Osama bin Laden and Romans 13
The recent news of Osama bin Laden’s execution has caused many to wonder what the Christian response to such news is. Whenever these things happen, people will ask me about Romans 13 –
Doesn’t Romans 13 say it is the government’ s job to punish evil, and aren’t we doing just that?
I believe there are multiple problems with the standard interpretation of Romans 13 that is floating around our churches. It is not my intention to speak to foreign policy or to determine how to rid the world of war. Rather, I would agree with Hauerwas when he says,
…Christians are called to nonviolence not because we believe nonviolence is a strategy to rid the world of war—though we certainly want to rid the world of war. Rather, as faithful followers of Christ in a world at war, we cannot imagine being anything other than nonviolent. Of course we want to make war less likely. But nonviolence is a sign of hope that there is an alternative to war. And that alternative is called church (p. 55, Living Gently in a Violent World: The Prophetic Witness of Weakness).
But, if you would like to know how I would interpret Romans 13, I spoke about Romans 13 last May so here’s my answer…
Romans 13:1-7 applies to authorities ie. people in authority. Verse 3 reads ‘rulers’ and verse 4 reads ‘he’. It does not apply to the so-called governments of the U.S.A. or COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA for example. Romans 13:1-7 doesn’t even use the word ‘government. The so-called governments are corporations, being legal fictions. You can look up ‘legal fiction’ in Bouvier’s or Black’s ‘law’ dictionaries etc. A legal fiction only exists on paper and in the mind of man. One can not feel, see, smell, taste or hear a legal fiction. Corporations were invented to give various entities legal perpetuity. Before these so-called governments became corporations, they were still bodies-politic, being a corporate-type entity, being a legal fiction. God does not deal with legal fictions within His line of authority. Legal fictions are the invention of man. Even if you wish to comment on the interpretation of the original Greek per the words ‘rulers’ & ‘he’ in verses 3 & 4, it does not matter, as God does not recognise legal fictions.
‘Your’ so-called U.S.A. governments are ALL corporations, and ‘your’ so-called laws are actually statutes. Statutes are merely the rules for a society. Laws are the lawful rules for a society. For the rules to be lawful, they must be founded on God’s laws, Godly common law principles and a lawful government. The so-called laws in the U.S.A. fail on all three of these conditions, similarly as here on the continent commonly known as Australia.