This week’s Two-Minute Warning features BreakPoint chairman of the board and Beeson Divinity school dean Dr. Timothy George. Following the theme of freedom of worship vs. freedom of religion, Chuck Colson prompts the topic of civil disobedience. As Dr. George explains, the primary purpose of the Manhattan Declaration and of any Christian understanding of civil disobedience should not lie in the assumption that we desire such disobedience -- in fact, we hope disobedience never becomes necessary. Yet we are caught in the tension of living under the authority of both God and man.
Dr. George explains that the government does not have the right to pass laws that violate our conscience; thus there may be areas of life in which the government ought not to rule. The law intrinsically functions as a moral guide, for better or for worse. As Augustine pointed out, an unjust law is no law at all.
Now for your thoughts. When is a law unjust and how should we respond?
Comments:
What about prudence? Or is that simply making sure justice works out in practice?
There are a lot of laws which would be just in theory that would have results that would make it unjust in practice.
For instance the Washingtion Naval Treaty gave the Imperial Japanese Navy three tons to every British and American five. That was perfectly fair as far as it went as Japan had less to defend. The result was to help make Japanese think they were being treated as international inferiors. The treaty was perfectly just, but helping cause world war 2 is obviously not so. While one excuse would have done as well as another for the Japanese army-mafia of the time, the whole thing wasn't helpful even though all participating governments had a theoretical right to do so.
A worse example was the infamous literacy tests in the south. In itself the idea isn't so bad if you wish a criteria for the franchise. However it was applied as a means to exclude blacks(according to one tale one black who could read classics in the original was excluded because the test was "fudged").
These are examples of laws which were not unjust but which had unjust results. That is what is called the "law of unintended consequences"(in the second case it was intended, but it would have sounded well enough to an outsider). And while unintended consequences can't always be predicted some can, and the wisdom to be able to is a form of justice.
Nonetheless I usually count "justice, mercy, and prudence", as the three virtues of state even though the later is about the first two.
So civil disobedience is necessary when a law is favoritist, inhumane, or allows someone to lord it over someone else.
What is really fascinating about the jurisprudence books is that without a Biblical foundation, laws are based simply on consensus. This puts leadership into the hands of sinners - with predictable results.
So in fact one can critique and criticize laws based on their theological underpinnings.
However there does come a time when it is necessary to disobey. I think a handy rule of thumb is simply when it is no longer possible to obey without sinning. The early church did not make civil disobedience protests against circuses and infanticide. And by the time it did bring it's attention to these things, it was already an institution in the Empire. The early churches disobedience was simply the refusal to worship Caesar.