What does the Bible really say about that?

**Posted on Facebook on June 14, 2018.

Lest any silence on my behalf be misinterpreted as actually agreeing with the Attorney General's use of the Bible to defend a policy, let's dig a little bit deeper into this.

Last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a policy of criminally prosecuting people who illegally enter the United States. Part of this criminal treatment includes separating children from their parents when families enter the country illegally. Instead of being kept in detention together, children are housed at a separate facility. Over 700 children have been separated from their families since October 2017.

Yesterday, the Attorney General used the Bible to defend this policy. He mentioned Paul and referred to his writings in Romans 13 that commanded the Romans to obey the goverernment because it was God ordained. According to Sessions, it is "very biblical to enforce the law."

If Romans 13 represents everything that the Bible has to say about law enforcement and obedience to governing authorities, then the Attorney General might have been correct in his use of scripture to back up his policy. However, there are many other passages that must be considered in a discussion of the Bible's stance on law enforcement:

• Exodus 1:15-22 tells about the Hebrew midwives. Pharaoh, the King of Egypt, commanded the midwives to kill all baby boys that were born to Hebrew women. The midwives, however, disobeyed the king's command because of their reverence for God. They illegally allowed the baby boys to live and God was pleased with them.
• Daniel 6 tells about a law that the King of Persia enacted. This law made it illegal to pray to God. Daniel found out about the law, but he continued to pray, even though it was illegal. As punishment for breaking the law, Daniel was thrown into a den of lions, but God protected him.
• Daniel 3 tells about a law that the King of Babyon made that commanded people to bow down and worship a golden image. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to bow and worship the image. As punishment for breaking the law, the king threw the three men into a furnace to die, but God protected them.
• In Acts 5, the governing council banned Paul and other apostles from teaching in the name of Jesus. Paul and the apostles did not obey and Paul responded, "we must obey God rather than man".

Do these passages contradict Romans 13? I don't think so. Taken all together, these passages indicate that we are to obey the government appointed by God when obeying its laws do not require us to disobey God, but that when obeying the laws of the appointed government require us to disobey God, obedience to God must come first. Contrary to what Sessions stated, it is not always biblical to enforce the law. If the law is unjust, we must disobey the law in order to obey God.

The question, then, is not whether or not it is biblical to enforce the law. The question is whether or not the particular law is just, good, and honoring to God. Is it just and good to separate immigrant families who enter the United States?

I don't think so, for many reasons. How can I affirm taking children from their parents when I believe that God clothed himself in flesh and came to reconcile humanity back to himself? How can I affirm separating families when Jesus Christ crossed the greatest divide between his holiness and our sinfulness so that we might know him and be united with him? How can I affirm the trauma that a child experiences upon being taken away from his or her parents in an unfamiliar country when Jesus Christ experienced rejection, opression, affliction, and crucifixion so that we could become children of God, one with him forever? When Genesis 1 indicates that all people are image bearers of God Almighty and in Luke 10 Jesus commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves and leaves no room for us to argue that there is anyone in the world who does not qualify for neighbor status, and when we read throughout the Old Testament that God continually commanded his people to welcome sojouners among them, reminding them that they were once sojouners in Egypt, I find no ground to say that enforcing a law that separates children from their families when they enter the USA illegally would honor God.

Sadly, this isn't the first time that the Bible has been used to uphold an oppressive status quo. People used scripture to defend South African Apartheid and both Jim Crow and slavery here in the United States. When we use the Bible to defend opressive systems like those, we utterly fail to accurately represent the God who makes himself known in the Bible - the God who brings good news to the poor, binds the brokenhearted, proclaims liberty for the captives, and comforts those who mourn.