When the State is Evil: Biblical Civil (Dis)Obedience in South Africa

Abstract:     
How should Christians respond to an oppressive government regime? This question has vexed believers for centuries, including in the best known recent example of an "evil state": Nazi Germany. This Article explores the Christian response to the demands of the apartheid state in South Africa in the late 20th century.

This Article particularly focuses upon the way that Biblical text is used – both by the state and against the state. Specifically, governments and ruling Christians in power frequently appeal to Romans 13:1-7 and its command that Christians should submit to the governing authorities, for those authorities have been put in place by God. But disenfranchised, out-of power Christians often look instead to a theme of Biblical resistance to ungodly authority, following the example of Peter in Acts 5:27-30 where the Apostles insist that they must "obey God rather than men." These differing thematic responses to Scripture - submission vs. resistance, authority vs. liberation, order vs. renewal - have come into tension and conflict throughout church history.

The Article first explores the New Testament texts that speak to the relationship of Christians to the civil government. It then provides a modern case study of the competing Biblical themes of submission versus resistance: In apartheid South Africa the ruling state explicitly called upon Romans 13 and those resisting the state overtly invoked Acts 5. (The Article assesses the use of scripture by the Kairos theologians, Beyers Naude, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.) Finally, the Article offers some concluding reflections on what modern Christians can learn from the Biblical texts and the South African experience.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 33

Keywords: law and religion, apartheid, South Africa, Christian legal thought

Accepted Paper Series