GOD, THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, and ROMANS 13

"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.  For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.  Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed."  (Romans 13:1-2)

Paul, by the Spirit, writing God's will to the early Christians living in Rome.  Transformed, righteous, living-sacrifice living (Romans 12:1-2) means submitting to the government under which you live. 

"Rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad...do what is good, receive approval...if you do wrong, be afraid...he is God's servant, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer."  (Romans 13:3-4).

Transformed, righteous, living-sacrifice living (Romans 12:1-2) means supporting a government that punishes evil and commends good conduct.

WHY DID OUR COLONIAL FOREFATHERS LEAD A REBELLION?

Survey the reasons for the American Revolution, and wherever you look, you'll encounter a "mixed bag" of reasons.  Included are

• Since the early days of English settlements in the Americas, Britain exercised a 'self-rule' approach with the colonists.  Throughout the early 1700's, Britain was so engaged in fighting wars in Europe that it had little time to devote energies to governing and controlling the colonies.  When those required European efforts ceased, around 1760, Britain turned to governing and regulating the expansion, economies, and politics of the colonies.  Used to more self-rule, American colonialists resented a new heavy handed approach, new laws, new restrictions sourced in the English monarchy and Parliament.
• American colonists were increasing interested in "controlling their own destinies" rather than being dictated to by the control of England.
• Increasing "taxation without any representation" in the English government became intolerant for American colonists
• The European Enlightenment, dawning across Europe and into the newly discovered lands, philosophically drove rebellions and revolutions seeking greater personal importance and political autonomy
• Rising leaders among the colonies believed in and promoted their own (God given?) rights to go after "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and believed that continued British rule was prohibitive to those ends.

Absent, however, from the common lists is a clearly BIBLICAL rationale.  One that might go something like, "The British government is demanding that we disobey God, or prohibiting that we obey God; therefore, we must rebel, overthrow England, and form our own country...the United States of America."  Really?

To be sure, some Christian, American colonists believed that England was advanced in spiritual corruption, and that a new American country would be a place where the gospel could flourish in an unrestricted way.  To argue this way would lead to suggesting that the rebellion was, in fact, the will of God.  But other Christian ("Loyalists") argued from Romans 13 that the rebellion was disobedience to Scriptures.

Frankly, 238 years after 1776, it is hard to sort out all the reasons.  It truly was a mixed bag.  Don't you wonder what God (especially in light of Romans 13) really thought about our revolutionary effort?  We hear (apocryphal?) stories of Washington praying for God's help kneeling in the snow at Valley Forge as his troops were freezing to death.  We wonder, "On what side was God in the American revolution?"

DID GOD DETERMINE OUR NATION'S PLACE AND TIME?

Acts 17:26 says that God "determines the allotted periods and the boundaries of (nations') dwelling places."  From a big-picture viewpoint, this must mean that even if the causes of the American revolution were not Biblical causes, nonetheless, God's sovereign purposes were still at work in the overthrow of British rule, and the establishment of the United States. 

Respected historian Mark Noll in CHRISTIANS IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION reminds us that "Colonial Christians responded in four major ways to the Revolution: they supported complete freedom in politics and religion; they advocated social and political reform; they called for submission to English authority; and they argued against involvement of Christians in the war effort. Whether Patriot, Reformer, Loyalist or Pacifist, American Christian colonials influenced not only the fledgling nation, but the development of religious thought to the present."

For greater understanding of this - and so that we represent a Biblical mindset about this, I recommend Noll's helpful book.