Romans 13 and Germany

[Montie_Claunch]

I was reading in a book (Bismark:Man and the Statesman by J.P.P. Taylor) about how that how the Germans seemed to almost worship order and the goverment, hence the imfomous phrase, “I was just following orders!”. I was talking to a history teacher of mine from back in high school that they had gotten it from luthernism and Romans 13 “Let everyboady be subject to the higher authorities. For there is no authority except from God…” and so on and so forth. I am a bit confused, how far over did they go (if at all) over what St. Paul ment and intended? Would you please tell me what the Church says about the meaning of the Scripture and how far we are to obey the higher authorities?

 

[aaronjmagnan]

The idea, in my opinion, is that God instituted all leaders who have authority, thus we must submit to the authority of politics, etc. That does not mean agree with, but I think there was maybe the suggestion of a separation of religion and politics.

That is, I do not mean a separation of church and state, but a separation of focus…

Politics have their purposes, but there are those that see their political parties like a religious family, worshiping eveything that party does, defending them even more than they defend their own faith.

Thus, we must submit to the authorities. Of course, as I began to explain, submit to them as they are given by God, not as we see fit to move them around.

For instance: I´m sort of like the political laissez faire…that is because I don´t feel changing politics is part of my mission, first and foremost because the liberty-based nature of American politics is anti-Catholic, as St. Thomsa Aquinas might say, it is DISORDERED and thus not something I wish to participate in. For this reason I SUBMIT to authority as I live under it, but I do not participate.

Jesus didn´t participate in politics but he submitted to authorities.

I hope this is a helpful point of view,
Aaron