Was the American Revolution sinful?

When the Second Continental Congress voted to state:

That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved

what did they think made this so? Was it merely their own declaration or some other act? As we look back, should we say that the colonies left first or were they kicked out? These are no idle or facetious questions. All are intertwined with the American Prohibitory Act of 1775, which (as best I can tell) no one has cited in this thread. The arrival of news of the Prohibitory Act had a significant effect on the Continental Congress. In John Adams’ view the enactment of the Prohibitory Act by King and Parliament is what made them independent. Food for thought.

I mentioned the Prohibitory Act in my post here, but just forgot what the name of it was!

I don’t think the colonists were kicked out at all. I think England was pursuing reasonable measure (from the POV) to bring the colonies back into line. I think Lord North could have been more cunning and politically savvy with his approach, but that’s really just nothing but armchair quarterbacking from a distance of 240 years. Burke and Fox both advocated for taking a softer approach so as to not drive the colonists away. They sought to divide the colonists.

I still see no Biblical warrant, at all, for rebellion. None. the last mention of a Biblical justification on this thread was social contract theory.

I tried to flesh this out a few days ago but no one responded. My question is what would “Biblical justification” for rebellion against a government look like to you? Here is why I ask. If Paul wrote Romans 13:1 as a citizen of the Roman empire, with an idolatrous state religion, slavery, murder by decree, rule by the wealthy, brutality and intrigue as its core principles, and he said, as you interpret it apparently, to obey it and never rebel, THEN WHAT GOVERNMENT COULD BE OPPOSED BY REVOLUTION?

Mark,

I won’t presume to answer for Tyler, especially as he sees this differently from the way I do, but I think we would agree that simple rebellion is out. Now, if a government no longer fulfills its responsibility to reward good and punish evil, and further, as in the case of England, passes laws that declare part of the citizens (the colonists) out from under the protection of the government and declares war upon them, then at that point, it’s no longer really a rebellion, and the appropriate actions then become a lot more complex. Plenty of colonists were willing to rebel against England for various reasons. However, once England’s actions passed a certain point, the revolution was thrust upon all the colonists, whether they wanted to rebel or not, and for many it then became a fight for survival and a time to establish new guards for their safety and security.

There have been many arguments over whether those actions by England provided a biblical justification for the Revolutionary War. That’s still a little different, at least in my mind, from a biblical justifcation for *rebellion*.

Let me ask a related question. Do you believe that the priests and people were justified in deposing Queen Athaliah and putting Joash in her place?

In a nutshell, my goal is to show that the American Revolution was NOT SINFUL by arguing from contradiction.

To show the contradiction, if the Roman Empire was in power when Paul wrote Romans 13, and Romans 13 is interpreted to mean to obey government and never rebel, and the Roman government was a thoroughly sinful government, THEN WHAT GOVERNMENT CAN BE REBELLED AGAINST. If you try to argue that an immoral govt can be rebelled against, what government is more corrupt than Rome?

So, if Romans 13 either means there is no legitimate rebellion of any type, or that it doesn’t apply to rebellion if it is legitimate.

Mark, your argument doesn’t work against many who think the AR was sinful. In fact, they would say to your argument…AMEN! If Paul said we shouldn’t rebel against an evil government like Rome, why should we think we should rebel against a less-evil government like Britain? It is an argument from the greater to the lesser.

I’m not saying I agree with them, but I really don’t see how your argument refutes their view, in fact I think it supports it.

Then your friends are saying imperial government is God’s ideal government and EVERY present government is illegitimate since it resulted from some form of overthrow of a previous government. You see, IF Romans 13 means absolute obedience to government since there is no legitimate revolution against even a corrupt/evil one, then these believers should seek to reform the Roman Empire (and all the others present ca 56 AD)! Also, God told Moses to leave Egypt, forming a new govt. Was he revolting against Pharaoh? You see the contradiction now? The problem is Roman 13 is NOT an absolute demand to obey govt.

I wonder what light 1 Cor 7:17-24 sheds on this question:

But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk. And so ordain I in all churches. Is any man called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God. Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather. For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord’s freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ’s servant. Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men. Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God.

Paul told men to remain as they were when they are saved. Don’t get circumcised out of a piety for Judaism. Wherever you are in life, remain there. Even if you’re a slave, seek to remain that way unless you’re freed - because you’re free in the Lord’s eyes. It is significant that the NT doesn’t call for social revolution to upend Greco-Roman slavery. It tells men to realize that they have heavenly citizenship.

I do wonder where the line is, however. Someone could take this line of reasoning and argue for pacifism. Perhaps this is one of those things I’m simply going to have to shrug over. For example, when I was an investigator with the Military Police, I routinely deceived suspects about evidence we had, confessions others had made, etc. - all in an effort to get them to confess. We’re taught to do that, and it is a widely accepted police practice (within limits). Was I sinning? I’m not sure. This seems to be another one of those circumstances where I’m not sure. I don’t think pacifism is justified, but I also don’t think we ought to burden ourselves with fomenting revolutions. The Baptists in England simply left or endured during religious persecutions. They didn’t revolt.

Mark, Christians did not have a role in overthrowing every government since the Roman Empire. And there is no command in Scripture to restore overthrown governments.

It is very important to understand the difference between God’s secret will (or will of decree) and His revealed will (or will of desire). In the first sense, everything that happens throughout the entire history of the world is His will, because He in His sovereign will decreed it to happen. But that does not mean everything that has happened is according to His revealed will. There are things that have happened that displease Him, even as He decrees/allows them to happen.

So of course the American Revolution was God’s will (in the first sense), because it happened—He decreed it would happen. But that does not necessarily mean it was pleasing to Him. If that bothers or confuses you, you’re going to have a really hard time explaining the Holocaust. The Holocaust was God’s will in the first sense (if you reject this notion, then you are saying it was outside of God’s sovereign control). But it was certainly not done according to His revealed will. It was certainly not pleasing to Him, and those who carried it out will be held accountable by Him.

The ultimate example of this balance, of course, is the death of Jesus Christ.

Holocaust…really? I’ll ignore that.

My point, once again, is that IF GOD SUPPORTS NO REVOLUTION OF GOVERNMENT then the ideal government is dictatorial because that is all that was in existence when Romans 13 was written (ie Had Romans 13 been perfectly followed with that understanding there would never had been any other form of government…expand to the Incas/Mayans, Chinese emperor, etc all over the world). Do you agree with that?

Second, what is up with God telling Moses to revolt against his political government, Pharaoh, and demanding to be let go so they could start a sovereign nation?

Mark, if you are unable to understand or address the logical relevance of the Holocaust to our discussion, that’s fine.

Your logic doesn’t follow. Again, please see the difference between his will of decree and will of desire. God explicitly says in Romans 13 that we are to obey government. That does not mean that He approves of all of the actions of all of the governments. From Romans 13, it seems clear that God does not approve of rebellion against divinely-established governments, but in his decretive will he uses such rebellions for His own purposes. That does not mean we as Christians should participate in them, however.

Re Eqypt: 1) They didn’t set up a new government in Egypt, they simply left. 2) This is the Old Testament, not the New Testament, and I hope you would see differences between God’s laws in each. 3) God gave a specific, audible command to His people to leave Eqypt. In other words, this “revolt” was divinely revealed and commanded. 4) They established a theocracy with God as the “king.” Do you believe the American Revolution was similar in any of these respects?

P.S. You still haven’t provided an exegetical explanation of Romans 13 or 1 Peter 2.

That’s why I brought up the example of Joash and Athaliah. That example is OT, but we see no direct command from God to Jehoiada the priest to revolt against Athaliah. There was, of course, the promise of God that one of David’s line would be on the throne, but that was no reason to hurry the process along (c.f. David not taking out Saul even though he knew he was to be the king). I’ve always questioned whether or not that coup was justified. Would the fact that the government had degenerated to the point where evil was being rewarded instead of good (e.g. the worship of Baal instead of God) be enough? Or was Jehoiada in the wrong?

1. Yes, I do think that God, by the leading of His Spirit and divine Providence, did “inspire” some of the leadership of the American Revolution to establish the United States. I use inspire in the general sense.

2. Take a look at 1 Peter 2:13-15. On that face of it this seems to suggest ultimate obedience to civil authority. But can that be true? If you lived in Kentucky in 1859, by that logic YOU MUST accept slavery as practiced there as legitimate because the civil authority allows it. What about the Christians who established Underground Railroad stations in Kansas at that time? By the logic of obedience to government they were sinning since the USSC had ruled that escaped slaves must be returned to their owners! By that logic Martin Luther King Jr (among others) was a flat out sinner opposing the legally established practice of “separate but equal” and the lack of civil rights for black people. What if you lived in Germany in 1935? Civil government allowed persecution of Jews…so must you if that is what you think. Any opposition to Adolf Hitler would be sinful!

That logic leads Christians TO HAVE NO POLITICAL VOICE WHATSOEVER! You can’t oppose government for any reason. That simply cannot be the case for a just God who wants people to live righteously before Him AND ONE ANOTHER.

Look again at 1 Peter 2:14. What happens when government fails to punish those who do evil and reward those who do good? What if, like in Judges, government does what is right in their own eyes? That is what the Rebels were getting at in the Declaration of Independence…they were laying out the case that the government of the king was no longer doing that. In that case men WERE REQUIRED by logic and responsibility to act.

Mark, c’mon…let’s think through this.

1) I’ve already said civil disobedience is appropriate when the government commands what God forbids or forbids what God commands, just as Peter civilly disobeyed in Acts 5:29 when he said, “We must obey God rather than man.” So if the government commands me to discriminate against Jews, then I must disobey. If the government institutionalizes slavery, I must do what I can to disobey to a greater or lesser extent. But do you believe this principle applies to taxation without representation? In what way is that commanding what God forbids or forbidding what God commands? In fact, Jesus commands us to pay taxes!

2) It is also clear from Scripture that we have the right to use any legal means necessary to make our voice known or stand up for what is right. That is what Paul did several times in the NT—he used his rights as a Roman citizen to avoid a flogging and to appeal to Caesar. So Christians certainly can stand up and voice their opinions, run for political office, organize peaceful protests, vote, etc., etc. That’s what MLK did by peaceful and legal means (even though his rights were illegally violated by the local law enforcement).

In Judges, you have foreign governments who were either requiring idol worship and/or forbidding the worship of the true God, and so civil disobedience/rebellion was justified.

I am open to the idea that the Revolution was because the British government was commanding something God forbids or forbidding something God commands, so I would be more than happy to hear that argument.