The biggest threat to the United States today is not a virus, but rather “virus-shaming.” The greatest challenge the American experiment faces in this dark hour is not our need for safety but our loss of liberty. And the complicity of the church in the wholesale abandonment of this self-evident truth is no less than stunning.
While governors across the nation fall over themselves to break their oath of office, the church remains quiet. While one mayor after another assumes unilateral power, pastors across the spectrum of denominations shame rather than applaud those who resist such demagogic arrogance.
One retort, in particular, seems ubiquitous in putting freedom’s defenders in their place. “The Bible says we are to obey our government, to ‘submit to every ordinance of man,’ and ‘be subject to the governing authorities.’ How can you ignore these passages?”
Well, the answer is, frankly, quite simple. This application of the Bible is truncated and out of context. This exegesis is terrible. This is proof-texting at its worst, for it fails to take into consideration the arc and intent of the biblical narrative.
For example, if Moses had done what this argument suggests, we wouldn’t have the story of Exodus. If Paul had followed this line of reasoning, he wouldn’t have spent so much time in jail, nor would he have lost his head. And what of Gideon, Ehud, Jepthah, Samson and Deborah, who were all charged explicitly by God to resist rulers who had begun to aggregate unto themselves political power at the expense of personal freedom?
[…]
See Also:
(1) Civil disobedience can end the coronavirus stupidity (Read It All)
