Thread by @hilzoy

1/ Let's think about this passage a bit. The most obvious point: "the authorities over us" include the First Amendment, which forbids the establishment of religion. So this passage, by its own lights, tells our leaders not to justify their conduct solely by appeal to the Bible.

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2/ ("Solely" means: when the Bible says something that most people believe in any case, e.g. that murder is wrong, one can cite the Bible in support of that view. But one should not try to enact policies for which the Bible is the only justification, e.g. mandatory baptism.)

3/ Next point: I would have a lot more respect for conservatives citing this view had they shown the slightest inclination to apply it to, say, Barack Obama.

Hahahahahaha.

4/ More importantly: read the passage. (It's in the RTd tweet above.) In particular: "The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted."

That's a very strong claim.

5/ It's a lot stronger than something like: whatever happens is something God has allowed to happen, and He must have His reasons. That leaves open possibilities like: God's will for you, now, is to oppose this.

This passage says more.

6/ It says that the authorities (whoever they are) have been established by God, *and if we rebel against them, we defy God's will.*

Apply this reasoning to Hitler, or Pol Pot, or Stalin.

Imagine a Christian applying it to a government that bans Christianity.

7/ There are lots of ways for a Christian to construe the claim that the Bible is sacred that do not involve thinking that every claim in it must be true.

*This* claim, in particular, is very, very hard to accept as literal truth.

8/ Do you think that it would be wrong to rebel against Hitler when he was implementing the Final Solution? Do you think that joining the French Resistance was wrong? Do you think that the Christians who were thrown to the lions by the Romans were wrong?

9/ Do you think that all the Evangelicals who smuggled Bibles into Communist countries, in defiance of those countries' leaders, thereby rebelled against God's chosen authorities?

10/ Or that Christ, knowing that the Romans would put him to death, should have shut up and stopped "provoking them"?

No. And more to the point, neither do most Christians.

11/ If you construe this passage the way Sessions does, though, it's hard to see why Christ should not have slunk away into obscurity, or why Christians should not have helped their co-religionists in Communist countries practice their faith in defiance of their governments.

12/ I bet Sessions does not actually believe that. Again, the *only* reason to believe it, for a Christian, is the belief that you have to take ALL the statements in the Bible as true, without any need for interpretation.

13/ Luckily, there's an out for Sessions, though not for ordinary literalists. Sessions is not, wrt the policy of family separation, a person whose choices are (a) submit or (b) don't.

He formulated that policy! He *is* the authority to whom others have to submit, in this case!

14/ He does not have to consider this passage in deciding which policy to adopt. He can consider other passages, like:

“A voice is heard in Ramah,
mourning and great weeping,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”

Or: "I was eyes to the blind
and feet to the lame.
I was a father to the needy;
I took up the case of the stranger.
I broke the fangs of the wicked
and snatched the victims from their teeth." (Job 29 15-17)

Or: "When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God." (Leviticus 19)

Or: "The LORD opens the eyes of the blind; The LORD raises up those who are bowed down; The LORD loves the righteous; The LORD protects the strangers; He supports the fatherless and the widow, But He thwarts the way of the wicked." (Psalm 146)

18/ (Oops, forgot to number a few of these): Romans 13 only tells Jeff Sessions to obey the policy he himself chooses. Big deal. Most of the rest of the Bible tells him to welcome the stranger, to hear the cries of the oppressed, and to comfort those in need.

19/ But he apparently forgot all those other verses.

If Christianity is true, though, he has a little problem. Because while Jeff Sessions might forget what God commands, God will surely remember. And that very same Bible is quite clear about what follows.

20/ God will separate the righteous (on his right) from the rest (on his left.) He will address the righteous first:

21/ ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger (NB!!) and you invited me in ...

22/ ... I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

The righteous will say: huh? When did we do all those things?

23/ God will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

The unrighteous will not be so lucky.

24/ Here's what God says to them: ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in ...

25/ , I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’"

They too say: huh? When did we do these things to you? And God says:

26/ ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (Matthew 25)

27/ What do you think God will say to Jeff Sessions when He confronts him in judgment? "You stripped me from my parents. You took my children from my breast. Though I had lived in one country all my life, you uprooted me and sent me to a place I did not know."

28/ Then Jeff Sessions will say: wait God, when did I do that to YOU? And God will say: ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

29/ God might add: you also took my words and twisted them to justify evil.

There's really no way Jeff Sessions will be able to plead ignorance on that one.

I am not, myself, a Christian. Jeff Sessions should hope I'm right and he's wrong about the existence of God.

/Fin.