Corona and Civil Disobedience

Fear of death, fear of virus and just like that, we give the government power over us. Power bordering on martial law; to lock us in our houses; close our schools, keep us from working. We whisper, “It could never happen here,” as the Mayor of New York says he will permanently close houses of worship if they don’t comply with social distancing. Or consider this headline from the New York Times, "Pandemic Tempts Leaders to Seize Sweeping Powers." Where’s the line? Do I make a stand? Corona’s got me thinking conscience.

Time to hammer out a rubric for acts of conscience. What actions require a response? Do I engage in civil disobedience? If so, when? The overarching biblical principal is that ‘every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities.’ In most issues I obey the law. I protest but I don’t break it. Yet there are distinct situations where I defy.

These are the summits I stand on, the hills I’ll die on. This past December Wang YI, head of one of China’s largest unregistered churches was sentenced to nine years in prison. The crime, in his words, “The goal of disobedience is not to change the world but to testify about another world…The Bible teaches us that, in all matters relating to the gospel and human conscience, we must obey God and not men. For this reason, spiritual disobedience and bodily suffering are both ways we testify to another eternal world and to another glorious King.” Men may make God illegal but there are higher laws. 

Every person is created in the image of God. This makes all humans valuable and gives value to those considered “less than valuable (including the unborn).” If a law encroaches on their life, liberty or pursuit of happiness it is a bad law. In such cases breaking the law to save another; or to make a point is a good thing. “An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.” 

These are the parameters which guide my steps. Your guidelines may end up different. To often we make determinations based on fear and feeling. This is a good season for thinking through what you believe. What’s my grid? We’re inside now. Is there a time to step out, step in, step up? 

Kenosis, Christmas and Hope

“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself…”

Kenosis is the Greek term.  It means Christ emptied himself of divine attributes in becoming human. Clash of kingdoms. Spirit puts on flesh. The Christmas gospel captures hearts because of this.  Stories of humans making spiritual decisions. In spite of circumstance.  Magi setting personal lives on the shelf in response to the quiet shout of the Heavens and the words of a prophet. Joseph and Mary strike out for Jerusalem as a couple---a pregnant couple putting trust in angel words and First Testament writing over reputation. A desperate despot who thinks the writings may be true…whoa to the two-year olds.  In the midst—grace, peace, forgiveness. Which is why I find such hope in the Christmas story.

We trust in a coming king and a present God. Still normal life looks, well, normal. Water heaters still go out on Christmas.  Governments seem at best to burden the governed.  At worse they persecute them.  In early December Chinese police detained Pastor Wang Yi. “As a pastor, my disobedience is one part of the gospel commission,” Wang wrote. “Christ’s great commission requires of us great disobedience. The goal of disobedience is not to change the world but to testify about another world.”

There is another world.  A risen king. We try live in that way; crucified with Christ living as Christ.  We hold fast to Bible word; “all things work together for good, It is He sits above the circle of the earth, He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, Who makes the judges of the earth meaningless…” This Christmas, we encounter normal, joyful or dismal.  Still may we find hope.  For the things we see may not be the way they truly are. “And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war.”