreme cases like Nazi Germany, but the principle is very much the same. If you define a tyrant by one who ignores the desire of the people, then by your own definition, the government is my tyrant. I have no desire to be ruled by anyone on capitol hill and yet, because they will throw me in jail if I don't, I am coerced into submission. 'Well then, make a change. Get involved.' As I have stated in previous articles, democracy doesn't listen to the people, it listens to the majority and a republic is just a different spelling for the same principle. As an anarchist I have absolutely no voice in the house of 'representatives.' If I were to make a call, or write to, my congressman and demand that they make a proposal to the senate to revoke all labor laws, taxes, police/ military forces, and the entirety of the U.S. government, it wouldn't make it past their receptionist and certainly not the senate floor, because if they WERE to propose such a bill it would harm their chances of getting re-elected. I have no voice. The government ignores me because I am in the overwhelming minority of the political spectrum.
 Christians love reciting Romans 13:1 but they don't ever seem to remember verse 3:  "For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended." Paul was a wise and intelligent person, so I would like to know what he was thinking when he wrote this. How many times had he been imprisoned and beaten by the Romans and Jewish leaders for preaching the grace of Christ? And how on earth does any government (let alone our own) fit this description? Time and time again the government has punished those who have tried to warn us about what the government really does (Bradley Manning, Daniel Ellsburgh etc.) How on earth can we live free from fear when there are so many cases of police brutality? Anarchists are regularly called 'idealists' but everyone else seems to think that a government that doesn't abuse its power can exist. Anarchy doesn't need a society of angels, it just can't have an institution running around saying "I can make everything better and you are all under my authority whether you like it or not."