Romans 13 and Protestant Resistance Theory

[Music] welcome to Christ the center your weekly conversation of reformed theology this is now episode number 651 by my count my name is Camden Busey I'm here in Grayslake Illinois we have a really exciting discussion lined up for you today let me introduce to you first our good friend co-founder of reformed forum here and pastor very soon to be installed at at faith OPC and fawn Grove Pennsylvania at least by our time in episode time which is not when this will come out at least recording time will be installed on Friday Jeff Waddington good to see you Jeff how are you doing oh it's great to be here brother yeah thank you for the privilege well it's it's always a pleasure to speak with you we always love having you on the program and this one's really right up your alley today we're welcoming to the program for the very first time a dr. William Redinger who is the associate professor for government history and criminal justice at Regent University and reformed person at that he's a member of Reformation Presbyterian Church in Virginia Beach nearby to the University and we're welcoming him to the program for the first time for a very important subject welcome to the program bill it's good to see you alright well thank you very much yeah we're delighted to have you with us and maybe not because of the circumstances but certainly you can help us understand from an historical perspective and not just in in vague history but one also informed by you know our reformed tradition and biblical truth we're going to be speaking about an article the doctor running ER published in the American political thought Journal back in summer 2016 that's published by the University of Chicago very prestigious institution it's kind of like Chicago's Ivy League a very very significant University in this journal back in summer 2016 you can get this article online it's sort of I think it's about 20 bucks or some something therein is titled the American Revolution romans 13 and the Anglo tradition of reformed protestant resistance theory you can see I've printed out my PDF copy we're going to be talking about that today and certainly um you know now given the the fact that we're in the throes of a pandemic and there has been various questions about constitutional authority and whether or not various governors and various states Illinois's one of them are over stretching or overreaching with their their authority what is the responsibility of Christians in such a scenario but also as we record it's June first and I know this episode might be out a week or two after that certainly we're also in the throes of very concerning riots and many violence and injustice in our country and there's a lot going on a lot to be concerned about and we need the Lord's mercy and in many regards but we're going to be considering the nature of civil authority and the magistrate as it pertains to the church and consider the matter as it as it came to the fore with the American Revolution so there's a lot to discuss but uh just very briefly I'd like to mention and you can check out what we're up to it Reformed forum org I've got a contact page there if you'd like to get ahold of us with any comments or suggestions you can click on that top left of the page there's a little envelope thing where you can send us a note but I've also want to draw people's attention not only to the recent episodes that we've been able to produce but also some online courses so we're we're developing and working on an educational platform and you can visit that the section on the menu called Academy and then they're in you can find some free online courses you can register for them and please give us your feedback it's it's in the works but we've made these available and we have other courses lined up that will be coming out soon and other programs of study so we're really excited about what's going on it reformed for them but if you'd like to take part in that that way and certainly will let us know how the experience is gone and how we can improve it please send us a note we'd love to hear from you so Jeff I want to first start off with you just to speak perhaps about your fascination and interest in in American history and in politics I know you've done some work in that regard and and love to interface these with our reform tradition what were your thoughts you know when we when we were presented with this with this idea that we might be able to talk about this article well of course just in general the idea of how to properly handle Romans 13 was of interest to me I'm preaching once for the second time through Romans at Faith OBC and fallen Grove so eventually I'm going to get to this chapter and it can be dicey that even when handled properly with regard to the Christians submission to the magistrate so that that's there but also my my own family background as many of you may know my sixth great-grandfather Robert Morris was the superintendent of Finance for the Continental Congress he was the president before the office of President was created now as it turns out philosophically politically financially I'm probably in great disagreement because my group my great great great great great great grandfather was for a central bank and he was for he was a federalist is over against an anti federalists and you know we may get into some of that in our conversation but but so well so anyway so there's that family background that I just love but I also love history in general American history in particular although I'm working I've been trying to build my library to include histories of every part of the world China and India being of two interest to me at present but always American history you know though it's fascinating you know we have conversations about various things and stuff comes up in the news it's always useful and insightful to review our history it's part of the the important function of being well-read in history and understanding even the very nature and the the foundations of our of our country to be able to understand how to interface with things presently so here bill it's it's fascinating that this article came up I was at a ministerial meeting so we monthly have a meeting of minister in the presbytery of the midwest we often meet at wheaton we know you spend a year there teaching at wheaton college we meet at the OPC there on Naperville Road and I was talking to a bunch of people but one of them was pastor Jim Michaelson who is pastor of our OPC Church in Elbert Illinois and he just we were having conversation about what our churches are going to be doing in the midst of this pandemic and at the time our governor had not clarified or restricted and/or released any restrictions on churches and in fact churches were more restricted in how they might interact then a lot of stores were you know I went over to Bass Pro Shops and you know was able to just go buy stuff for a hunting trip you know unrestricted but churches are only allowed to have ten people regardless of the size of their building so anyway I mean that was something up in the air recently the the Illinois Supreme Court has forced the governor of Illinois to clarify himself and basically turned all of his restrictions into into recommendations but that's another matter so the question at the fore was how do we respond as as a faithful and obedient Christians in the face of you know civil authority that depending on your perspective and and depending on your estimation I don't I don't mean to make value judgments here but it's an issue we have to wonder whether or not you know it's wise to be civilly disobedient if ever that's called for or allowable you know in in one way shape or form so before we get in any way my point is he recommended this article to me and I never heard of it and I was so happy I got right on during our conversation and bought the article and read it that day and then promptly emailed you so that we could have this conversation right now bill I'd be curious just to have you just explain a bit of your work at Regent and I'm looking at the list of courses you've taught and I'd like to take all of them so could you email your me your lectures soon okay well yeah I for 10 years or so I've been a region where I teach political theory broadly trained and the history of political philosophy and I have a particular interest in American political thought American politics this has been a a topic the American Revolution there's been a topic of interest to myself for a very long time and since we're talking about family backgrounds I cannot trace my lineage back to one of the great founders but several great great greats ago one of my ancestors was in the infantry and he immigrated from southern Germany or german-speaking switzerland hanover in those days and and so I am and descended from a veteran and so I have a certain measure of of cognitive dissonance going on here very proud of that heritage at the same time that perhaps like you Jeff I'm not sure that I would have entirely agreed with everything that heinrich reading her thoughts back in the 18th century so one of the things that i thought that i might comment on briefly is that camden you just you use the word wisdom how do we how do we apply various biblical principles with wisdom and i think that's particularly important and thinking about politics keeping in mind that first and foremost the bible is of course not a text book about politics right so any wholesale importation of particular principles without consideration of prudence and wisdom is I think not advisable so but I continue to be interested in the topic of resistance to to tyranny whether this is ever justifiable and you know unfortunately it seems to be relevant perhaps most relevant in the case of the church for example in China and so you may have seen on the internet pastor Wang Yi prior to his incarceration released a statement with the expectation that he probably would be incarcerated and I would recommend everyone who is watching this perhaps to take some time to read that not sure I came over the title something like a declaration of obedience or disobedience or something to that effect the you know the the general theme there of pastor Yi's article is we need to keep our eyes on eternal things and it's very hard to do but we belong to a kingdom not of this world the the government of of communist China is a tyranny and and yet nevertheless my role here is not as a pastor my role here is not to point so much transform culture although the church will do that but first and foremost my purpose here is to preach the gospel and if you read that I think what you see there is some some very very clear parallels to Calvin give me names in the document and also I mean in particular Calvin's Institute's and important parallels I don't know if this was intended but important parallels to you know Calvin's many letters to the to the French Protestants in the late 15 50s and early 15 60s and so you know that's one of the things that I'm thinking about right now in recent days is places were much more so than in America there's a very practical question yeah now I think that was I was most struck reading your article and thinking about this not just in an isolated you know history this isn't just a question of historical theology but obviously it has import for the present day but there's there's quite a few different views on what was going on in the American Revolution and right here in your article just to start off with the abstract you note that some scholars argue that the theology of the American Revolution was fundamentally Lockean that is john locke but then others present and say no it wasn't fundamentally locking it was Lockean and reformed and then there's a question of whether Locke can be harmonized with reformed views and then you present the idea that know that there's we need to go ever further with some more investigation to see the the different threads of reformed thought whether Anglo or Continental and how those those compare so that's the basic structure at least as I've understood your article and in the way that it approaches so I'm very excited to talk about the different layers here of understanding and how that might inform us how are you presented with this with this notion I mean sometimes his stories of these articles are interesting but um how did you arrive at this study did it did you go out searching for it did it find you in some way I think it's probably true to say that it found me when I was a student many years ago at Grove City College and when I was there you know it began to dig around and find what some of these these names that I was hearing in the classroom had to say about questions of resistance and government and so really ever since then I began to become more interested in it you know over time I guess I would say that my my trajectory was that began to see more and more clearly that there's probably some serious tension between claims that are being made by clearly John Locke but but also by Orthodox ministers during the 18th century in America on one hand and what I was reading in Kelvin and others like him so that's really something that I you know not necessarily in this form but it's something that you know had been in my mind for quite a while and so it became pretty apparent just reading what people like Kelvin and others had to say about these texts in the Bible that there's probably at least some problems with the way in which these texts were handled during the Revolutionary period you know for those listening just I think a very basic statement of the the thesis that I present in this article is that the American Revolution was influenced by reforms process but perhaps not the most consistent of reform Protestants perhaps people who at times had been influenced by the political thinking of the age which of course as a as a regular temptation for all of us mm-hmm and furthermore there's there's another tradition you mentioned canned in my language of continental tradition mostly people in the continents who in the 16th 17th century were very very cautious about what it meant to open up what I would regard as a can of worms when you you know when you when you get violence out of the can it's hard to get it back in and so you know that is the Prudential side of biblical arguments are made that you know we're it's not actually ok necessarily to do but what eventually was recommended for example by the Declaration of Independence so the question we're looking at is Christians who are living under under tyranny what is their obligation in terms of submission to the magistrate political authorities and is there a situation in which Christians can or must perform civil disobedience and of course that's the broader question and then we want to look at okay what did the reformed tradition and then John Locke say and did they emerge at some points and and then we want to look at how did they handle what Paul the Apostle said in Romans 13 because that's the key thing right is did they handle that text properly now you have an answer and I know the answer that you've given but we want to lay this out the historical setting for what is sometimes referred to as a reformed resistance theory or theology goes back to the st. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in France or at least that appears to have been post Calvin the context in which you begin to see a specific school of resistance theory within the world so let's that's the that's an initial historical context for this whole idea of wrestling with the question of obedience to tyranny perhaps this is the question maybe you can for those of us are not schooled in political theory explain what resistance theory is and and how that comes into play in the American Revolution specifically for anyone who believes in any kind of natural justice any kind of right and wrong there's always a distinction between legitimate government and illegitimate government or between good government and tyrannical governments so the question becomes whether whether they're whether there is any recourse by the common man in cases of tyrannical or illegitimate government and so I think it's a bit of an oversimplification but throughout most of the ancient and medieval period there's a great suspicion of the goodness of this so you know a classic statement to this effect would be Thomas who in on kingship is very very clear that that any kind of revolution which he calls rebellion is a bad idea for for both principals and Prudential reasons when we move into the modern period it becomes much more of a question and so I guess it start with Alvin just mentioned a few others so in the paper this this group of thinkers that I call continental thinkers because they're mostly on the continent I would include Calvin with this and so you know I would say this is prior to the the Bartholomew's Day Massacre where we see this this kind of thinking but the question becomes Calvin can we what can we do what we do against the French oppression of Protestants and and the short answer is if there is to be any resistance it needs to be done by some kind of legitimate public authority you know in kelvins letters he speaks of a prince of the blood somebody immediately who had some some legitimate connection to the crown ought to be leading this and I don't go into it in the paper but I would argue that this is simply Calvin being a natural law thinker it's the same kind of thing that you see in Thomas Aquinas what do you what is a legitimate war for Thomas this first and the most important criterion is that it must be done by a public authority if it's not done by a public authority you you simply lose all order and so you see this kind of thinking being developed I think by Calvin now post Calvin with the rise of a significant persecution people like Hill DeMornay author of the vindication against tyranny rice this justification for resistance and in the paper I try to show that I think that this this very influential document is really not a different it's not a different species then then Calvin's political thought on the question even though it's much more developed as a legal dog he's the author is very clear that resistance specifically by private individuals is is not permitted but in some kind of capacity as Calvin argued in the last chapter the Institute's there are some magistrates who are legitimate magistrates who have know that he uses the word right but they have a right and a duty to check the power of a license and so you see that same thing in Brutus and in the paper I talk about basa as well he says the same kind of thing during this period Gilbert Burnett is another name that I mentioned just in passing but Burnett would be someone not on the continent am I put in the Continental tradition who this who's writing was very influential as a justification for the glorious evolution it was very clear on this as well what's happening the Glorious Revolution of 1688 1689 is not a popular uprising against the king of it instead it's a it's an exercise of legitimate public authority against the tyrannical monarch this was the arguments and so you know I find that had to be persuasive now what what happens later and this is a you know a critical question for how we interpret the American Revolution but what happens later is that Locke writes his famous two treatises of government the most significant document to defend the right of revolution and the argument in effect is that government exists only protect our individual rights if it doesn't do that it's not a legitimate government therefore the people can we would say revolt law strictly speaking says that people may reestablish a government now that there is an illegitimate right and so the question at that point becomes for law do we do we agree with law that the common people can pick up the sword for a redress of or not a redress but you know a violent restoring of the kind of government you want or that we signed with Calvin and this Continental tradition for a majority of the people in America in the late 18th century the answer was we side with Calvin and that this is this is consistent with our reformed convictions what I what I suggest in the paper is that it's actually not that consistent with your reformed convictions and that some of these that's rather blunt but you know this this was actually developed over time by by thinkers who were rather obviously not particularly Orthodox and so there was an apparent culmination of Locke's political thought with with more orthodox Calvinists political theology so you also ask the question you know what do we what is the simple answer about what the the Bible says might even say simplified answer I suppose but what does the Bible have to say about the question of resistance and I would think that it's really quite clear actually that this is not something that private individuals have the authority to do so if there is an illegitimate government it would seem on the one hand to be immoral not to say that it's tyrannical or it's being unjust but on the other hand you know we're told rather clearly to submit and Calvin makes this argument in the last chapter the Institute's so Calvin interpreting Scripture with Scripture looks at Romans 13 now the civil magistrate is as a minister of God is there for your good not for your evil it's rather clear now what the question becomes then what do we do if it would seem that the government is actually not there for your good what if you're doing what is good and you're still afraid or what if you are doing what is bad and you're not afraid well Calvin's position is that Romans 13 and I think this is a critical point but Romans 13 seemed to describe the powers that are it's not a prescriptive discussion in Romans 13 but it's a descriptive discussion and so he looks at first Peter 2 for example which has parallel language and first we or two rather uncomfortably points out that that bondservants should be subject even to unjust masters and so you know I would point out that no Jackie mentioned here you're preaching through Romans 13 at some point don't mention it here in the article but at some point I looked at John Murray's commentary on Roman and and this was you know he states this there as well that Romans 13 is a descriptive rather than a prescriptive discussion of civil magistrates and so in some sense at least according to Calvin these things that we see in civil government are they're enacting justice even though we don't know how exactly even if they're illegitimate now I think it's rather clear that if you know of Acts for example if the civil government tells us to do something which is tantamount sin it is sin to obey but that kind of disobedience is not resistance that's disobedience a civil resistance would be more of an organized action whether by a public authority or a private conglomerate of people and I think it's also important to distinguish between back kind of disobedience and and civil disobedience I mean I think in its most technical sense when we use the phrase civil disobedience what comes to my mind is something more like Thoreau or or you know some of Martin Luther King's writing you know where he suggests that the purpose of civil disobedience is to go effectively to go out and find laws that are unjust and disobey them with with the purpose of social change which is a little bit different than what you know if you know here in Virginia you know the governor would say you know you may never meet as a church again well that's pretty clear clear-cut about what we do at that point and the point here is not that I'm trying to change the not trying to transform Virginia Society I'm trying to worship God so now a bill how does we understand understand that in on the continent in England also because the Westminster assembly is convened in the midst of the Civil War between Parliament and the king and according to Calvin and the Continental tradition that would that would be involving lesser magistrates is over against what they perceived to be a tyrannical King yeah but but when Paul writes is more in to the Romans it's quite likely that Nero was the Emperor right so you had a Trent well as far as we know from history a tyrannical Emperor and he says that these Oh as you say it's descriptive not prescriptive it's this is the way it is you have the rulers you have because of God's providence yeah on accidental right not accidental and yes there is there is a standard that they ought to meet and very often leaders don't meet right and so we get into some of the the weeds if you will when when you have to wrestle with okay if you're just assessing it's one thing to give an assessment or an evaluation but but your description of civil disobedience is very is much more new is much more articulated there's more detail to it and there's more of a transformation of society element that of course is not involved in the question of the the Apostles in Acts chapter four you use yourself judge whether we must obey God rather than men right that that's the the comments that Peter makes before the Sanhedrin but we also see that Paul as a Roman citizen follows the legal procedure to eventually get himself before Caesar right he appeals to seizure but he and at one point he even says to the Roman governor when he's still in Caesarea he says if I'm guilty of what I've been accused of I deserve capital punishment he says that the question in our situation is how does Republican form a Republican smaller form of government interface with this question because the because you are in a situation where you don't have a king first of all you have an elected official and then you have governors and you have local magistrate so you have a federal or federated system and you also have checks and balances so an argument could be made that in the United States the president is not the head the Constitution I mean that's one argument that some have made so how does that complicate you know or does it complicate the question well I would say that it makes the question we're difficult I'm not sure that it's openly complicated a lot getting on there I guess that questions so sorry no no that's fine at one it first of all with respect to the this situation in the later chapters of Acts where Paul is appealing Caesar you know I think you know that that clearly is something below a civil resistance right he's using all lawful legal means at his disposal to do what he needs to do as as an apostle and this not really disobedience going on there he's doing everything that he he may lawfully do and really what comes to mind there is this great chapter and the City of God in book nineteen or gustan uses the language of using the city of Man along our way which you know it's not exactly a transforming of society kind of language I guess but in the American context I think it's pretty clear that two to two factors about the US government one of course state governments and the responsibility that the governor's have to protect the order the freedom and and welfare of their citizens and clear that that question has to come to mind in the case of some kind of severe tyranny obviously don't like to think about these things but on the other hand in the United States or in most technically we would say that the Constitution is not the ultimate authority it's the people behind the Constitution I think that does invite us to ask the question does that mean that yeah you know we do have this authority to look over the our magistrates to make sure that they're falling in line and that I think is what makes a little bit more cloudy so let me just let me just suggest this in the United States Constitution there's clearly nothing that affirms a right to revolution sure so it there would be something rather unsettling about the idea of taking clauses about revolution in the Declaration and putting it into the Constitution which the framers explicitly did not do and so that's not to say that obviously they affirmed a right to revolution but that's not to say that they thought it'd be a good idea to put it in there we have a number of legal means in the Constitution for the people something like article 5 giving us you know the ability to to amend the Constitution and I'm you know at this point I'm trying to avoid the question of secession or you know nullification and so on but I do not think that there's necessarily a difference there that's not to say that I don't think the people have any redress there's at least some question with respect to the state governments and situations of severe emergency or disorder at one point I think was you Jeff you mentioned just the question of Providence and so this is very very prominent throughout Calvin in basis writings on politics that you don't see as much of later on the one hand government is regardless of what we say about social contract theory or popular sovereignty or what-have-you ultimately government so that are there are there because of Providence howsoever mysterious and of course Jesus important statement for this purpose here you know you would have no authority except that we're given to you from above right on the pilot there's something there suggestive of God really being in charge you know not only over the president's we like but over the presidents we don't like and so that also is related to the question of redress you know the natural response to someone like Calvin would be this is the fetus are you really going to tell people who are who are suffering but they don't have redress and I think the answer would be he's not telling them that again this idea of lesser public magistrates is their the idea of God's providence is also very prominent whensoever he pleases God can strike down the King whensoever he pleases he he can do this and we ought to be praying people and so I don't know that that's what I want to hear right but it's but it's I think important truth now there's also something else that I don't want to hear that is also part of all of Calvin's discussions and and others like him namely the fact that we're pilgrims here an eternal perspective changes a lot of this discussion and though the let's say it's book 3 and it's discussion on Christian life in the Institute's when Calvin is discussing the you know the the benefits that should be had from contemplating the next life or something to that effect I remember the exact title that section but you know that's that's mature Christianity and I'm trying to work my way up there tuple 3 sure but I think that that's you know part of the answer here as well so what what happens okay in in this whole historical unfolding from the Middle Ages through the Reformation and I think we all understand how this question arises in the face of the Reformation because the Magisterial Reformation as such depends upon the reaction and/or the goodwill of certain political leaders we think of Frederick the wise who was the protector as well as the elector of Martin Luther though that Calvin is eath well he's not a citizen and for much of his time in Geneva his being in Geneva gives him a certain amount of protection I suppose from the city fathers the council yeah there was a point to this yeah I was he went right out of my head so the historical so where does the okay we see Calvin arguing for what we would might call a chastened lesser magistrate view of how to deal with a tyrannical ruler but then we find then there's John Locke and there have been arguments made that Locke is simply secularizing what was a position in in reformed thinking resistance theory and and maybe you can speak to that is is that if a fair assessment of Locke or is that a itself in accurate assessment yeah so as you stated earlier you know in the paper I try to summarize some of the debate on this by distinguishing between a Lockean view of the history and a locking or form to view so in the Lockean view that the ministers and political actors who influenced the american revolution were influenced by law and they may have been Christians as well but they were incoherent and combining those those elements according to the Lockean view which i think you were just stating right that John Locke's political philosophy late 17th century is a it's a somewhat secular natural extension of earlier Protestant political resistance theory and and I would say that that is a partial truth he clearly was following on the heels of some others who were the only thing we could safely say were reformed Protestants I discussed Knox for example you can talk about the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of Milton in that group and others but what what I think is really significant is that we see in law a tendency to be influenced by people who are probably for the most part not that Orthodox in their Christianity and so it's not really that we can say yes Locke was he wasn't an Orthodox Christian but his ideas were basically consist of Christianity as we we sometimes hear and I'm not sure that it's quite that simple so the the two the two elements that distinguish what I call the Anglo tradition people like law knocks and others and the Continental tradition are on the one hand the Continental tradition Calvin and others they they want to say that private individuals have no authority no license to resist the tyranny secondly there's a different handling of the scriptures that gets them to that point so for Calvin at all there's a there's an emphasis on not getting rid of your mind but the but we need to make sure that we interpret Scripture with Scripture what do the Scriptures tell us about parts of Scripture that are unclear or maybe that we don't like very much and and by doing that a conclusion the Calvin arrived that is private individuals may not start wars now for someone like law the statement is rather clear ultimately what happens here is that Scripture is interpreted with Scripture excuse me scripture is triggered with reason you know for the most part not particularly affected by Scripture so in the paper I try to make a discussion of Romans 13 as it relates to Locke and others like him with a particular emphasis once again being on verse 4 of Romans 13 for he is God's servant for your good but if you do wrong be afraid 3 does not bear the sword in vain so the question that law tries to get at and those like him is this once again if if the if the civil magistrate is not actually God's servant for your good but you're doing good and you're still afraid well then Romans 13 doesn't actually talk about the situation you're in you don't have to obey your governor in that case and so once again we get it back into that question of description versus prescription in this passage so a couple of just important lines from different works of Locke's political thought is on the one hand Locke wrote a commentary and Pauline epistles and he interprets this passage as meaning the following is actually his language God's servant only or your good now if you look in a footnote in the same page he'll explain that basically means that for example if this is a government under the authority of Nero well then it's not actually a government Romans 13 doesn't talk about now later ministers Jonathan Mayhew is discussed in the paper some ministers try to explicitly say actually Romans was not written when Niro was Emperor I'm not really sure what evidence there is for that but you know clearly this is a problem so now the idea here is that we're going to use reason another passage from Locke's corpus that I think is revealing is you know he he he has a lot of good nuggets in his first treatise which almost no one reads because why would you really it's not a differential and so on but there's a line in there where he says that reason is our only star and compass that's very very clear state this is not a not somebody you're gonna bring in for you know children's Sunday school so you know we're going to use reason to interpret the Bible as the ultimate authority and I think you'd probably see something like the same thing in Milton's I try to show in the paper that this kind of handling of Romans 13 was particularly influential through of one minister during be the 18th century in America and that was Jonathan Mayhew heterodox Minister in Boston known to many some people who are regular listeners to the podcast may have in their their shells a book by PN are called sermons that shaped America and may huge sermon is in there and it did indeed shape America so but in this sermon you see may you really rehearse in this kind of political thought and interpretation and in Romans 13 that you find in law and as you find it in Benjamin Hoadley could be a heterodox Anglican who influenced a lot and Milton as well and he comes to the same conclusion carefully laying out for his listeners and then the sermon was subsequently printed and disseminated but but laying out for them this idea that Romans 13 actually says nothing about tyranny it's only a text that describes legitimate government and so if Britain for example fails to repeal the Stamp Act then Romans 13 doesn't tell us anything about Parliament or the crown and then later of course this gets picked up now Mayhew's thought I was so influential that John Adams once wrote that if you really want to understand the American Revolution you have to read the sermon it's the this created the sentiments of the day and so it was to some extent really Locke's political thought and biblical interpretation as mediated through mayhew that I think is particularly important later on Ezra Stiles president Yale would remark that you know that the biblical commentary of Locke was exceedingly high with with with the general public because of the influence of ministers and and you know dissemination of these important that's an extremely yeah an important point you make that not so much in passing but you do point out the importance of sermons for the historians task where that might not be readily understood by people in the present day how significant these sermons were at the time so in order to uncover and understand the political theology and the political views of the time you have to go back and read the sermons that thankfully many have been recorded and published to be able to know what what's going on in the minds of these people and and today I mean mate you'll find that in some quarters but in others you're not going to necessarily look to sermons to find out what people's political views are well the the minister in many contexts was the most educated forgiving community and and and the life in the community gravitated to or revolved around life in the church so the minister through the sermon has more and had more influence than typically is the case today as you say there are exceptions I think perhaps maybe the minister and in the black church communities think of Jeremiah Wright in the in you know our previous presidents administration the the narrative of that and the role within the community we do see in certain settings right but even then you know it's probably moderate as opposed to the way it was in the sugar eighteenth-century where the minister Jonathan Edwards for instance served at a time where this was changing at least asked how many historians look at the situation he was reflecting more the older pattern of the minister being held in high regard and the people in Northampton were beginning to change their view to be more democratically inclined that's a quick and easy way of describing them so sermons sermons but even in in and that's why sermons that the Edwards preached were significant because the sermon had a greater influence we didn't have TV we didn't have movie we didn't have recorded music the the play and the place where information was disseminated was the pulpit bill it's interesting as you turn your attention on page 373 of the article you start to speak about John Witherspoon of course anyone who's those American Presbyterianism know about Witherspoon and and his significance although if you start to dig down deeper you might not be such of a hero at least for a certain you know Presbyterian doubt denominations of the present days this is the OPC or the PCA I'm just fascinated by by the role of natural reason within within politics here and interpretation in the Bible and I'd love for you to comment a bit on Witherspoon and another in his role is it seemed as if he had somewhat of a bifurcated view you know when he's doing his exegesis or his theology it's one thing but then he comes to his politics he sets aside certain principles and starts to just operate according to whatever he thinks is right and and and and considering Witherspoon and the perception that he had among other people especially of the time because that to me really demonstrated the the tensions inherent that we can't think of all this in a monolithic way sure well you know you know Witherspoon was the theory of thank or no question a deeply influential teacher of Madison at Princeton the you know on this portion of the paper that you point out I try to suggest that there's some kind of shift in Witherspoon thought between being a scotch Minister and being scotch minister in America and I don't I'm not sure exactly what happened but but at least something changed with his ethics and one book that addresses this and quite a bit of detail is called Republican theology it's by a very good political theorist at Christopher Newport here here in Virginia where the author discusses the the influence that Benjamin Rush had on women so Witherspoon was was keen it seems on not coming to the United States and to try to convince him otherwise and he succeeded and what seems to be significant there is that Rush was very much interested in effectively using the Bible as a tool of republican government to secure virtue and so on and so you begin to see some of this in Witherspoon's thought you know so but with respect to some of Witherspoon's influence on the revolution I quote here one one classic article that says that people called Princeton Witherspoon seminary of sedition I know the seminary of sedition yeah so it has a good I think weather's been may have been kind of proud of that but you know a much sure bits in here but you know another one of the famous quotes from Witherspoon himself about the question Revolution was that he was asked whether he thought America was ready for revolution and he said his view was that America is not only ripe for independence but rotten for the want of it and so it very much advocating for action here now part of the point that I try to make here is that as you suggest at least on some questions Witherspoon is a little bit more prepared on various ethical questions to use some sort of independent reason arguably according to some arguably more they should too to understand what we should be doing in terms of human nature do we look to ultimately to our humanity as a guide for ethics or do we have to check that looking to humanity at least against certain certain principles that we find and you know I I try to suggest the same thing also I feel like I'm gonna make make sure people aren't my friends I try to suggest the same thing about Rutherford as well earlier so in lecture X now this is a you know this is a book was not terribly influential directly on the American Revolution but was people are aware of it at least and so you know Rutherford was was clearly a little bit more influenced by a variety of the neo to later neo Thomas and had some of their flavor a little bit more than Thomas for example and so a lot of the Spanish neo chemists Vasquez and others these would be people who very much we're operating with you know a very robust sense of reason piece of the Sacred Scripture so mmm so do you suspect bill that that with someone like John Witherspoon and perhaps Samuel Rutherford and there is there's a disconnect between say they went when they do their handling of Romans 13 they sound like the site or at least Witherspoon seems to side with Calvin that there's a there is a limited idea of resistance to tyranny by means of the lesser magistrate but then when you look at how he does Witherspoon come out and make a similar argument to lock and Hoadley elsewhere on Romans 13 or does he never actually refer back to Romans 13 as far as you know I'm not sure about Romans 13 I would say that with respect to his his view of a right to revolution it seems to be pretty clearly Lockean in his lectures on moral philosophy because I reported for us so you know as I suggest in the paper Witherspoon seems to a some degree thrown things up against the wall you know let's get the lesser magistrate's argument in there but we also have this natural rights argument that government exists to protect these rights that doesn't than the people have redress so I mean just a perhaps recap you know the thesis to this point maybe before turning to implications for broader study as you as you include here toward the end of the article there are those who would you know would just think the American Revolution was based on Locke's views and and then others that would see them as locking and reformed and that these are compatible with one another you're suggesting and and in arguing for the case that there's another strand here and an Anglo strand of resistance theory at work so I'm curious then to think that to ask you then what are some of the implications for this I'm on page 385 you're right if the lock-in reformed view is correct then a significant part of early American political thought namely the intellectual pedigree of the American Revolution is not only consistent with but perhaps even indebted to an orthodox understanding of Christianity rather than to at best a rationalistic and enlightenment modified Christianity there am i really upset certain people I mean you know I'd love to hear your take on that and maybe you know draw some threads for us to think about things even from a contemporary standpoint yeah well you know one one author that I cite here in that same paragraph is Daniel Dreisbach very fine scholar who you know disagrees with this and so one of the things that drives Bach does in his work is various books that I think is it's quite helpful is that he shows very clearly that the idea that America at this time was a secular or unchurched society is rather absurd these you know people mentioned passages from Jeremiah with no citation and they didn't need to provide a citation because people would know because alou here but but nevertheless this does not necessarily as I argue that a lot of these ideas were more consistent right so yeah that's definitely right and so one of the things that I suggest a st. page is that there's at least some question of whether a right for private individuals to start a revolution is plausibly consistent with the rules of biblical interpretation that we see for example in Chapter one or the Westminster Confession we really interpret Scripture with Scripture you have to do have to do some some hermeneutical prestidigitation at least that is my view and so now I didn't mention yet but I just want to say that one what does this look like in practice be honest I don't remember if I mentioned him in the article but but I do John's ugly is the first first minister of independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah this was a person who is ordained in the Swiss the German Swiss Reformed Church came the United States was retained in the Presbyterian Church and he was a member of the Continental Congress his writings his health Asia excuse me from his earlier essays were deeply critical of the actions of Parliament he was a he was an absolute careful legal mind who is looking out for unconstitutional actions by the British government so he's invited to the Continental Congress can't sign the Declaration of Independence so they took his land and they took his property and that was the end of story and so you know here's a person who was absolutely convinced that we should passionately be on the lookout for infringement on our Liberty well at the same time being very suspicious of the idea that people have a private right to resist government he was also very cautious about the the Prudential implications of of any kind of rebellion you would call it be very concerned about what that would turn into and so it seemed to me that that some of the practical implications you know what does this look like for someone who we would say belongs in this Continental tradition as I call it in the 18th century I would say it looks like John's ugly so the truth you can hear that there's a very loud and annoying part singing right there is having his own civil disobedience so the what you're I think what you're saying bill is that is that as we look at the issue of civil disobedience oral-b you know submission to tyrants in the Paul's comments in Romans 13 in the American context have not been for the most part properly handled so how do we account for that well the influence of lock and then of others you know and you have to I have to ask the question what was in the air or we might say what kool-aid were they drinking that made it possible for them to think that this was consistent for you know John John Witherspoon being the obvious example of one who when he's in Scotland is known as an advocate of the evangelical or Orthodox party of the Church of Scotland he comes to the United States now he still is theologically but then he seems to split off this element of what we I don't know natural theology or a natural philosophy right and and I be curious I have his works um which I haven't read all the way through yet but I'll be curious in my own personal reading to see how if at all he handles this question of and it just reminds me and causes me to ask where are my blind spots right sure no this is a this is does appear to be a rather obvious blind spot that complicates our appreciation for the American Revolution right it is reformed Christians who are who want to be submissive to God's Word and not to be exercising autonomous or independent reason then then we're gonna have to be we're gonna have to look at the American Revolution in a nuanced fashion not necessarily saying it was all bad but recognizing that it is a mixed bag in terms of the sources or the influence and then of course the other the other the other matter is okay this is what we have today if we're starting now as American Christians this this is the form of government that that if Paul is what Paul says in Romans 13 is true and I believe it is then then our government is is our our ministers to do us good yeah so yeah and so you know and you don't deal with these but the questions that will would follow would be okay given all of this history and we're now sensitized to be careful when we look at his thought you know the American Revolution it's it's it's not all bad it's not all good so we've got a deal with that you know sorting and sifting out but then we have to ask the question which I'm sure somebody is already thinking okay what does it mean for us now and I think at the end of the day it's you we have to we go with some notion of a lesser magistrate response to a tyrannical form of government right which would mean something like a governor or a secretary of state that kind of thing and I and I would imagine that we have the freedom in you know I don't think it's unbiblical to say that we could write to our congressman and express our views and I think our friend independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah that's in a sense what he was doing he wasn't blind to to the to what he considered to be the inappropriate actions of Parliament but he couldn't take the one step farther or more than one step farther right right he he said you know so it's yes I'm watching what what's going on here but I can't go the whole way so in as far as you understand that is he considered a Royalist and by in our day I mean by our lights or is he not even that so he's not an American patriot like you know John Adams or Thomas Jefferson but he's he's not a royalist strictly speaking or I don't think you know I want to be conscious and once a person I think would be misleading say a Royalist he's very much one of the things that you see is that he tries to defend the principles of the Glorious Revolution it's great check upon that's the bringing in of William and Mary right that's right that's right and so you know it very well may have looked by you know the news coverage that what was happening was a popular rebellion but it was very careful by people of the day to argue no actually this is not and so this is very much a public action so you know suddenly I think is a really fascinating example in this respect I think he's also you know he's a he's a warning for folks who would who would not be on the lookout for for infringement upon Liberty so he would be a good he might be I don't know if you're thinking of encouraging research I don't know what how much has been done on him he might be he would be a worthwhile topic for a dissertation and in books articles I think so I'm not aware of any recent intellectual biography the one one published compilation of his writing from the 80s be sure you know that a lot of stuff you can find online but his most famous writing would be Health Asia essays redundancy to him for taking the Revolution after it got underway interested don't you I'm not as familiar with his theology but another example of a similar kind of guy would be Jacob Boucher who is actually the chaplain of the Cannell Congress and then was under conviction of conscience that he he couldn't support the cause and and wrote a letter to Washington asking him to change his mind and in Washington turned the letter in to the Continental Congress and so but you know there were a few of these kind of people who were very influential very much on guard against inappropriate actions of Britain but nevertheless couldn't pull the trigger so to speak on on revolution another person whose political thought I'm not by no means an expert on but how you see some parallels between someone like as doubly on the one hand and John Dickinson on the other oh yes right and here in Pennsylvania that's right so you know Dickinson was a great you know prior to 1776 you might call in a great Patriot a great lover of freedom and lover of his country and and eventually became rather lukewarm on the question of whether there was a right or whether it was wise to move ahead with a revolution so he became less influential at that point right Dickinson College in Carlisle is named in his honor I believe No so yes he was a member of Continental Congress I don't remember if he was there the whole time or if he was through at some point but yes he would be another example of someone so they would be helpful if we think of history as something that helps us to you know we can see how others have wrestled with these questions in the past it doesn't mean they're perfect doesn't mean we're obligated to follow them but it helps us to not have to reinvent the wheel and so your your article I think opens up a lot of avenues for us as American Christians buddy I mean this is this is not of course something unique to America the idea of revolution there many countries have gone through that and so there are Christians in all parts of the world who have to at some point or another as you pointed out the pastor of latter rain Church and China went through some of this or is going through I should say some of this this the present tense present and tense scene so this is an this is a perennial issue it's not it not you it's is that it's absolutely fascinating in my mind but but it's also one that that that has different shades and colors in different parts of the world but it's generally the same problem how do we as Christians interact with our political leaders yes yes I mean that's at the end of the day that's what this is all about yeah you know for folks who are interested in more more recent reading if I were just due to mention two competing books debating this broad question you know one would be on the one hand a book that I've already mentioned or alluded to rather by professor Daniel Dreisbach reading the Bible with the American founders which is very good but on the other hand there's someone who probably is a little bit more similar to the take that I've given here is Greg at the Masters University in California his book religious beliefs of America's founders is in my view an excellent book and he's also written a recent book on the political thought of the Loyalists of the Revolution and so that might be something of interest to some people as well absolutely you have those two books in my library it's not interesting yeah it's it's fitting yeah even though the bibliography is very useful here for people but I mean I might take home you know it's important for us of course to study history and even especially the the history of the country were you our citizen and to understand its government but history just the fact that something happened doesn't necessarily make it normative and even many people that we admire and look back to and learn lessons from we may find that even the best of them may be rather inconsistent on matters so we're always driven to have a consistent and faithful obedient hermeneutic and sometimes our are American heroes or their heroes in the eyes of some and maybe not in the eyes of others maybe did not espouse such an important or consistent hermeneutics so this has been a tremendous article again the title of it the American Revolution the Romans 13 and the Anglo tradition of reformed Protestant resistance theories been useful and certainly opened my eyes to several different threads of the American Revolution and I think we'll only stoke some interest for further investigation so thanks so much for taking the time to speak with us today bill it's been enlightening you know what I encourage you thanks for having me on you bet and we'll have to follow up at some point in time but I'll include a link to the article as well as some of the other resources that we mentioned and of course you can find out more information about Regent University online at Regent dot edu there in Virginia Beach Virginia lots of programs going on there even all the way from bachelor's degrees undergraduate degrees all the way up to graduate programs and PhD programs so that so there's a lot at the Univ see for you to take a look at and there and you can find a doctor redditors page as well and find out the courses he's taught in other publications that that he also has produced so we're online at Reformed forum gorg there you'll find information about all of our programs of courses other things that were up to and we do want to encourage you to get in touch with us if you have any comments or feedback or suggestions but I do want to thank everybody for listening we hope you join us again next time on Christ the Center you

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Published: Thu Jun 18 2020