Introduction To A Biblical Discourse On The Church's Response To Extra-Biblical Commands

Guest Post by Pastor Anthony Forsyth

Anthony Forsyth is the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, Burbank, California. He moved to America from the UK in 2013 and has been married to his wife Jenny for over 25 years. They have 5 adult children and one grandchild.

In Northern Ireland, a public consultation on a proposed new public health bill has just closed. This bill “would allow the government to force someone to submit to medical examination, to be detained in hospital, to be kept in isolation, to be disinfected, to be forced to wear protective clothing, to answer questions about their health, to have their health monitored, to have their movements restricted and to be stopped from working.” In short, the government would be taking authority and potentially, at its discretion, control over our health, our medical information, and our medical choices.

As Christians how are we to respond to this? Is there a biblical position regarding such governmental intrusion and expansion? Is the correct response simply to “submit to the governing authorities” (Rom 13:1a)?

The Covid years resulted in many Christians starting to consider things that had not been on their radar previously. What is the role of government? Do we have to submit to everything we are told (unless it is directly causing us to sin)? How do we react to the government taking control of areas of life where we were previously left to our own autonomy? What do we do in the face of churches being told not to meet? And as Christians wrestled with these questions and considerations they often came to very diverse conclusions.

It was in those years that I wrote my book “Caesar and the Church” looking at what Scripture teaches on such matters. It is tragic to me that many Christians have sleepwalked through this period of time and are now no wiser with regards to Scripture’s teaching on these matters and even angry and resistant to anyone contradicting the status quo.

In this series of articles, I will be unpacking the Biblical teaching on these matters. It is absolutely urgent that Christians who claim to believe in the authority, inerrancy and sufficiency of the Bible start to get to grips with its teaching in this area of study, for governments around the world are using the opportunities that Covid provided them to extend the areas of life that they govern in this post-Covid era.

Let me simply suggest in this introductory article two big reasons why the church remains ignorant, apathetic and silent on such things:

1. Isolationism

2. Statism

Isolationism is a term I use to refer our tendency to quote verses, or even parts of verses, isolated from and usually ignorant of their context. The average Christian knows John 3:16 by heart but is completely unaware of the preceding or subsequent verses and the context they provide in understanding the verse they have memorized. We are truly in the era of “soundbite Christianity” where we want our faith like our social media (and often in our social media) – with a limited number of characters to read or seconds to watch in a reel.

As such, we can know that the first part of Romans 13:1 says, “to be in subjection to the governing authorities” and, with just under half a verse, it is declared that “Romans 13” says to do whatever they say (unless directly sinful), with no awareness of what comes before or after those words and what is being taught in that context. That passage is indeed crucial and our isolation of that tiny fragment of text has led us to a huge misunderstanding of both what the text is saying and what we are to do in light of it. Thus, it will be the topic for my next article.

Statism is a word used in political and economic circles to speak of giving control of economic, planning and policy to a centralised government. I am using the term in a religious context to speak of the ceding of authority to government. It is such a ubiquitous assumption in our society and churches (especially in the UK) that it goes unchallenged.

In the Old Testament Israel is routinely condemned for her idolatry – worshiping other gods. And yet even while sacrifices were made to Baal (for example) they still considered themselves Yahweh’s people. They had not converted away from their God; they had simply added other gods to Him.

In a later article I will make the argument that statism is a form of idolatry for many Christians today. The immediate and obvious response to such a charge is, “But… Romans 13! We’re told to submit!”

And so it is to that passage we will turn next time.