The American Theology of Civil Submission

Scott Ritsema
CIVICS NEWS.com
April 24, 2008

Is governmental authority an "extension of God's authority", as the preachers in this clip state? If so, then are we to render unconditional submission to them, as we do to God. Would that be idolotrous?

Have we been "freed from sin in order to be a slave" to the state, as they claim?

Indeed the Bible teaches submission to lawful authority. So, was Martin Luther King Jr. a bad Christian because he didn't submit to oppressive authority? How about the prophets who spoke truth to power? How about the apostles who were often on the run from the law? How about Jesus, himself, who confronted the power establishment of his day?

You don't suppose that the prophets and all the apostles, and Jesus were all executed because they were being good submissive slaves of the state, do you?

This is part of what has been called the "civil religion" of the American church--the merging of Christianity with the American government, where, in the process, both end up being distortions of what they were intended to be. The central tenants of this religion are 1) the state becomes the object of our submission akin to that which we render to God, and 2) the state becomes the means of redemption in the world (i.e. "if we only got the right laws passed and made society Christian from the top down, then we would have succeeded in the Great Commission")

Watch the clip where pastors say we are slaves of the state, which they believe is a holy extension of God's authority.