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“In this World You Will Have Trouble” — Welcome to Rowan County – AlbertMohler.com
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Many of these questions defy a simplistic answer.
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How would a faithful congregation advise Mrs. Davis to fulfill her Christian commitment? Should she remain in office and refuse to issue marriage licenses? Should she resign her office? Exhausting appeals to a higher court, should she now obey Judge Bunning’s order? Should she defy that order and go to jail?
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There is no automatically right answer to these questions. Each can be rooted in Christian moral argument, and any one of these options might be argued as right under the circumstances.
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It is very revealing that many of those who are celebrating Judge Bunning’s decision to send Kim Davis to jail and who are now asserting their absolute commitment to the rule of law are the very same people who made the opposite argument when it served their purposes. That argument, taken at face value, would have meant no civil rights movement — and no gay rights movement.
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During the Reformation, both Martin Luther and John Calvin affirmed what was later defined as the “doctrine of lesser magistrates” which held that the tyrannical dictates of a higher authority could be defied by a lesser government authority who acted on conscience in defense of what is right. Lutheranism even added this doctrine to its confessional basis in the Magdeburg Confession (1550).
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There is no easy way out of these questions. Add democratic self-government to the mix and the questions only get more difficult and perplexing
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