Can Christians Justify Civil Disobedience?

The answer to the question posed by this essay is not a simple one; in the bible it preaches that ‘all lawful authority come from God and must be respected’. But, when Jesus is asked the question, “Should Jews pay taxes to the Roman authority?” He replies, “Provided duty to God is not infringed, my followers must obey lawful authority.” In the first statement, it says emphatically that the law should be obeyed. However in the Jesus’ reply to the question to the second passage, we see the clear statement, “provided duty to God is not infringed”. This is very important because this means that Jews should obey law provided that it is not against God’s core teachings. So, in these two passages, the bible is contradicting itself. The second passage is backed up by the fact that, in the New Testament, Peter and John are told to stop preaching about the Resurrection. They ignore this and are re-arrested and Peter tells the Court “We must obey God rather that men”. One must grasp that although, ‘all lawful authority come from God’, Christians can justify disobeying laws, provided that it is against the teachings of God e.g. protesting against being forced to work on the Sabbath etc.

Many who practice civil disobedience do so out of religious faith. An example is “Operation Rescue” was a Christian movement that exercised civil disobedience to block access to many abortion clinics, as an attempt to stop the sixth commandment being ignored.

The first successful example of civil disobedience was found in India. Civil disobedience was a major tactic in former colonies in Africa and Asia to try and gain their independence from the imperial powers. Gandhi outlined certain rules to make sure that civil resisters were never violent or angry. One of the most radical rules was if anyone insults an official or commits an assault upon him, a civil resister will protect such official from the insult or attack even at the risk of his life. These rules make sure that their activities are not against God’s commandments as if to appease their own illegal activities.

I conclude that Christians can only justify civil disobedience if the causes that they are protesting for, are unfair or against the teaching of God. Only then can the act of disobeying the law, be ignored due to the greater significance and importance of their end goals.