Happy Independence Day to our American readers!

Every year, discussions erupt on the innerwebs in which some Lutherans argue that the so-called American Revolution was a sinful violation of the 4th Commandment and Romans 13. Not so.

Those who interpret Romans 13 as allowing any government to act autonomously without any ministerial restraint, with impunity from its own laws, and without regard to its own “governing authority” as articulated in its own constitution - is simply turning the State into an idol. For according to Romans 13, the magistrate is also a “man under authority” as the centurion famously told Jesus (Matt 8:9). All authority is subject to authority in a hierarchy of authorities - with God as the Hierarch of Hierarchs. Governments are subject to the authority of their constitutions.

England was not an absolute monarchy at the time of the so-called American Revolution. The authority of the realm was Parliament - and Parliament was itself under the authority of the English Constitution. The Constitution was not a single written document like its American cousin, but is rather an unwritten constitution that developed over time. It is comprised of various acts and court decisions that are part of the body of law that all are required to be recognized as “governing authorities.” In other words, even the king and Parliament are subject to a “governing authority” higher than they - not only God, but also the Constitution.

And according to the British Constitution itself, Parliament was not the "governing authority" over the colonists.  According to the British Constitution - as articulated in the Magna Carta (1215), the Petition of Right (1628), and the Bill of Rights (1689) - Englishmen had the right to be represented in Parliament as a condition of being taxed.  The colonists had no representation in Parliament, instead having their own legislatures with taxing authority (and electoral representation).  

Parliament violated the Constitution by means of the Tea act (1773), the Sugar Act (1764), the Stamp Act (1765) and the Townsend Acts (1767). After the so-called Boston Tea Party in 1774, in which colonists violently protested the unconstitutional monopoly on imported tea, Parliament continued its unconstitutional rule by escalating matters by means of the the Coercive Acts of 1774 (the Boston Port Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, the Administration of Justice Act, and the Quartering Act - all additional usurpations of authority against the colonists, acting without regard to their own constituted legislature)s.

The Romans 13 "governing authorities" (which is a bit of a sloppy translation, as the word includes all kinds of authority, not just state authority) were their own colonial legislatures, magistrates, and executives who had rightful taxing authority in the Americas.  The various Intolerable Acts passed by Parliament for more than a decade were a usurpation of authority, being applied to a people not under their lawful authority.  They would have the same effect as the U.S. Congress passing laws and commanding the people of Kazakhstan to obey them.  Kazakhs do not have representation in Congress, and therefore, Congress is not their Romans 13 authority.

Moreover, St. Paul in Romans 13:3 makes the point that the authorities "are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad" and for this reason, the ruler is "the servant of God" (Rom 13:4).  But when he is rewarding the bad and suppressing the good, when he himself is not "subject to the governing authorities" under which he is obliged to serve, he is no longer acting as God's minister.  Parliament granted monopolies in their corrupt system of mercantilism, which compelled the colonists to pay exorbitant prices for needed goods and services, with no legal means of introducing competition to reduce prices.  This corruption was not being done for the good of the people, but for the enrichment of the friends of the Crown and those connected to Parliament.  The colonists had no remedy.  It was pure extortion.  That is not the work of a minister of God.

The king was indeed a kind of father figure in the 4th commandment sense. However, by violating the Constitution and imposing the alien Parliamentary authority on his subjects, he became an abusive father. No serious theologian would argue that a father’s rule over his children is absolute. For there comes a point of abuse that is intolerable, at which the father surrenders his custody over his own children. In such cases, it isn’t the abused children, but rather the abusive father who is the rebel and acting outside of his own authority and commitment to a higher authority under which he carries out his own authority.

The colonists were patient, and sought for more than a decade to petition the Crown and Parliament as English subjects, seeking redress and relief from the unfairness and unlawfulness of the unrepresented taxation and exploitation.  They did not rebel from the Crown, but rather peacefully elected congresses to let their grievances be heard according to the tenets of the English Constitution.  They were not rash, nor were they revolutionaries.  There was no "American Revolution," as the inhabitants of the Americas never sought to overthrow the king or dissolve the Parliament.  When all other options failed, the duly elected "governing authorities" of the people peacefully withdrew from association with the empire, asserting their rights as Englishmen to be taxed by their own "governing authorities" and not by a Parliament located across an ocean in which there was no American representation - which again, violated the British Constitution.

As a result of this peaceful separation, the Crown and the Parliament invaded the American states, causing years of violence and bloodshed that is on their hands and their heads.  In the end, the Crown and Parliament recognized the independence of our states, and peace was restored by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, as Crown and Parliament recognized each of the thirteen former colonies as "free and independent states" - just as they themselves had lawfully declared in the Declaration of July 4, 1776.  In recognizing American independence, the Crown and Parliament admitted that they were not in charge of the colonists.  They erred by not recognizing their independence at the time when the American states peacefully declared independence through their own "governing authorities." 

The actual rebels were the members of Parliament who did not submit to the "governing authority" of their own Constitution, as well as the king who enabled them.

Paul exhorts, "Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed..." (Rom 13:7).  The taxes required by the various acts of Parliament were simply not owed.  For governments, constitutions - unlike the despotic and absolute rule of the Caesars - are themselves subject to the "governing authorities" to which they owe subjection.  What Crown and Parliament owed - and what they eventually paid - was the "honor to whom honor is owed" (Rom 13:7) by finally honoring the lawful decisions of the governing authorities of the American states in their lawful and orderly declarations of independence - both individually in their state legislatures and conventions, and "in Congress, July 4, 1776."