Every generation faces anew the question of how they will respond to the government they were given from the generation that preceded them. Those taught and informed about the proper role and utility of government by the people who came before them, fare much better than those who are ignorant of such things.
Looking at times of history such the Reformation, reformers of Christian thought, leaders, and followers had to determine what it meant to have their own “Christian” governments persecuting them or requiring them to adopt practices that violated clear Biblical principles. The American Founding Fathers faced the same problem when their own monarch, the ‘Defender of the Faith’, barred them from following clear scriptural teachings like the freedom of worship and the rights of religious conscience. When some American s moved to establish anti-slavery laws in their colonies, the king vetoed those attempts.
The same is happening today, though not in a ‘Christian’ manner as we have seen in the previous five centuries. As supposed ‘believing’ rulers attempted to impose their own views on believing subjects to preserve and solidify power, so too, today, we have leaders who are freely elected in a democratic, republican manner forcing ideologies on the citizens that elected them that limit their freedoms and change the government to a decidedly different form, thereby preserving and solidifying their power.
The response of today should be similar to the response of those of history: To return to the original documents that got them there. A return to the Scriptures was how the Reformers ultimately prevailed in their cause, as was the same for the Founding Fathers. In those writings, the justification for the resisting and ultimate changing of their oppressors was found. As we will see in the following installments, there are principles that were embraced at these time sin history that gave rise to the motto “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God”.