Blessed is the State?

These last several weeks have been difficult to comprehend and to process. Our hearts are broken daily, not by a bad headline or drummed-up partisan talking points, but by personal accounts and live video footage of unlawful, dehumanizing, and violent activity being conducted by “law enforcement” itself. Our local police departments decry the aggression of the federal personnel in their own jurisdiction, and chaos abounds. The world feels upside down, and folks in many parts of the city feel as if we are under occupation from a foreign power that does not seek our good nor that of our neighbors whom we love.

Friends of mine who have committed no crime are locking their doors this evening and keeping their kiddos inside, asking for prayer for protection from state-sponsored violence. Why are they being targeted? One would have to ask the federal government, but ostensibly, it’s because some folks who look like them have committed some crimes. The targeting is saddening but not surprising. Governments often expose their insecurities by seeking the next “enemy” to identify and then eliminate. The surprising (and deeply disappointing) part is how many self-described Christians are supportive of the racial targeting—and even the violence.

“But it’s not about race! It’s about crime and fraud!” If that is the case, then the traditional route is to prosecute the criminals. However, when any particular group is subjected to house-to-house visits or stopped as they drive home from work, simply for some intrinsic quality identified in some criminals, this is nothing short of racial profiling and group punishment. It is a classic example of a state seeking a scapegoat to punish in an effort to alleviate its own insecurities. One could only imagine the outrage if authorities started showing up at people’s homes who look like me—a person of Scandinavian origin. The vast majority of school shooters and the last several major political assassinations were made by young men who look like they could be my near-blood relations. So, if we are being consistent, why have the authorities not visited me at my front door?

I’m afraid we know the answer. There seems to be an unexamined assumption that folks of European descent are to be treated individually, while “those people” should be subjected to group identification, with the criminal taken as the representative of the entire group. The allure of the human urge to scapegoat is that it works! It has a cathartic effect on the group that performs the violence. So, I suppose we can all just forget about Jesus since we’ve found a better way—good old-fashioned tribalism. We will just segregate ourselves from “those people,” and we will all be OK in our fragile little insular corners.

Of course, we don’t allow ourselves to think soberly about the fact that we are collectively committing this scapegoat expulsion. We swallow the party line from the State like it’s a feeding tube. To admit the wrongdoing of the State is to admit our collective wrongdoing in giving wicked men power in this democratic republic. That’s too much to bear for many of us, so instead, we spin like we’re Ilya Malinin—justifying every unjust act of our beloved Big Brother, no matter how convoluted our explanations become. 

An odd phenomenon has caught my attention recently–when I publicly critique or denounce State violence, Romans 13 comes flying off the shelf faster than you can say “justice for Renee Good and Alex Pretti.” It’s ironic, because Romans 13 was nowhere to be found on our lips when we evangelicals didn’t like mandated vaccinations just a few short years ago (perhaps for fine reasons). I recall our Facebook posts quoting Scriptures of a quite different flavor: “we must obey God rather than man” (Acts 5:29). Now, “be subject to the governing authorities” is being used as a battering ram to silence any disagreement and condemn civil disobedience of any kind. I have a profound sense of bewilderment, having grown up in an evangelical world where the Jew-hiders in the Third Reich were held up as heroes (and they were!). Now, when I advocate for the scapegoated group of our time, I am told by my dear friends that I am being immature, if not rebellious. “Be subject to the authorities” has conveniently become, “agree with and be allegiant to the State.”

In many ways, we live in Orwell’s world, witnessing the subtle shifting of the meaning of words for propagandistic purposes. Genocide is redefined as war, war redefined as defense, piracy as police action, and execution as neutralization. Protesters are dubbed domestic terrorists. The forced deposition of world leaders is aggression when other countries do it and national security when we do. In my town, our Somali friends are described as garbage by POTUS because of the crimes of some, and the entirety of the group is intentionally slandered as being suspect or dangerous.

The powers of the world see themselves as sovereign, and language is simply a tool for the advancement of State interests. This totalizing impulse to subject all things to the legitimization of the Empire is neither new nor unique to our government. But I think it is incumbent on Jesus-worshippers to heed Alexandr Solzhenitsyn’s admonition to “live not by lies,” resisting the lie that national identity and empire supremacy demand we perpetuate. To speak forthrightly—justifying, defending, or otherwise doing apologetics for State violence is living by lies.

I’ve found it puzzling to see a number of my self-described Christian loved ones acting as faithful foot soldiers of the State whose violence harms the very image bearers our Lord taught us to love. When “our people” get power, Romans 13 enters stage right, and we nod along like docile sheep, carrying a disposition, not of the prophets, but of yes-men. We Evangelicals tend to think of the Empire as friend when “our guy” wins and enemy when he doesn’t. However, I would contend that the Biblical authors had a quite different view of the State altogether.

In Deuteronomy 32:8-9, the nations were given over to the control of the “gods” (what modern Christians may call “demons”). In Daniel 10:13, this understanding persists. In the gospels, we see the Adversary offering Jesus the kingdoms of the world, implying they were under its control (Luke 4:5-7). Paul is comfortable listing spiritual and governmental powers together as related realities (Ephesians 6:12; Colossians 2:15). The author of Revelation explicitly leans into this—depicting the Roman empire as indistinguishable from the Adversary itself (Revelation 13:1-7). The point is, according to the Christian tradition, the State is not really our friend, and it may well be under the control of dark spiritual forces. It can do good in restraining evil at times, but it often itself commits grave evil, and it does not advance God’s kingdom.

As followers of Jesus, we have no other and no higher obligation than to be the body of Christ on earth. We have no obligation to prop up the oppressive power structures we’ve inherited. We have an obligation only to pray for all those with authority, to do good to all, to love our neighbors, and to love even our national enemies. The State cannot accept that last one. When the State identifies an enemy and then scapegoats it in an attempt to form allegiance through fear, we have an obligation to tell the truth. The community of Jesus will always, at the end of the day, be viewed as the enemy of the State, since we give allegiance to a different King with different ethics and a different vision for the future of the world. 

So, though we do not seek the violent overthrow of our government or any other, we certainly don’t always obey it. When it commands we disobey our Lord, we firmly yet meekly say “no,” and we carry on as usual—loving the neighbor that the State is trying to harm. Right now in my town, the worldly powers seek the dehumanization of Muslims, refugees, leftists and others. We say “no” because our Lord called us to seek the good of these folks. We adamantly do no violence in our resistance, because that is to live by the same lie that the State believes—that life must be built in death. On the contrary, we bear the consequences of our resistance in our own bodies if need be.

I am left contemplating the confession of Martin Niemöller, swapping out the scapegoated groups of 1930s Germany for some of those in our moment:

“First they came for the undocumented immigrant
And I did not speak out
Because I was not an undocumented immigrant

Then they came for the Muslim
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Muslim

Then they came for the refugee
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a refugee 

Then they came for the leftists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a leftist

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me” 

We are not the church in 1942 Germany, but we may be daydreaming listlessly into our own hell. Auschwitz wasn’t built overnight; it was allowed in the ‘30s by one ordinary day after another of submitting to the propaganda that selected, then scapegoated, then genocided entire groups of God’s children.

As restored people, we showcase the world to come. Until that Day, our relationship to the State will never be that of fan, friend, or fidelity. It will always be one of nonviolent, peacemaking resistance to its worst impulses, and prayer for its leaders to repent—showing the way to a peace not found in the State but in the body of Christ. According to the Scriptures, the totalizing State has no future in God’s world, and therefore it can provide us no identity. If the State provides us no identity, we do not need to defend its violence. The meek inherit the earth—not the violent—and certainly not the State.