For churches and their leaders to be talking and teaching about Christian resistance against ungodly and wicked authority is not at all easy or simple. Throughout recent years, and especially since June 26, 2015 (or more really, since January 22, 1973), a cacophony of voices clamoring for a hearing has made “soft answers” seem like spineless waffling.All the more reason, for considering one of the more quiet essays written more than twenty years ago by an author belonging to a company of loud spokesmen that included Francis Schaeffer and an array of Christian Reconstructionists.You may want to read the entire collection of essays (available as The Theology Of Christian Resistance, ed. by Gary North, Christianity & Civilization, vol. 2 [Tyler, Texas: Geneva Divinity School Press, 1983]).The roster of writers may not be to everyone’s liking, but I am very interested in commending one of the most convincing and relevant essays among the bunch. You’ll catch the flavor of the essay from the editor’s introduction.
Section 3 [of the collection of essays] takes up the history of resistance in the West. First, the question of the idea of resistance in Western history. One of the most important documents for Protestants is John
John Calvin
Calvin’s final paragraphs in his Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559 edition), Book IV, Chapter XX, Sections 23-32. Calvin took the view that the private citizen does not have the right of armed rebellion against a lawfully constituted monarch, but lesser magistrates do have this right. Rebellion against the central civil government must have the assent and co-operation of the intermediate or lower civil government. Calvin was clearly not an anarchist. Michael Gilstrap offers a study of Calvin’s position on the legitimacy of civil government and the grounds of resistance, legitimate and illegitimate, by and through the lesser magistrates. He analyzes Calvin’s Institutes, his commentaries on the Bible, and his letters (p. xxiv; bold emphasis in the original).
You should read the entire essay of Michael Gilstrap, “John Calvin’s Theology of Resistance,” and perhaps I can motivate you to do that by quoting at length his closing applications.
Contemporary Applications
We who believe in the sovereignty of God and in His all-ruling providence recognize that there is much to learn from history. History is the unfolding of God’s decree, and it is presumptuous for us to cut off our “Hall of Heroes” with the closing of Hebrews 11. By God’s standards, John Calvin is a hero of the faith, and with regard to Christian resistance, he should be listened to.
To begin with, Calvin’s division of the agents of resistance into private citizens and magistrates is important. In 20th century America, with the radical egalitarianism that has been popularized as a result of our baptistic moorings, it is important to emphasize that a nation’s constitutional basis must be defended by constitutional defenders. Too often the attitude that prevails in many churches is projected into political life. In most American churches, the “people” vote on everything, and make a decision on everything. If enough of the membership doesn’t like something, then they band together and proceed to change it. Government, however, doesn’t work that way. We may not like the federal funding of abortions, the United Nations, or the huge giveaway programs, but we as private citizens do not have the right directly intervene. In other words, even though the government does fund abortions, we must still pay our taxes. If the time ever comes, and there is the need for armed, active resistance against a tyrannical federal government, then that resistance must come about as a result of the leadership of lesser magistrates. The duties of the private citizen are primarily obedience to the moral laws of the land, and deference to the magistrates. It is only when obedience involves ‘one in an actual sin’ that civil disobedience is acceptable. Direct intervention, however, never is because, in America, we live a Republic and we elect (most) magistrates to represent us.
The second point made by Calvin that is important for us today is his teaching that moral laws of the land are supreme over both magistrates and subjects. The magistrates as well as the people are subject to the law. For Calvin, the definition of a tyrant is one who claims for himself exemption from God’s moral laws of the land, only to create unjust, ungodly and immoral laws (known as Legal Positivism). In our antinomian culture, law is not appreciated as it should be, but a nation cannot forever harbor a low view of natural/moral law before God gives them what they deserve: one just like themselves—a ruler with a low view of the moral law; that is, a tyrant.
Third, it is important to underline the fact that Christian resistance is conducted within the established order, and not against it. Resistance, as Martin Luther King Jr. taught, civil disobedience—not revolution. A modern day revolutionary movements may reflect negatively on the average Christian. Christian resistance, however, seeks to bring Constitutional order and moral law back to the nation, rather than create disorder for the purpose of overthrowing the reigning government. An act of Christian resistance works to bring the country back to the moral law over legal positivism, and when that is done, the resistance stops, even if all the wrongs haven’t been righted. Those unrighted wrongs are then approached through the proper channels via the lesser magistrate.
FOR THESE REASON, ‘We The People’ in America, as the Body of Christ, must actively seek out those among us who are well trusted in the church, who may qualify under scripture, 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9 to be deacons and elders and those who are biblically and constitutionally wise, to encourage and support those to become magistrates in our local, county and state governments! -PilgrimsBeacon
Finally, although there is not time to go into detail, with the popularity of Francis Schaeffer’s A Christian Manifesto, it is important to touch upon the relationship of the Scottish Reformed tradition and the Continental tradition which was molded largely by John Calvin. Schaeffer has highlighted one work from the Scottish tradition, Lex, Rex (translated—“The Law and the Prince”) by Samuel Rutherford, and pointed to John Knox as a preeminent example of Christian resistance in Christian history. There is, however, a genuine divergence of views between the Continental and the Scottish reformed tradition. The Scots, under Knox, John Ponet, and Christopher Goodman, endorsed such things as the right of private citizens to depose an evil governor by force and even to kill a tyrant. Goodman appealed to private citizens to remove an evil ruler from their midst lest they become polluted and guilty of his sins. Knox, who was a student of Calvin’s at Geneva, expressed his most radical views in his famous Trumpet Blast Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, where he argues that resistance is legitimate because of an unbiblical government (a female monarch). His view received an even more permanent place in the Scot’s Confession of Faith (1560), where “repressing tyranny” is listed under the heading of “Good Works.” As can be seen in this very brief view, the Scottish tradition is considerably more radical than Calvin’s (bold emphasis added, NDK).
His chapter, again, is “John Calvin’s Theology of Resistance,” by Michael R. Gilstrap, in The Theology of Christian Resistance, ed. by Gary North, (our recommended books); this citation appears on pages 215—217.
You can read that chapter (page 210 on the pdf file) as well as the full text of The Theology of Christian Resistance HERE.
References (edited): worldviewresourcesinternational.com
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