Monday, March 10, 2025

It is the 10th of March 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Hey everybody, a very happy Monday to everyone except the guy in my fantasy league that got Mike Trout for 19 bucks.

A quick note- and I’ll update you as we approach the date but on the 9th of April we are celebrating episode 2000 and the fine marketing team here at 1517 want to invite you to celebrate with us- any day now you will be able to go to 1517.org/chacelebrate and there will be a place for you to upload your own audio or video of you saying “the rumors of grace, forgiveness…. Etc etc… maybe you play an instrument and can play our intro- Bach’s Cello Suite #1- there will be a video of a “behind the scenes” look at the CHA studios- a place for you to tell us your favorite episodes and more… 

Ok, Jonah is in Maple Grove, Minnesota, home of Jesse Ventura… Jonah wrote with a question about Christians and the American Revolution. He wondered, “How did they justify the revolution with the command in Romans 13 to obey temporal authority?”

A great question, and one that was dealt with not only in the American Revolution but anytime a Christian has had to weigh the consequences of the actions of their government. Romans 13 reads: 

 “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.”  

What I find interesting is the reliance that the American founding generation had on the Reformation, even though these were mostly Enlightenment deists, they knew that if they lost the churches, they would lose the people.

Little James Madison- the 5’4” dynamo was likely something of a unitarian and a rationalist- but he would quote Luther to anyone who would ask him about this- and I think it’s fair to say he didn’t quite understand Luther, but found something like his “2 Kingdoms Doctrine” helpful- that is, we live simultaneously in 2 kingdoms and the “earthly” kingdom is ruled by reason and wisdom for the benefit of all people. So… keep your bible verses to yourself, essentially.

But others looked to other places during the Reformation- from Theodore Beza’s “The Rights of Magistrates” and the Magdeburg Confession of 1550 which stated that a magistrate ceases to be when they command unjust practices. This is part of a broader set of ideas you might read about under “Resistance Theories”- the Magdeburg Confession said that if the state requires you to commit idolatry, you must disobey the state. Students of the American Revolution might be thinking of Jonathan Mayhew, the Boston pastor during the Revolution, who famously said, “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God”.

Of course, all of this is an outworking of a verse that follows in Romans 13- verse 4 that reads “For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good.” Thus, it had been argued when the one in authority is NOT for our good then they cease to be a legitimate authority and can be opposed.

“For your good” is… uh…. Debatable? Going back to Luther’s “2 Kingdom Theory” the civil authority is to punish evil and provide for a common good. And then we all start scrambling to prove how what we want and think is “a common good” and that’s where the real interesting conversations happen. I think it’s helpful to remember that the disciples were imprisoned, Paul, who wrote this, would gladly disobey the Roman authorities if they got in the way of preaching the Gospel, so, Romans 13 is not the “pipe down and obey” verse that some in authority have used. But perhaps be wary of the “revolutionary” that happens to find all their favorite things as “good” and becomes a functional anarchist. And that is as close to anything political I’ll say on this show. Pardon me while I go steal some eggs to feed my children.  

Thanks Jonah in Maple Grove, you can send me your questions at danv@1517.org and be on the lookout for 1517.org/chacelebrate

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary, a real humming from 1 John 2: 

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 10th of March 2025 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man in Wisconsin, where eggs are currently between $6.85 and $8.07 per dozen, he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who has solved his egg problem by swapping those expensive boring eggs with the Cadbury variety… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.