PAUL WAS PATRIOTIC

by Vic Stoltzfus

The Apostle Paul was patriotic. He was grateful for the Roman government. Unlike most Jews, he was a citizen. He used his legal rights. He lived in a time of peace which made his travels safer. He used the excellent Roman roads, some still preserved today, to travel to many cities and preach the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Paul's patriotism was practical but more than that. It also came out of his godly faith. We learn from Paul's writing in Colossians 1:16 that rulers and thrones are a part of God's creation. "All things are created by Him and for Him." The guinea pig, government and the goose are all God's creatures.

And so in Romans 13:1-7: Paul teaches the Roman Christians that they should submit, not rebel, in spite of the fact that they were heavily taxed and the Jewish believers had earlier been deported from Rome..

He teaches that governments execute God's wrath against evil; so Roman believers,"don't think you can take on Rome plus God and win!"

And he really clinches the point by saying it's not just a matter of fearing government's power-submit because of conscience.

Lieutenant Colonel William K. Lietzau of the Marine Corps is a Protestant Christian from San Diego. A large Bible is on his desk at the Pentagon. He is well aware of Romans 13:. He is a military lawyer working seven days a week at the Pentagon. He is writing rules and procedures for the government to use in prosecuting Al Quaeda members detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. When he was a military judge, before giving the verdict, he left the courtroom, got on his knees and prayed for wisdom.

He writes that if an individual is wronged by someone, he or she should turn the other cheek. He believes that government's response to wrong should be guided by Romans 13. And he quotes verse 4 "if you do wrong, be afraid, for he (the government) does not bear the sword for nothing."(The story is from Spirit, a congregational newsletter of the La Jolla, CA Presbyterian Church, summer 2002.)

I also read recently of a devout Catholic Christian who is a veteran of the Gulf War. He is nervous that a few of the Catholic bishops and some of the Catholic theologians are not giving the faithful, biblical and moral support for participating in the war on terror. He was responding to the Catholic phrase: seamless garment theology for life: anti-abortion, anti-death penalty and anti-war from Bishop Gumbleton. (comments from a recent issue of The Intercollegiate Review)

To correct such thinking, the writer cites Romans 13 as the clear biblical basis for the right of government to use force to oppose evil and the duty of Christians to be a part of that military force.

I don't know either of these men but from their written remarks I believe they are sincere Christian believers, trying to know and follow God's will. Both are following the mainstream teaching of the Christian tradition since the 4th Century. Augustine, Luther, Calvin and many modern theologians support their interpretation.

This interpretation of Romans 13 can be summarized: "whatever government does, it is serving God and therefore what it is doing is a ministry the Christian may rightly share." (paraphrase of John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus)

Christians in the military today are not the only ones who know and quote this passage. In 1985, a South African, Michael Cassidy came to see then President P. W. Botha, in Pretoria. He was hoping for a word of repentance about apartheid. Cassidy's words: "I was immediately aware on entry to the room that this was not to be the sort of encounter for which I prayed. The President began by standing to read Romans 13. (Botha) imagined that this Scripture was enough to justify apartheid. (John Stott, Romans)

Alongside the majority view on how to understand Romans 13, there are also Bible teachers, Catholic, Protestant and Anabaptist, who respectfully disagree. How do they understand Paul's patriotism and his teaching on government? In good Bible study, we must see a text in context. And it is important to understand the history of the times in which Bible authors wrote.

First of all, Romans 13:1-7 is a part of a unit of thought which begins with chapter 12 and continues to the end of chapter 13. The five verses which come just before Romans 13:1-7 read: "Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." The passage concludes with such practical expressions of enemy love as giving the hungry food and the thirsty, a drink of water.

The verses just after 13:7 return to the theme of love: We learn that we are to "owe no man anything except to love one another" And if we question what love means, Paul writes "Love does no wrong to a neighbor."

How do we make sense of all of this? We are working with a difficult text in Romans, a difficult book No wonder Peter, who only went to fishing school wrote, "his (Paul's) letters contain some things that are hard to understand."

Interpretation is hard and important work. How we respond to this text has consequences. Over the centuries it has been a matter of life and death. Let us look at the context in Romans 12:19 again where Paul writes: "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord."

Now notice Romans 13:4 where Paul refers to government as "the servant of God to execute wrath on the evil doer." Taking these two verses together, we can interpret Paul's message to Roman Christians in chapter 13, submit to your government, --it is doing God's work in rewarding good and punishing evil.

He has also just said in Chapter 12: You Christians are not in the vengeance business. That's God's responsibility. God uses government to do vengeance work. (paraphrase by VS) In a broken, sinful world, God used secular Rome to prevent His world from falling into anarchy and chaos. But if we are to leave vengeance to God, (12:19) the sword does not replace the cross. The text of Romans 13 needs the context of Romans 12.

We can also learn from the word used in the Greek language for sword. It was a long Roman dagger, used as a symbol of government police authority; not a war weapon. In today's world it would be like the identity marks of a policeman; a uniform, club and service revolver; not a weapon of war, not a B-52 capable of carpet bombing.

We have already observed from history that Rome was not at war at this time, in fact had enjoyed over a century of peace. (This was only true at the center of the Empire. Catholic historian James Carroll records that Rome did put down Jewish uprisings in Palestine that were very bloody. Cited in The Sword of Constantine)

Police work is very different from war, especially modern war. Police must work within the limits of procedures, the courts, and citizens who have legal rights. Police work seldom kills. I asked Mayor Kauffman about lethal police force in Goshen, IN. He had to go back decades to arrive at a total of three deaths caused by Goshen police. One was accidental, a shot in the dark, meant to be a warning; the other two were self defense killings of criminals who were seriously injuring the policeman.

Over this time, the Goshen police have handled thousands of calls including an occasional call from Goshen College and even one from College Mennonite Church-without loss of life. We go to sleep at night a bit better because police apprehend drunks, calm family disputes and-we hope-arrest those who steal bikes from Greencroft Retirement Community.

War is very different than the measured use of force in police work. War is force turned violent. The laws of war did not protect the civilians at Pearl Harbor or in Dresden, or Hiroshima. Orders are given without lawyers or courts; war means death and injury by the thousands. In wars in Cambodia and the Congo, death by the millions.

Modern war means civilians die. Always, always war means the death of the elderly, women and children. It means millions now in our world are displaced from their homes in refugee camps. The world refugee total is about equal to the entire populations of the states of Washington, Oregon and California. British and some Americans estimate that the number of civilians who have died in Afghanistan is now equal to or more than the 3,000 civilians who died in New York. American reporters are kept away, even threatened, if they get too close to battle zones that might yield embarrassing news. There is no running count of military or civilian casualties from the Pentagon. That's a secret.

To take Romans 13 from its natural context as an approval of government's responsibility for policing public order to the destruction of modern war is a huge step.

In addition to the counsel in Romans to give support to good government there are other important biblical stories about godly people who resisted evil government. Think of the Hebrew midwives who defied Pharaoh and refused to kill the Hebrew boy babies. Think of the Apostles who refused to obey the Jewish Sanhedrin when they forbade preaching in Jesus' name. Romans 13 teaches us there is a time to submit to government for conscience sake. We also learn from the larger Biblical context that there is a time when God's people say "no" to government for conscience sake.

We can also learn from the history of the time in which Paul wrote. When Paul wrote Romans, subject people like the Jews were not permitted to be soldiers for Rome. Paul's concern was not to defend the Empire; it was to prevent rebellions which would discredit the young, fragile Christian movement.

Claudius, the previous Emperor, had expelled all Jews from Rome, including Jewish converts to Christianity. He did this in A.D. 49, just 8 years before Paul wrote Romans. Claudius acted because of public disorder among the Jews over a figure called "Chrestus," probably Jesus Christ. Nero followed Claudius. In his younger years he was tolerant and allowed Jews to return to Rome.

Paul did not want to risk public riots and the possible uprooting of the Christian Jews of Rome again. We also know that the Jews in Palestine had recently rioted against Rome due to oppressive taxes and other forms of tyranny.

Paul urged submission to government in order to be able to work peacefully at his highest calling, planting and nourishing Christian congregations.

To summarize: the immediate historical context of the text is Paul teaching a small Christian minority not to revolt against their government.

Theologian, John Howard Yoder writes: "how strange to make Romans 13 the classic proof of the duty of Christians to kill." (The Politics of Jesus) To be blunt, the mainstream church interpretation of Romans 13 tortures the text. An error from the 4th century does not become truth by repeating it for 17 more centuries.

In a kindly and ecumenical spirit we need to ask, how did Bible teachers arrive at such a strange place? To find out, we need to go to another professing Christian, a Roman Emperor of the 4th Century named Constantine.

The historian Eusebius writes that in the year 312 Constantine had a vision of the cross in a bright light and the words in the sky: In this sign conquer. Constantine saw this as he was leading his soldiers just before battle at the Milvian bridge across the Tiber River. He won the battle, gradually converted to Christianity, and put the Christian cross on the shields of his soldiers. Within 12 years of his conversion, he defeated his last rival. He was ruthlessly brutal to his enemies. The Catholic Encyclopedia records that even after his conversion he ordered the execution of his brother-in-law, the latter's son, and his own wife.

He changed history by taking the Christian movement from a persecuted minority to a privileged status. In time, pagan Rome would become the Holy Roman Empire. He raided pagan temples, burned them and redirected their wealth to Christian causes. He had a mobile chapel in his military tent, read the Bible and composed a prayer for his troops.

When Christian leaders could not agree on how Jesus was God, he got the bishops together at Nicea . He told them to work it out and don't quit until you get it done. Millions today recite the Nicean creed every Sunday. He delayed his baptism until his deathbed so that all his sins would be washed away by sacramental grace. He considered himself the 13th Apostle.(Sources consulted on Constantine: Encyclopedia Britanica, James Carroll, The Sword of Constantine and Catholic Encyclopedia)

And what does all of this have to do with Christians today and Romans 13:1-7? A lot!

Before Constantine, Christians in Rome were a few small house churches hoping to be unnoticed so they could worship in peace. After Constantine, as the centuries rolled on, Christians enjoyed power and wealth. Popes crowned Kings who ruled by Divine Right. Kings in Christendom indeed knew Romans 13.

In the early centuries, historians agree that the church had a conscience against war. After Constantine, church members began to take responsibility for public order, including the armed services. Is it any wonder that church members in the state church tradition, which means most churches in America today, continue to read their Bibles through the lens of Constantine?

When Christianity enjoys state power and privilege, we call it Christendom. A minority of Christians in America never enjoyed the power and prestige of Christendom. Among them are the peace churches: Quakers, Church of the Brethren and Mennonites. These groups all went through a time of persecution, even martyrdom at the hands of those who feared the spread of their ideas. They refused to allow the state to name their enemies or fight its wars. They refused to let the sword of Romans 13 trump all other Biblical passages which teach suffering love and overcoming evil with good.

Peace churches read Romans 13 differently. And others are joining us in our convictions. With fascination I read a Catholic Bible interpreter who writes:"Paul cannot be held responsible for (Romans 13) being taken for a Christian theology of the state. That is too much weight (for these remarks) to bear. The tragedy of Christian history both in the east and the west is that they have been made to bear that weight." (Luke Timothy Johnson, Reading Romans)

And we are joined in strong, almost militant, peace convictions by Methodist. Stanley Hauerwas of Duke University. Time magazine recently identified him as "America's best theologian". He calls himself, jokingly, "a high church Mennonite." (Stanley Hauerwas, With the Grain of the Universe)

With fascination, I read of a group in New York City called: Peaceful Tomorrow's. They are relatives of victims of September 11. They are looking for peaceful alternatives to the war on terror and victim compensation in Afghanistan. They take their name from a saying of Martin Luther King Jr. "Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrow's." Patriotism means that we gratefully respond to what is wise and good in our nation's life and that we speak up for America's best when she betrays her own ideals.

Some of you remember when Gerald Ford was president of the United States. His wife Betty slid into alcoholism. So a meeting was planned in which all of the immediate family, children and their spouses plus Gerald gathered around her for what the counselors call an intervention. I don't know how they said it but the intervention message was clear: Beloved mother, you have a drinking problem. You need help now. Get it now. She heard them. Out of her pain came recovery and the Betty Ford Clinics. It was love to speak up for truth and save a life.

True patriots speak truth to power because they care about saving lives. It is my conviction that the nation we love needs an intervention, especially from Christians who care and pray. It is not right that our country amasses weapons of mass destruction such as anthrax, atomic weaponry and chemical toxins. If used in combat, these would kill cities full of civilian men, women and children.

It is not right that we spend hundreds of billions on war and preparation for future wars and call that security when it means millions of hungry people, often with untreated mental illness are living in the insecurity of shacks or cardboard boxes.

We need nonconformed minds. We need people who can think for themselves. We need a moral imagination, the ability to see new creative possibilities for responding to tragic evil. One of the most dull witted, lazy phrases in the English language is, "we had no other choice."

When Mennonite Bertha Beachey came back recently from years of ministry to Islamic Somalis, she was invited to speak to government agencies of the United Nations. She chose to share that time with a Somali friend. Their joint vision of the need in Somalia and their constructive criticism of government policy was the same. With shock and surprise, government officials saw warm cooperation between a Christian and an Islamic women.

Mennonite John Paul Lederach's peacemaking and mediation in many parts of the world earned him an invitation to speak at an American war college. They were open to some fresh air.

We should not limit our message to government to telling officials how to do their jobs. Our lives as communities of faith, our service in the world in time of urgent needs, should create new political space, new possibilities for officials to do the right thing and incidentally, to get re-elected to continue to do the right thing! And we go beyond government. Peacemaking is people to people work; not just government to government negotiation.

I end with the story of Laura Blumenthal, an American Jewish journalist whose father was touring the Arab section of Jerusalem in 1986. He was shot in the head by a Omar Khatib, an Arab terrorist. No one helped him, but he staggered toward medical help. His life was saved.

His daughter Laura wanted revenge. She wanted to grasp the shooter by the lapels and shake him. She was a journalist for the Washington Post. She began to research and write a book about revenge. She even interviewed the Mafia in Sicily.

Some 12 years later, she went to Israel and spent a year in pursuit of the shooter. She concealed her Jewishness. To Arabs she was an American writer. She found the name and location of the man who shot her father from the Israeli authorities. Omar was in jail. She spent a year getting to know Omar's large Arab family and began to write letters to Omar.

The most gripping scene in her story was her testimony at Omar's parole hearing. There was no procedure for witnesses to speak. Then she privately divulged the fact that she was an American Jew to the court appointed Israeli lawyer defending Omar.

Leah, the lawyer, was shocked and surprised. She then pled for Laura to be able to speak. Laura wanted to be able to address the court for one minute. One of the three judges said: "You have no right to speak."

She said "Yes I do."

"Why?"

"I'm his daughter."

All in the courtroom were shocked. She blew her Jewish cover. I don't know who was the most surprised? Was it the family of Palestinian Omar? What a shock to realize that the young American who had been visiting and drinking tea with them in their home for a year was Jewish?

Was it the Israeli judges? One of their first questions: WHY DID YOU DO SUCH A DANGEROUS THING?

Laura's response: "You have to take a chance for peace". Then they asked prisoner Omar, "When did you find out who she was?"

Omar leaped up and said "right now, right now, right now."

Then Laura's mother spoke: If the Blumenthal family can forgive Omar, then its time for the state of Israel to forgive him." One judge said to Laura, "It took a lot of guts to do what you did." Laura replied: "I did it because I love my father very much. I wanted them to know that he is a good man with a good family. This conflict is between human beings; We're people. Not targets."

Then Omar's family called out "Laura". There were hugs. And tears. Omar's Palestinian mother hugged Laura's Jewish mother and said we are two mothers, one family. Later a letter from Omar the terrorist shooter to David, Laura's father: "God is so good to me that he gets me to know your Laura who made me feel the true meanings of love and forgiveness." She was the mirror that made me see your face as a human person. If God helps and I get to be released, I hope you accept my invitation to be my guest in the holy city of peace, Jerusalem." (paraphrased from Laura Blumenthal, Revenge.)

Patriotic Paul who loved his Jewish people and loved the church and who honored government as God's creation would have been pleased with this outcome. Paul was patriotic. We do well to embrace the love of God, the love of enemies and the respect for rulers which he taught us in Romans 13 and Romans 12. AMEN.

Endnote: John Howard Yoder makes an interesting point that the imperative of Romans 13:1 is not literally obedience, suggested by the English word "submit". He prefers the term subordination. It is voluntary, it has dignity and it is akin to the humiliation and subordination endured by Christ, while His spirit was gloriously free." (paraphased from The Politics of Jesus)