This is going to be quite a lengthy entry, I am writing it on New Year's Eve Day, with nothing else to do apart from waiting for the New Year to arrive. I will be humbly honoured if anyone takes the time to read it all, and very thankful for a like, a dislike or even a brief comment. Note my quotation from C. S. Lewis regarding his 'festoonings'. I am going to start my entry with a sentence which I hold as my own, but I am sure someone else has said the same thing, and even put it into writing.
"All we need is Jesus, we do not need civil governments"!
I intend to take Romans 13, verses 1 to 7, one verse at a time and add my own commentary. It is not an unknown approach, C. S. Lewis did it with the Lord's Prayer, in Chapter 5 of his book, "Prayer: Letters to Malcolm". he called it 'festooning'. He wrote to Malcolm:
"I don't very much like the job of telling you about my 'festoonings' - the private overtones I give to certain petitions. I make two conditions: (a) That you will in return some of yours. (b) That you will understand that I am not in the least recommending mine either to you or to anyone else. There could be many better; and my present festoons will very probably change.
"I call them 'festoons', by the way, because they don't (I trust) obliterate the plain, public sense of the petition but are merely hung on it."
I am sure it will be noticed that my festoons do 'obliterate the plain, public sense of the petition' but C. S. Lewis was not an anarchist in the active sense of the word. He was a member of the Church of England, and saw no real problem with the status quo. He was only concerned with the spiritual development of his readers, commendable as that is, but to my way of thinking misses the point of effecting change. I am an anarchist, and I want change in this world here and now. Not through violence of course, but by getting people to relinquish their dependence on institutional authorities, such as governments and established Churches, and turn to God through Jesus.
I occasionally read my own entry and end up wanting to add a bit! Referring to my comment regarding C. S. Lewis and his possible leanings towards Christian Anarchism, makes me think again about Dorothy Day, who is now being considered for sainthood by her Roman Catholic Church. This must be because of her good works, even though she herself accepted being known as a Christian Anarchist. It cannot be because of her leanings towards Christian Anarchism in its fullest extent. In my earlier entries I commented on the possibility of Carlo Acutis, if he had survived into adult, could well have adopted a position similar to Dorothy Day. These are my rantings, I must return to festooning about Romans 13:1to7.
So here we go, I am using the Good News Bible.
Rom 13.1. Everyone must obey state authorities, because no authority exists without God's permission, and the existing authorities have been put there by God.
I have no disagreement with the first phrase, we all know the consequences of breaking the civil governmental laws if caught. However, if the state authorities are ruling with alternatives to God's Laws the Christian must disobey them to the point of accepting the punishments, even death. Not by fighting back of course, but just passively acquiescing to the punishment. It is better to die for God than to die for the state. As we all know, martyrdom helped to establish Christianity before it became corrupted by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great (306AD to 337AD) . The second phrase is also acceptable to me, because God created all good things. He did not create evil, but He did create the devil and gave him free will who then chose to rebel. The devil created evil through his rebellion. We continue to create evil every moment we say or do something which is not in accordance with God's Laws. (BTW, I will have to write another blog entry to describe what I understand as God's Laws!). God knew beforehand that the devil would do this and therefore gave us free will as well to make a choice, so if we choose a despotic authority we alone must suffer the consequences. Again I cannot disagree with the third and last phrase of this verse but it should read that only the good authorities, ordained by God, have been put there by God because God is the creator of all good things, but will not intervene if we choose the wicked. The evil authorities have been put there by the devil. Remember that my view of all Scripture is that it is written by man, not God, and Paul was writing to the people of his time only. He could not have believed that his words would be read over 2000 years later and that we would be expected to follow them literally, now knowing the consequences of the authoritarianism of all governments. The rising interest in anarchy, and its continuing development through non-violence during the last 200 years, is part of our evolutionary development.
Rom 13.2. Whoever opposes the existing authority opposes what God has ordered; and anyone who does so will bring judgment on himself.
The first sentence is total and utter nonsense, there is no way that God ordered the wickedness and corruption, not just of despotic governments, but of all governments. As I have already stated, wickedness and corruption are the works of the devil, not God. The second sentence is obvious, but the judgement is from the devil, through civil government, not from God. If we turn to God through Jesus, we will be forgiven.
Rom 13.3. For rulers are not to be feared by those who do good, but by those who do evil. Would you like to be unafraid of those in authority? Then do what is good, and they will praise you,
Well, I fear no-one, never have and never will. The ultimate consequence of error is death by accident, by natural causes, by wickedness in others, or by war even as a non-combatant and I have never feared death. Less consequential punishments such as fines or imprisonment I would have to accept if I behaved badly and was caught, but I cannot remember deliberately behaving badly which resulted in the discomfort of others. As a state school teacher (there's a contradiction between my world-view and my reality, for which I now profoundly regret and ask for God's forgiveness) I did punish some of my pupils. I hope and pray they too forgave me, and I did invariably apologize to them afterwards. I have always abhorred physical punishments, and in his book "The Kingdom of God is Within You" Tolstoy clearly described how his witnessing of it by Russians soldiers on the peasantry helped to bring him to his viewpoint, now acknowledged by Christian Anarchists as a foundational text. I have had no experience of mental torture but, as with receiving physical torture, I can only think that I would pray to God, ask Him to forgive my torturers and give me strength to endure. The second sentence, a question, is just silly, but Paul was writing solely for the Christians of his time. Most people then, and most people now therefore I guess has some relevance to us, are afraid of something. But we are asked to trust in God, so why on earth should we be afraid? The third sentence in this verse is obvious beyond belief, but I guess ignorant people (no disrespect there, ignorance is just lack of knowledge, we are all ignorant in some respects) need to hear it so Paul penned it. My festoon now is that the praise is short-lived, and substantial reward is not forthcoming as the divide between the rich and the poor gets ever wider.
Rom 13.4. because they are God's servants working for your own good. But if you do evil, then be afraid of them, because their power to punish is real. They are God's servants and carry out God's punishment on those who do evil.
The first sentence is quite true, but that is not all there is to it. Of course we need law and order in a civil sense, and governments help to keep the peace and discourage criminality with their laws (regrettably administered through the threat of punishment, rather than appealing to God's Law), with their police force, law courts and prisons. But behind all of this they have the military and do not hesitate to use them if their authoritarianism is threatened, even on their own subjects, the ones whom they claim to provide protection. Paul repeats himself here having said this in the previous verse, but the Bible is full of repetition, to a point for me to make much of it boring. For the same reason, most preachers are equally boring. There is nothing inherently wrong in someone repeating themselves, C. S. Lewis commends its use, particularly in the Psalms, which should be read as poetry. He refers to this repetition by what scholars (he says) calls 'parallelism'; "that is, the practice of saying the same thing twice in different words". This quotation is taken from his book entitled 'Reflections on the Psalms'. His introductory chapter in that book covers the topic very clearly. Perhaps here again is an indication of my own lack of spirituality, suggesting that I do not really appreciate poetry. I will finish my festooning of this verse by referring to its last sentence. The wickedness in men shows they are not serving God, they are serving the devil, and God is not a punishing God. But as I have already said, Paul was writing for the Christians of the time, and would have to speak in words which they could relate to. We are now much more mature in our Christianity, or should be, and if we wish to continue to hold the Bible as our sacred book we must bring the Scriptures in line with our developing maturity.
Rom 13.5. For this reason you must obey the authorities - not just because of God's punishment, but also as a matter of conscience.
Well, I have dealt briefly with the non-sensical idea of God being a punishing God and far more needs to be said about that, but the reference to our conscience is of vital importance, I do not know just how far Paul was aware of what he was saying. We are all prone to referring to our conscience in a very flippant way, but we know that philosophically and psychologically it is a profound topic. We know that we have a body, a mind, a soul and a spirit, and operating together we have a conscience. I cannot help but refer again to C. S. Lewis, where in his little book entitled "Mere Christianity" he examines the existence of a moral law. It is a very thoughtful attempt to suggest that it exists beyond human enterprise, and brings us back to God. Of course we accept that these are only the writings of mere man, just as I believe are the writings we call the Holy Scriptures. There is nothing holy about man's efforts in this world, only his faith in God through Jesus. Cast aside our faith in the written words of the Bible, and concentrate on the Word of God, who is Jesus. We all have a conscience, and it must compel us to do good rather than bad, and God is very clear on what is good. As I have said, I must write a blog entry on what I understand about God's Law, but I do think many of us need instruction about what is good and bad. Mainstream Christianity attempts to get us to be good through the threat of punishment, but the moral law exists without any threat, and it is there for the taking. We all have a conscience.
Rom 13.6. That is also why you pay taxes, because the authorities are working for God when they fulfill their duties.
No, we pay taxes only for governments to fulfil their promised attempts at providing us with peace, relief from disease and natural disasters, sound infrastructure and good health care. This has nothing to do with God, they do this from a humanitarian position, and their humanity dissolves when the devil takes over and they wish to feather their own nests, and spend billions on the military. They would, or should, do these things without any reference to God. Governments are not working for God, they are working for the devil, and God knows this and wants us to relinquish our dependence on them. Humanity is perfectly capable of providing relief from disease and natural disasters, providing sound infrastructure and good health care without governments, and in our voluntary ways often does.
Rom 13.7. Pay, then, what you owe them; pay them your personal and property taxes, and show respect and honor for them all.
We owe them nothing, but we will pay our taxes if they are used in the manner in which I have described in my festooning of the previous verse. I think a useful way, and it is available in many countries of the world now, would be to join an intentional community (see Wiki), perhaps one which lives frugally below the tax threshold of the country in which it resides. The problem would become one for the governments if the greater part of the population of the world did this, but for me it would have provided me, I think, a lifetime of devotion to God, instead of pursuing my hedonistic and materialistic style which I indulged in. God bless.
"All we need is Jesus, we do not need civil governments"!
I intend to take Romans 13, verses 1 to 7, one verse at a time and add my own commentary. It is not an unknown approach, C. S. Lewis did it with the Lord's Prayer, in Chapter 5 of his book, "Prayer: Letters to Malcolm". he called it 'festooning'. He wrote to Malcolm:
"I don't very much like the job of telling you about my 'festoonings' - the private overtones I give to certain petitions. I make two conditions: (a) That you will in return some of yours. (b) That you will understand that I am not in the least recommending mine either to you or to anyone else. There could be many better; and my present festoons will very probably change.
"I call them 'festoons', by the way, because they don't (I trust) obliterate the plain, public sense of the petition but are merely hung on it."
I am sure it will be noticed that my festoons do 'obliterate the plain, public sense of the petition' but C. S. Lewis was not an anarchist in the active sense of the word. He was a member of the Church of England, and saw no real problem with the status quo. He was only concerned with the spiritual development of his readers, commendable as that is, but to my way of thinking misses the point of effecting change. I am an anarchist, and I want change in this world here and now. Not through violence of course, but by getting people to relinquish their dependence on institutional authorities, such as governments and established Churches, and turn to God through Jesus.
I occasionally read my own entry and end up wanting to add a bit! Referring to my comment regarding C. S. Lewis and his possible leanings towards Christian Anarchism, makes me think again about Dorothy Day, who is now being considered for sainthood by her Roman Catholic Church. This must be because of her good works, even though she herself accepted being known as a Christian Anarchist. It cannot be because of her leanings towards Christian Anarchism in its fullest extent. In my earlier entries I commented on the possibility of Carlo Acutis, if he had survived into adult, could well have adopted a position similar to Dorothy Day. These are my rantings, I must return to festooning about Romans 13:1to7.
So here we go, I am using the Good News Bible.
Rom 13.1. Everyone must obey state authorities, because no authority exists without God's permission, and the existing authorities have been put there by God.
I have no disagreement with the first phrase, we all know the consequences of breaking the civil governmental laws if caught. However, if the state authorities are ruling with alternatives to God's Laws the Christian must disobey them to the point of accepting the punishments, even death. Not by fighting back of course, but just passively acquiescing to the punishment. It is better to die for God than to die for the state. As we all know, martyrdom helped to establish Christianity before it became corrupted by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great (306AD to 337AD) . The second phrase is also acceptable to me, because God created all good things. He did not create evil, but He did create the devil and gave him free will who then chose to rebel. The devil created evil through his rebellion. We continue to create evil every moment we say or do something which is not in accordance with God's Laws. (BTW, I will have to write another blog entry to describe what I understand as God's Laws!). God knew beforehand that the devil would do this and therefore gave us free will as well to make a choice, so if we choose a despotic authority we alone must suffer the consequences. Again I cannot disagree with the third and last phrase of this verse but it should read that only the good authorities, ordained by God, have been put there by God because God is the creator of all good things, but will not intervene if we choose the wicked. The evil authorities have been put there by the devil. Remember that my view of all Scripture is that it is written by man, not God, and Paul was writing to the people of his time only. He could not have believed that his words would be read over 2000 years later and that we would be expected to follow them literally, now knowing the consequences of the authoritarianism of all governments. The rising interest in anarchy, and its continuing development through non-violence during the last 200 years, is part of our evolutionary development.
Rom 13.2. Whoever opposes the existing authority opposes what God has ordered; and anyone who does so will bring judgment on himself.
The first sentence is total and utter nonsense, there is no way that God ordered the wickedness and corruption, not just of despotic governments, but of all governments. As I have already stated, wickedness and corruption are the works of the devil, not God. The second sentence is obvious, but the judgement is from the devil, through civil government, not from God. If we turn to God through Jesus, we will be forgiven.
Rom 13.3. For rulers are not to be feared by those who do good, but by those who do evil. Would you like to be unafraid of those in authority? Then do what is good, and they will praise you,
Well, I fear no-one, never have and never will. The ultimate consequence of error is death by accident, by natural causes, by wickedness in others, or by war even as a non-combatant and I have never feared death. Less consequential punishments such as fines or imprisonment I would have to accept if I behaved badly and was caught, but I cannot remember deliberately behaving badly which resulted in the discomfort of others. As a state school teacher (there's a contradiction between my world-view and my reality, for which I now profoundly regret and ask for God's forgiveness) I did punish some of my pupils. I hope and pray they too forgave me, and I did invariably apologize to them afterwards. I have always abhorred physical punishments, and in his book "The Kingdom of God is Within You" Tolstoy clearly described how his witnessing of it by Russians soldiers on the peasantry helped to bring him to his viewpoint, now acknowledged by Christian Anarchists as a foundational text. I have had no experience of mental torture but, as with receiving physical torture, I can only think that I would pray to God, ask Him to forgive my torturers and give me strength to endure. The second sentence, a question, is just silly, but Paul was writing solely for the Christians of his time. Most people then, and most people now therefore I guess has some relevance to us, are afraid of something. But we are asked to trust in God, so why on earth should we be afraid? The third sentence in this verse is obvious beyond belief, but I guess ignorant people (no disrespect there, ignorance is just lack of knowledge, we are all ignorant in some respects) need to hear it so Paul penned it. My festoon now is that the praise is short-lived, and substantial reward is not forthcoming as the divide between the rich and the poor gets ever wider.
Rom 13.4. because they are God's servants working for your own good. But if you do evil, then be afraid of them, because their power to punish is real. They are God's servants and carry out God's punishment on those who do evil.
The first sentence is quite true, but that is not all there is to it. Of course we need law and order in a civil sense, and governments help to keep the peace and discourage criminality with their laws (regrettably administered through the threat of punishment, rather than appealing to God's Law), with their police force, law courts and prisons. But behind all of this they have the military and do not hesitate to use them if their authoritarianism is threatened, even on their own subjects, the ones whom they claim to provide protection. Paul repeats himself here having said this in the previous verse, but the Bible is full of repetition, to a point for me to make much of it boring. For the same reason, most preachers are equally boring. There is nothing inherently wrong in someone repeating themselves, C. S. Lewis commends its use, particularly in the Psalms, which should be read as poetry. He refers to this repetition by what scholars (he says) calls 'parallelism'; "that is, the practice of saying the same thing twice in different words". This quotation is taken from his book entitled 'Reflections on the Psalms'. His introductory chapter in that book covers the topic very clearly. Perhaps here again is an indication of my own lack of spirituality, suggesting that I do not really appreciate poetry. I will finish my festooning of this verse by referring to its last sentence. The wickedness in men shows they are not serving God, they are serving the devil, and God is not a punishing God. But as I have already said, Paul was writing for the Christians of the time, and would have to speak in words which they could relate to. We are now much more mature in our Christianity, or should be, and if we wish to continue to hold the Bible as our sacred book we must bring the Scriptures in line with our developing maturity.
Rom 13.5. For this reason you must obey the authorities - not just because of God's punishment, but also as a matter of conscience.
Well, I have dealt briefly with the non-sensical idea of God being a punishing God and far more needs to be said about that, but the reference to our conscience is of vital importance, I do not know just how far Paul was aware of what he was saying. We are all prone to referring to our conscience in a very flippant way, but we know that philosophically and psychologically it is a profound topic. We know that we have a body, a mind, a soul and a spirit, and operating together we have a conscience. I cannot help but refer again to C. S. Lewis, where in his little book entitled "Mere Christianity" he examines the existence of a moral law. It is a very thoughtful attempt to suggest that it exists beyond human enterprise, and brings us back to God. Of course we accept that these are only the writings of mere man, just as I believe are the writings we call the Holy Scriptures. There is nothing holy about man's efforts in this world, only his faith in God through Jesus. Cast aside our faith in the written words of the Bible, and concentrate on the Word of God, who is Jesus. We all have a conscience, and it must compel us to do good rather than bad, and God is very clear on what is good. As I have said, I must write a blog entry on what I understand about God's Law, but I do think many of us need instruction about what is good and bad. Mainstream Christianity attempts to get us to be good through the threat of punishment, but the moral law exists without any threat, and it is there for the taking. We all have a conscience.
Rom 13.6. That is also why you pay taxes, because the authorities are working for God when they fulfill their duties.
No, we pay taxes only for governments to fulfil their promised attempts at providing us with peace, relief from disease and natural disasters, sound infrastructure and good health care. This has nothing to do with God, they do this from a humanitarian position, and their humanity dissolves when the devil takes over and they wish to feather their own nests, and spend billions on the military. They would, or should, do these things without any reference to God. Governments are not working for God, they are working for the devil, and God knows this and wants us to relinquish our dependence on them. Humanity is perfectly capable of providing relief from disease and natural disasters, providing sound infrastructure and good health care without governments, and in our voluntary ways often does.
Rom 13.7. Pay, then, what you owe them; pay them your personal and property taxes, and show respect and honor for them all.
We owe them nothing, but we will pay our taxes if they are used in the manner in which I have described in my festooning of the previous verse. I think a useful way, and it is available in many countries of the world now, would be to join an intentional community (see Wiki), perhaps one which lives frugally below the tax threshold of the country in which it resides. The problem would become one for the governments if the greater part of the population of the world did this, but for me it would have provided me, I think, a lifetime of devotion to God, instead of pursuing my hedonistic and materialistic style which I indulged in. God bless.
