If you have friends who are Christian and are talking about Jeff Sessions and his attempt to cover for our government’s policies around how we are currently handling families who are attempting to migrate into the United States along the Southern Border by using a Biblical reference I would encourage you to read the following from Reverend Anne Dunlap who is the Faith Coordinator for Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ).
“The one who loves another has fulfilled the law...Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”
This is Paul, in Romans 13. The same Paul who says in Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world...so that you may discern what is the will of God.”
The same Paul who, we are told, argues that one should “obey” the “governing authorities” (13:1). Or as Attorney General Jeff Sessions put it yesterday as a defense for separating immigrant families (i.e. taking children from their parents) one should “obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.”
In this understanding, to be lawful, to obey the government is a good thing. Those who are not “lawful” are, in Sessions’s words, “subject to prosecution.” Paul’s apparent sanctioning of law and government as good is thus given the weight of scriptural moral authority.
Romans 13:1-7 has a long and troubled history of being used by governing bodies to support whatever action they have deemed “lawful,” regardless of how oppressive or violent that law might be. In the history of the U.S., just as one example, those who defended enslavement often used Romans 13 as their biblical source of moral authority. Enslavement was the law, and therefore everyone must follow the law.
This is essentially the argument Sessions and this administration are trying to make about immigration laws.
I’ve spent a lot of time scrutinizing this text, digging into the original Greek language, reading it in the context of the whole of Paul’s letter to the Romans and Paul’s other letters, and taking into account the historical context in which Paul was writing. What is Paul talking about here? Why do these verses seem so out of place after chapter 12 and even the rest of chapter 13? How can Paul say “do not be conformed to this world” and then say in the next breath “obey the government”?
The fact that 13:1-7 seems out of character with what has come before and after should be a clue for us that something else is going on here. We might also think about how often Paul proudly ended up in Roman prisons and, tradition tells us, was executed by the Roman Empire -- perhaps even under the order of Nero himself. Does that sound like someone who simply “obeyed the government?”
So, what if what we have been told Romans 13:1-7 means is not actually what Paul means? What if “obeying the laws of the government” is not what Paul is saying at all?
I could say so much about this! But briefly: Letter to the Romans is first and foremost Paul’s argument about the sovereignty of God -- in the face of Rome and Caesar. This is important! The Roman emperors claimed both to be divine and to have divine authority to rule (including with the title “Son of God” - though not the One God of Paul). Throughout Paul’s letters, including Romans, we see Paul both outrightly and subtly condemning Roman imperial culture and Caesar - they “worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom 1:25). In Romans, Paul takes every logic of the Roman empire, every power claimed by Caesar - “law and order,” “mercy,” “grace,” “justification,” “sanctification,” “piety,” “strong and weak,” “peace and security,” (these should all sound familiar to Christians) - and turns them on their heads to defend the sovereignty of God.
Basically, in Romans Paul demolishes Roman imperial theology that defends (“justifies”) its violence and corruption through divine moral authority ascribed to Caesar. For Paul, God is sovereign, not Caesar. Such a claim would most certainly be a violation of what Rome considered “lawful” and “good.”
Paul is making this argument not just for argument’s sake, though. He’s making a theological and ethical argument to remind the Roman citizens who were members of the Jesus-following community that they are to be faithful to God’s ways, not Roman ways (one way we might think of “the flesh” in Paul’s usage). Those with privilege in this multi-ethnic, multi-class community made up not only of Roman citizens but also returned-from-exile Jews, enslaved people, and poor laborers need the reminder to “not be conformed to this world.” Indeed all the instructions in Romans 12 - share power, love with affection, practice humility, be hospitable to strangers, redistribute your wealth, feed your enemies - are values and practices completely counter to Roman ways.
So where does that leave us with Romans 13? Well, first of all it’s clear here that God is sovereign, and that those in authority are servants of the One God - which is actually limiting the power of Caesar and Rome by naming them as “table-waiters” in God’s overall plan. Talk about putting Rome in its place!
Also! Nowhere does it actually say “obey.” The verb Paul chooses, translated as “be subject to” in the NIV and NRSV, is one Paul uses throughout his letters and implies agency and discernment (see again 12:2). One makes a choice -- to be faithful to the One God or not. The threat of judgement and “the sword” tells us that contrary to Nero’s propaganda of a new age of peace, the threat of violence against those who do not “worship the creature” is still very real -- as many of those in this Jesus-following Roman community knew very well.
“Be subject to” does not mean “obey the laws because laws are good and government is good because God said so.” It means to make a choice. God’s way, or Rome’s way?
For the privileged Roman citizens to whom this letter was written, Romans 13:1 - “be subject to the governing authorities” - is the reminder to take themselves out of Rome’s death-dealing ways and align themselves with those in their community who are most oppressed by Rome, to throw in their lot with those most marginalized and accept the consequences -- to be subject to Rome, not part of the power structure inflicting violence on others.
Today, when those with governmental power are inflicting harm and calling it “lawful” and therefore “good” and are using Romans 13 as their biblical moral authority to do so, it’s not enough to say that some laws are good and some are not; that message still implies that Romans 13 says what the powerful say it does.
Those of us who find ourselves in a similar position to the privileged Roman citizens - especially those of us who are middle and upper class white Christian folks - can push back and say Romans 13 doesn’t mean “obey the government.” Romans 13 means being faithful to God, it means refusing the power to inflict harm and living instead into God’s vision, practicing God’s values. Romans 13 means “love does no wrong to a neighbor” and refusing to accept wrong to a neighbor even if that wrong is “lawful.”
Love does no wrong to a neighbor. That is the fulfilling of the law, Paul says. That is everything and all that matters, and we are under no obligation to faithful to anything else, regardless of what the government tries to tell us is “good” and “lawful.”
Taking children from their parents? That’s wrong. There is no biblical defense for that. Period.
With love and solidarity,
P.S. Whew, that was a lot, right? Check out Rev. Anne’s podcast on Romans to learn more about how to read Romans differently and in a way that supports collective liberation (transcript with resources here). SURJ-Faith’s “Community Safety for All” campaign invites us to live into that alternative vision; learn more here.
