Romans 13 says obey the government. So why do Christians pick and choose which laws they'll follow — and who gets to decide when civil disobedience is holy?

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  Priya S.2w ago

  I hid in my grandmother's arms when I was four. She was a Christian woman in Communist Romania who kept an underground Bible study in her basement for twenty years. She broke the law every single week. She was beaten for it twice. I am who I am because of her faith and her courage. Romans 13 did not mean what the secret police wanted it to mean. It never did.

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  Zara M.1w ago

  If 'every person' in Romans 13:1 is absolute, then Rahab sinned when she lied to protect the spies. The Hebrew midwives sinned when they defied Pharaoh. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego sinned when they refused Nebuchadnezzar's order. Daniel sinned when he prayed anyway. Peter sinned when he disobeyed the council. The author of Hebrews sinned when he put those people in the faith hall of fame. You can't have all of that and still claim Romans 13 is absolute. The Bible corrects that reading from the inside.

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  Morgan _x2w ago

  The answer is embarrassingly simple if you actually read the whole New Testament. When the Sanhedrin told Peter and John to stop preaching, they said 'we must obey God rather than men.' Acts 5:29. That's the line. When human law conflicts with divine command, you obey God. When it doesn't, you obey Caesar. The problem isn't the principle — it's that every generation of Christians conveniently decides their preferred political cause is the one where God outranks the government.

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  Elena1w ago

  Fine. Here's my challenge to everyone defending unlimited government submission: Walk me through exactly how you would have advised a German Christian in 1942. Step by step. If your theology produces the answer 'report the Jews in your neighbor's attic because Romans 13,' you need to start over from scratch.

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  Jamie1w ago

  There's a meaningful distinction that almost nobody in these conversations makes: passive disobedience versus active resistance. Daniel refused to stop praying — he didn't organize a coup. The Hebrew midwives lied to Pharaoh — they didn't raise an army. There's a long biblical tradition of quiet, nonviolent refusal to comply with evil commands, accepting the consequences. That's different from deciding God wants you to storm something.

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  Iris 212w ago

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer literally participated in a plot to assassinate Hitler and we made him a Christian hero. Martin Luther King broke laws and we gave him a federal holiday. Corrie ten Boom hid Jews and wrote a bestselling Christian memoir about it. At some point we have to admit the church has already voted with its feet on this question. We just won't say it out loud because then we'd have to think harder about the present.

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  Nina1w ago

  My grandfather was a pastor in South Korea under Japanese occupation. He preached in Korean when it was banned. He refused to bow at Shinto shrines. He went to prison for both. My family has never once debated whether that was 'okay.' Some questions answer themselves when you stop reading theology as an academic exercise and start reading it as something people actually had to live.

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  Kofi1w ago

  Nobody ever thinks THEY are the dangerous rebel who misread God. Everyone thinks they're Corrie ten Boom. Very few people think they might be the one using bad theology to justify bad behavior. That's the epistemological problem at the heart of all of this and I don't know how you solve it without genuine humility and community accountability — which, coincidentally, is also something most 'holy rebel' types don't have a lot of.

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  Feli2w ago

  ok but nobody in this conversation is going to apply this consistently. the same people who quote romans 13 to tell protestors to sit down and be quiet were CHEERING when county clerks refused to issue marriage licenses. you cant have it both ways. either civil disobedience is sometimes right or its never right. pick one.

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  Omar1w ago

  can we talk about the fact that the same evangelical community that quotes romans 13 to silence protesters also spent years arguing that any gun control law is basically tyranny they have a divine right to resist?? the inconsistency is staggering. it's not theology it's vibes dressed up in scripture

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  Taylor B.1w ago

  Something people skip over: Paul wrote Romans 13 while himself ROUTINELY violating Roman law by preaching an unauthorized religion. He was imprisoned multiple times by the governing authorities he told believers to submit to. He died at the hands of the government he told Christians to honor. That's not hypocrisy — it's proof that he never meant total submission. He meant something more nuanced and we flattened it.

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  Taylor1w ago

  The real question nobody wants to ask is whether American Christians would recognize actual tyranny if it arrived wearing a flag and a cross. Romans 13 becomes very useful to people in power and very dangerous to people without it. Always has been. Slaveholders loved that passage. Just saying.

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  Drew2w ago

  This is where people get sloppy. Romans 13 was written under Nero. NERO. If Paul meant absolute submission to ANY government command, he was writing a suicide pact. He clearly wasn't. The passage is about not being a revolutionary anarchist who tears down civil order for personal gain. It is not a theological endorsement of every law a government passes. Context, people.

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  Riley 211w ago

  I'm gonna be unpopular here but: I think most Western Christians using 'civil disobedience is holy' language are not hiding Jews from the Gestapo. They're refusing to bake a cake or wear a mask or follow health codes. Invoking Corrie ten Boom to justify that kind of thing is genuinely offensive to people who actually suffered under real tyranny.

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  Elena B.1w ago

  This whole thread is people arguing about a principle that Christians have already answered a hundred times through actual costly obedience. The theology was settled in the prison cells, not the seminaries. I trust the martyrs more than the commentators.

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  Noah1w ago

  slaveowners quoted romans 13 and abolitionists quoted exodus. both claimed to be obeying God. this should give all of us pause before we get too confident we're the ones reading it right

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  Reese1w ago

  ^ THANK YOU. The scale of what counts as 'government overreach requiring Christian resistance' has gotten completely unhinged in this country. People talk about minor inconveniences like they're being thrown to lions.

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  Avery _x2w ago

  Honestly I get nervous when Christians start deciding for themselves which laws God approves of. That road goes everywhere. The January 6th crowd thought they were doing God's will. The people who bomb abortion clinics think they're obeying a higher law. I'm not comparing those things directly but I am saying — the 'God told me to break this law' framework has been used to justify atrocities and we should be very, very careful.

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  Morgan1w ago

  I actually asked my pastor this question once and he pivoted to a 15 minute sermon about prayer changing nations. I still don't have an answer. That was six years ago.

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  Riley1w ago

  Theologically speaking, the Reformed tradition has always maintained that there is a right of resistance when magistrates command what God forbids OR forbid what God commands. Calvin himself said it. Knox said it louder. This isn't some fringe anarchist interpretation — it's mainline Protestant political theology going back 500 years. The 'Romans 13 means total submission' reading is actually the outlier historically.

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  Maya1w ago

  The early church didn't burn the Roman temples. They didn't assassinate emperors. They preached, they refused to renounce Christ, and they died for it. That's the model. Nonviolent, Spirit-led, consequence-accepting defiance of specific commands that violated their direct loyalty to Jesus. Not 'I don't like this policy so I'm going to call it persecution.'

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  Drew1w ago

  The problem is 'when human law violates God's law' sounds clean in the abstract and becomes an absolute mess in practice because Christians cannot agree on what God's law even requires. I'm not being cynical. I'm describing the last five hundred years of church history.

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  Reese1w ago

  Hard agree that people apply this selectively. But 'everyone is inconsistent' doesn't answer the actual question. Even if our applications are hypocritical, the principle of when legitimate civil disobedience exists is worth working out carefully. Throwing up our hands because everyone's a hypocrite is just an excuse to not think.

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  Liam1w ago

  Honestly this debate makes me tired because it will never be resolved in a comment section. What I do know is that I've read the stories of Christians who sheltered people under oppressive regimes and I have never once finished one of those stories and thought 'they should have just followed the law.' My gut and my theology agree on that much at least.

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  Liam T.2w ago

  ^ this is the most important comment in the thread and it has fewer likes than a feel-good Romania story. The road to 'holy rebellion' is extremely well-paved with good intentions and extremely bad outcomes.

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  Sam1w ago

  respectfully disagree with both of you. principle matters regardless of scale. if Christians only defend the right of resistance when the stakes are historically catastrophic, we'll always be 10 years too late to use it.

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  Sam K.2w ago

  nah man the Romania story hit different don't diminish that

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  Hana1w ago

  verse by verse: Romans 13:1 says 'every person.' Not 'every Christian when it's convenient.' Not 'every person unless you have a good reason.' EVERY person. I know that's uncomfortable but the text says what it says. The exceptions people build in are read INTO the text not out of it.

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