And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority.(Re 13:1-2)

The first beast, the roman emperor, is said to get its “power,” “great authority” and “throne” from the dragon. The imagery of the dragon is explained later in Rev 20 as “that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan.” The text then explicitly states that the Roman Empire and the emperor’s authority, was satanic. While space does not allow me a full treatment here, the text goes on to predict the destruction of the Roman Empire and those who support it.

Why the excursus into apocalyptic literature? Because it is important to put in context another, more well known passage, which is widely quoted; the locus classicus passage on obedience to the state in Romans,

Everyone must submit himself 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, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. (Romans 13:1-7)

The contrast here is important, in both Revelation 13 and Romans 13 we have a reference to the roman emperor. In Romans the emperor’s authority has been established by God and he is a servant (minister) of God, Christians are called to submit, obey and to not resist the state. In Revelations 13 the Roman emperor and empire is said to gain its authority from Satan, is implicitly said to be a minister of Satan and Christians are called to not submit to or obey its demands to absolute obedience and worship.

The contrast is fairly evidently explained by the different contexts the passages occur in. The book of Romans was written around 55-57 AD; this puts it just after the death of Claudius and during the early part of Nero’s reign. During this time, Nero was strongly influenced by Seneca the Younger and Barrus and his rule was widely considered to be competent and relatively enlightened. Revelation 13 is written later, after the great fire of Rome in 64 AD where Nero had transformed into the infamous persecuting, brutal, power-hungry tyrant he is immortalised as.

Similarly, the specific literary context makes the differences clear. In Romans 13, after commanding Christians to submit to authority, the text goes on to give reasons as to why Christians are to do this, “He [the state] is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience.” The reason we submit out of conscience i.e due to a moral requirement, is because the state is God’s servant and this is explicated as “an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” The context makes this clear when after spelling out that governments are God’s servants the text explicates this as “he [the state] is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” In other words, the government acts as an agent of God in its function of commending good and punishing evil.

Revelation 13, however, is not talking about the emperor punishing wrongdoing and commending good;

The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority…. Men worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?” The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months. He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast–all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world. (Rev 13)

Here the context is quite different; rome is a world empire, which makes war against other nations and through violence gains dominion over every tribe, nation and language. It is a state that demands worship and absolute obedience and which persecutes and murders innocent people. In this context, Christians are called to resist it and its authority is said to be from the dragon.

This is vitally important because some people apparently misinterpret Romans 13 to support absolute dictatorship. A correspondent of Madeleine’s once wrote the following,

“Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.” To be blunt the above makes me feel sick. I don’t think the Nazi regime, or fascist Italy can be compared to the individualism that occurred in the birth of the United States. How can you hold these in the same regard under the excuse that they’re established by God? The only bromidial, evasive and ludicrous comeback that the victims under those totalitarian regimes got was “its God’s purpose and plan” even if you don’t understand it just have faith and follow Christ.

Madeleine’s correspondent here interprets Romans 13 to teach that dictatorships and totalitarian regimes are instituted by God and are morally on par with limited governments. He also seemed to think that throughout history Christian theologians have never addressed this issue but have just told people to “have faith and follow Christ” in the face of being governed by dictators and tyrants.

Apart from the flawed understanding of the history of theology, the author here misunderstands the passage. Romans 13 needs to be read next to Revelation 13. When one does this one sees that the picture is quite different. Romans 13 says that states that use force, “the sword,” to punish the guilty and to defend the innocent act as Gods agents and hence, have legitimate authority which must be respected. Revelation 13 states that when states grossly exceed their mandate like the Nazi unjust conquest of other nations, persecution of the innocent and Hitler’s deification of the state are not exercising a legitimate, God given, authority but rather are portrayed as something satanic.

Those reading this will suspect that I am talking of the attack on the world trade towers in 2001. I am not. The event I refer to occurred in September 11th 1944 the bombing of Darmstadt. This was one of several bombing raids performed by the allies against German occupied Europe. What’s less well known was that Churchill under pressure from his ally Stalin, perhaps the greatest mass murderer in history, authorized the deliberate area bombing of civilian cities. Defenders of these actions argued it was necessary to destroy the morale of the German people. The raid on Darmstadt created a fire storm 1 mile high. The roaring firestorm so terrified the population that most people stayed in their bomb shelters leading to them dying of suffocation. In his fascinating monograph Humanity Jonathan Glover notes that over 12000 people died in this raid. Carolin Schaffer a survivor of the raid tells how she and her children were forced to flee through piles of corpses. She covered her children’s eyes for fear that the images would traumatize them for life.

Darmstard was only one of many area bombings performed by the allies. A year earlier between 24 July and 3 of August the city of Hamburg was repeatedly attacked. On the night of the 27th the bombings created a firestorm with temperatures up to 800 degrees. Roads melted and fleeing civilians found their feet stuck in molten tar and asphalt while they were burnt alive. Glover’s account contains disturbing accounts from eyewitnesses, stories of charred women and children, with brains tumbling onto the ground. The firestorm of the 27th killed 40,000 people. Similar things can be said about the fire bombing of Dresden in 1945 which killed 30,000.

Many in the west forget do not know about these events. I talk to well meaning sincere students all the time who know all about the atrocities of Hitler and have no idea that Churchill supported terrorism moreover often when this is pointed out they do not care. After all he was fighting Hitler.

I highlight these events not to engage in the specious reasoning of anti war activists. The invalid tu quoque which states that because the west has engaged in terrorism of this sort in the past that some how means they are mistaken to condemn it now. Such arguments seem to suggest that because we did not do the right thing in the past we should not do it now. Nor do I wish to engage in the facile “Bush is a hypocrite” argument; such reasoning displays a shallow understanding of ethical argument, one that mistakes attacking against a persons character with actually offering an argument against the proposition asserted by the person. Any first year critical thinking or logic class would clear these issues up; the fact that educated University students seriously put them forward is a shame to our education system.

I highlight to say simply this terrorism in all its forms should be condemned. The Christian Just war theory condemns deliberately targeting and killing non combatants in war. It bases this on the sixth commandment “you shall not kill” but notes, following Augustine, that when this commandment is read in it’s context it admits of two specified exceptions; killing an aggressor to defend of the innocent from his attack, and killing a person justly sentenced for a capital crime. The commandment is issued to all human beings. It does not say it’s wrong for the US to do this but Sunni Muslims who do it against America are freedom fighters. It does not say that we should condemn Israel when (and if) they deliberately attack civilians but then agree to listen and hear the complaints of Palestinians when they blow up Israeli women and children and encourage their teenagers to do so. It does not say that we should revile the CIA for dubious actions they have engaged in and yet praise terrorist organizations like Nelson Mandela’s ANC. All forms of terrorism should be condemned. All people, including all governments, are required to obey Gods law.

The leftwing forces of “peace” and “tolerance” in our country reject Gods law and find the idea that Governments are under God as absurd. In popular discourse they replace Gods law with the most bizarre unprincipled stance on violence. They say the state should never kill when a person has been found guilty of serial murder. But they slaughter by the thousands innocent children for social, economic reasons in state hospitals at taxpayer funds. They tell us the US should not intervene in Iraq to bring down a brutal dictator and stop his slaughter of thousands of innocent people. Yet they support military intervention in the Solomon Islands to stop riots. It’s wrong to correct disobedient children with force, but they then exhort thousands of dollars of tax payer money out of adults, by threatening force and violence for any social cause they deem worthy of support. This leads to the absurd situation where Journalists on TV tell us that Bush and other American conservatives are the equivalent of Bin Laden and the Taliban. As though a country that executes serial murderers is the same as one that executes women for not wearing a Burka. As though condemning pornographic filth is the same as banning TVs and kites. Their real ethic is clear; violence is good when used by us for causes we like by regimes who oppose those we hate. It should not be used against murderers only innocent tax payers, it should not be used against dictators only against those dictators which the UN ( which is composed of dictators) like. A plane that attacks a military target illegally located within a civilian area and which inevitably but unintentionally hits a civilians ( after ringing the civilians and telling them to leave) is a terrorist because the person who did it is a Jew and supported by the US. However a terrorist who fights apartheid is a hero and Muslim Jihadists they are simply venting understandable frustration at western colonialism.

This is one of the reasons people do not know about Darmstadt, because the Nazis were evil racists, they are the figure the left use to label any person they don’t like, so no one cares about the Germans. People confidently forget or excuse the atrocities committed upon german civilians by the allies. They also minimize the even worse social polices and massacres of Stalin our ally in the war. What is needed is not the pragmatic utilitarianism of the left. But a consistent stance grounded in the law of God. Violence is wrong when intentionally wielded against innocent people. However, to protect the innocent, governments must wield it against criminals and those who engage in aggression against the innocent. This applies domestically and internationally. I say hunt Bin Laden down kill him. Destroy terrorists everywhere and anywhere when they threaten us. Refuse to give in to them or negotiate with them until they denounce terrorism. Execute the evil people who rape and kill children here at home. Arm the police with tasers and when a criminal is threatening the innocent use them. However let those of us who are innocent, whether civilians in other countries or non criminals at home, use our life liberty and property as we please. Stop restricting our liberty appropriating our property and threatening us with incarceration us as means to achieve your social ends. Stop killing unborn children by the thousands to further the women’s revolution while selectively condemning “non violence” and prattling about peace when those who threaten the innocent us are challenged by governments doing the job God instituted them to do. Show us you actually have some moral discernment and can tell the difference between guilt and innocence, aggression and non aggression.

Black is not white and your continual claiming it is does not make it so.