THE INTERIM 
 
back March 1998 
 
Can you tell me the names of any Protestant teachers who say that Christians can disobey an unjust or evil law, e.g., in civil disobedience? Anon., Markham, ON.

There must be hundreds but I have only space for a few.
 
John Calvin in the Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536) said that, rather than obey a law that is contrary to God’s moral law, the Christian subject ought rather to “spit in the face of the magistrate.” He taught that the “law of God, which we call the moral law, must alone be the scope, and rule, and end, of all laws.”

William Perkins, a famed English theologian (1558-1602) wrote: “If it should fall out that man’s laws be made of things evil, and forbidden by God, then there is no bond of conscience at all, but contrariwise men are bound in conscience not to obey.”

Harold Berman, Professor at Harvard, in The Interactive of Law and Society  (1974), quoted the example of the early Christians who, rather than offer sacrifice to Caesar, submitted to being killed by lions. He added: “Thus, the first principle of Christian jurisprudence, established by historical experience, was the principle of civil disobedience; laws that conflict with Christian faith are not binding in conscience ... the Christian era began with the assertion of a moral right - indeed a duty - to violate a law that conflicts with God’s will.”

Francis A. Schaeffer, writing in A Christian Manifesto, (1981) says: “The early Christians died because they would not obey the state in a civil matter. People often say to us that the early church did not show any civil disobedience. They do not know church history. Why were the Christians in the Roman Empire thrown to the lions? From the Christian’s viewpoint, it was for a religious reason. But from the viewpoint of the Roman state, they were in civil disobedience; they were civil rebels. The Roman state did not care what anybody believed religiously; you could believe anything, or you could be an atheist. But you had to worship Caesar as a sign of your loyalty to the state.

“The Christians said they could not worship Caesar, anybody, or anything but the living God. Thus, to the Roman Empire they were rebels, and it was civil disobedience. That is why they were thrown to the lions.” Dr. Schaeffer adds: “There is not only the right, but the duty to disobey the state.”

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