Romans 13 and the American Revolution 

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, Christians are once again debating the moral significance of the American Founding. Was the American Revolution an act of justified resistance, or a failure of obedience?  

On a first reading, Scripture seems to leave little room for ambiguity; Romans chapter 13 declares, in no uncertain terms: “be subject to the governing authorities.” This came at a time of Roman oppression and persecution of Christians, yet Paul still describes Caesar and the government as a magistrate intended to maintain order, “the one in authority … God’s servant for your good.” 

Many American Christians nevertheless have long believed the Revolution, the ultimate act of resistance to the crown’s authority, was not only permissible, but righteous. But the Revolution, and in connection, the Founding, did not conform to one single theological vision. It produced competing views, some grounded in rights, others in order, and still others in providence. The tension between these three approaches creates downstream questions, like the role of faith in public life. How should Christians engage in public life, and to what extent is the American experiment a godly enterprise? Revisiting the Founding’s approaches can clarify what faithful political judgment requires today.  

Rights First  

The rights-first approach aligns most closely with the political philosophy of John Locke. This approach views liberty as a birthright and upholds the concept of government by consent. This approach is exemplified by John Allen’s Oration Upon the Beauties of Liberty, which was delivered from a distinctively Baptist-separatist standpoint. Allen stresses the right of everyone to freedom, “according to their own sphere of life,” and the crown’s actions taking away the birthright of its citizens as being “contrary to the spirit of the law and the rights of an Englishman.” For Allen, monarchy is legitimate only insofar as it rests on the will and consent of the people; for him, it exists primarily to secure individual freedoms.  

Allen invokes Scripture in suggesting law as the prerequisite and standard for government, arguing that “where there is no Law, there is no transgression.” Though framed in biblical language, Allen’s argument is unmistakably Lockean: liberty grounded in rights, consent as the basis of authority, and resistance justified by arbitrary power, with tyranny constituting an effective dissolution of political obligation. Instead of submitting Scripture to sustained exegesis, Allen isolates particular themes to the detriment of Romans 13:5’s insistence that subjection is owed “not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.”  

In America’s Appeal to the Impartial World, congregational minister Moses Mather uses similarly Lockean language of God-given natural rights, stating: “Free agency, or a rational existence, with its powers and faculties … is the gift of God to man … hence man hath an absolute property in, and right of dominion over himself.” This leads to an argument for government based on consent and a general principle of non-coercion, whereby “whatever is absolutely the property of a man, he cannot be divested of, but by his own voluntary act, or consent, either expressed, or implied.” This lays the groundwork for civil authority as by the “voice and consent” of the people.  

This view sits uneasily with Romans 13, placing ultimate authority in the people’s consent alone. Mather ultimately urges colonists to “withstand and repel the attacks of tyranny,” once again baptizing Lockean categories more than offering a distinctively Christian account of political resistance. 

Order First 

If Allen and Mather emphasize liberty, theologian and pastor John Wesley represents the opposite instinct. The order-first approach prioritizes submission over resistance and the stability of the body politic over abstract theories of political legitimacy. Represented best by Wesley’s A Calm Address to Our American Colonies, this approach may, at first glimpse, seem deeply un-American; but it may also be the most overtly Pauline.  

In this work, Wesley detects the Lockean influence behind the colonists’ arguments and refutes them systematically. He observes the very existence of the colonies to be the charter of the king, subservient to higher authority. He describes political life as often involving a “very small portion concerned with making laws,” and delegation as necessary to any government. He dismisses the Lockean instincts of colonists, insisting that all men are born into laws, necessarily without individual consent. He points out that Americans are not in the state of nature or war, but “sink to colonists … governed by charter.” To those who accuse the monarchy of violating rights, Wesley claims that the role of government is protection offered by the law, with a consequent duty to obey. He uses the example of the French and Indian War, when the British sent soldiers to protect colonists from the French. This, of course, would be Britain’s argument for the Stamp Act, as the English debt from the war could partly be ascribed to the colonists’ need for protection. Wesley asks the colonists what more liberty they could possibly have, including religious liberty, as colonists are able to freely practice faith “under their own vine and fig tree” (Micah 4:4). He warns that independence will not make people free, insisting that republics are often no less anarchic or despotic than monarchies.  

Throughout his argument, Wesley appears deeply attentive to Romans 13, emphasizing government’s limited role in restraining evil rather than perfecting society. Because religious expression remained largely unthreatened, it seems Wesley viewed the crown’s actions, even if flawed, as falling within the scope of Paul’s command to submit, as resistance to lawful authority is not consistent with the character of a Christian. 

Providence First 

Where Wesley insists on submission, Declaration signer John Witherspoon offers a different path altogether. The providence-first approach, articulated most clearly by Witherspoon, offers a way past the stalemate between libertarian resistance and passive obedience. 

Witherspoon reframes the issue of submission to authority through the lens of providence. His sermon The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men is rooted in historical Reformed political theology, with a grounding in Scripture. He rejects an explicitly Lockean hermeneutic.  

In his sermon, he argues that God uses the disordered passions of human actors to accomplish his purposes. The immorality of man “shall finally promote the glory of God, and in the meantime, while the storm continues, his mercy and kindness shall appear in prescribing bounds to their rage and fury.” Witherspoon explains that the corruption of man as an effect of the Fall cannot be entirely redeemed in this life. But he points out that by God’s grace, lawless power and oppression actually create a longing for redemption. He invokes Micah 4:3, in which God “shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide disputes for strong nations far away … nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” For Witherspoon, then, America’s cause is not justified by philosophical abstraction, but by the preservation of civil and religious liberty. He celebrates the unity and religiosity of the colonies, as no event in history had allowed for such unity among different religious expressions. Witherspoon ultimately locates hope not in Locke’s philosophy, but in God’s providential restraint of human sin. 

City of Man, City of God 

Romans 13 resists easy political conclusions. Submission without love becomes quietism, and resistance without restraint becomes self-justifying rebellion. The American founding was neither a simple act of obedience nor a pure expression of autonomy. It was a morally complex moment, marked by real injustice, true courage, and pressing theological questions. That may be its most important lesson. Faithful political judgment rarely comes with perfect clarity. It requires prudence, humility, and a recognition that God’s purposes are often worked out through imperfect actors and contested decisions.  

Romans 13 does not dissolve these tensions so much as it rightly orders them. It reminds us that political authority is never ultimate, but it is always morally significant; it is an institution ordained by God for the restraint of evil. The American Founding, viewed through this lens, need not be reduced to either pure obedience or pure rebellion, but can be understood as a moment of contested judgment under divine providence. Paul’s exhortation still stands for Christians today: submission to authority matters, and any resistance must be rightly ordered.  

As St. Augustine reminds us, “men build cities, and men destroy cities, but there is also the City of God, and that’s where we all belong.” Christians live in both. The task is not to sanctify our politics, but to order them rightly in light of that higher allegiance.

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