Bladestunner316
Puritan Board Doctor
How should a christian handle the removal of tyrants?
blade
blade
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Then God would give clear guidance on what to do - and then that applies to governments not individuals. People like Gideon were not really revolutionaries in my view, more protestors as Gideon cut down the poll etc... but he didnt go around beating everyone up. He also fought the occupier which is a bit different from fighting tyrants. Last I heard being a non-democractic leader was no a sin.Originally posted by Bladestunner316
fraser,
so how would the christian view change from how God used Israel a nation to how God uses christians today? Should we be turning over idols and hanging evil men from tree's?
blade
Originally posted by Peter
Anyone who providentially wields power is not a "power" in the Pauline sense of the word. Notice Paul's definition in Romans 13:3-4 "For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil...For he is the minister of God to thee for good." Tyrants are not a terror to evil but to good and are not a minister for good but evil therefore tyrants are not a power but a "licentious deviation of a power" (Rutherford). I have no problem resisting tyrants. Just look at the behavior of the Scots and Puritans under Charles I and the Covenanters under Charles II and James II.
Originally posted by VirginiaHuguenot
I think, like many other doctrines that were not fully articulated for centuries after the early Church era, this doctrine of resistance was best expressed in the Reformation.
In the era of Paul and the early Christian martyrs, Roman Emperors had absolute power and lesser civil magistrates were not Christian. Since it is not lawful for invidual Christians to take up the sword against a tyrant, they did what they had to do -- they laid down their lives and, thusly, the blood of the marytrs became the seed of the Church. Many Scottish Covenanters and French Huguenots ended up doing the same thing, although if there was a lesser Christian civil magistrate to stand up for them, they had grounds to fight the tyrants who were persecuting them. The situation in the Roman Empire was different than the situation during and after the Reformation in Europe and the American colonies. I think we can take our best examples and writings on the subject from the Reformers and their conceptual heirs, but they were certainly building on Scriptural and Augustinian principles when they articulated and practiced lawful resistance to tyrants.