I’ve described it as the Post-Babylonian State having a divine role in providing cover-fire for the Church to do its calling to overcome evil with self-sacrificial love without hypocripsy. The issue then is whether members of the Church can do this, along with participating in the administration and reform of how the state wield’s its monopoly on the legit use of violence. I think Christians can, but only with risk that we’ll start wanting power for its own sake, rather than to influence ongoing reforms of the rules that govern us, as a critical but not central part of how we love our neighbors.

dlw(don’t forget a new kind of third party blog, third parties who submit to two-party dominance of our system as a way to influence its ongoing changes in laws/regulations/customs is a way to resolve the dilemma poised in Romans 13. One can submit to an existing order while working in nonviolent ways to witness to God’s kingship by altering the existing order so more of humanity may enjoy God’s blessings and God-given respites from the suffering that we naturally must endure in this fallen world.

dlw