Was Gandhi's civil disobedience movement unbiblical or biblical?
The question of a biblical civil obedience movement has been raised. The answers deal with the biblical contexts and the nations where Christians were a major population. The case of Indian civil disobedience against the British has special aspects. Gandhi himself felt that he followed Tolstoy and it was biblical.
Romans 13:1 - 7
ESV - 1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.
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Asked September 14 2024
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venkatesan Iyer
Supporter
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Tim Maas
Supporter
In my opinion, Christians have the ability or even the obligation to non-violently resist (as Gandhi did, even though he was not a Christian) evil human governments, and not to be implicit supporters of actions by that government that are clearly sinful, unjust, or unbiblical. However, they also must be willing and prepared to accept (again, as Gandhi did) the consequences of their disobedience or resistance, even to the point of death. To me, the clearest biblical examples of this are in the book of Daniel, where Daniel and his friends refused to refrain from praying to God (in Daniel's case in Daniel 6); or idol worship (in the case of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3) at the king's command, in which they told the king that, even if God would not deliver them, they would still not worship the idol. At the same time, however, although God delivered Daniel and his friends in those cases, we are not to tempt God (as Satan tempted Jesus in Matthew 4:5-7) by gratuitously or needlessly exposing ourselves to harm in the expectation that God will save us (as Jesus noted in responding to Satan by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16).
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