I can't recall how many times over the years I've heard the dogmatic assertion that Christians must forfeit their conscience in the name of submitting to secular authorities, because "God commands it" as through Paul in his letter to the fledgling church in Rome.
Once I became a Voluntaryist, this became more of of issue. I began looking for explanations to this mystery.
On the one hand, I believed the Bible to be inerrant, inspired, and fully consistent (even though I hadn't read it through the entire way, nor studied it in depth, something I'm seeking to rectify now that I am old enough to do so responsibly).
And on the opposite hand, Romans 13 screamed "INCONSISTENCY!!", a point many secular libertarians, anarchists and voluntaryists gleefully pointed out.
When I began seeking alternative interpretations to Romans 13, I was disappointed. Many people's theories were, in my opinion, severely lacking.
For instance, one stance was that Paul was being tongue-in-cheek. Saying one thing while meaning another in order to appease the Roman authorities. Others baldly condemned statism without giving a satisfactory answer.
At last, I stumbled upon an article by Peter Berthelsen, a Christian Voluntaryist who didn't shy away from difficult topics. I had found a satisfactory answer!
In his excellent series, The Statist Pulpit Peter addresses several common statist dogmas in mainstream Christian thinking. Check out the series here.:
https://northernkingdom.net/the-statist-pulpit/home
To summarize Peter's point without spoiling it for you:
The common interpretation of Romans 13 is 1) based on the magisterial interpretation, and 2) taken out of context of the surrounding scripture.
Whether you're Christian or a secular skeptic, I would encourage you to check out Peter's article:
https://northernkingdom.net/to-whom-do-we-submit-an-examination-of-romans-13-1-7-eda1de7e5ba9
Thanks for reading!
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