Redeeming Rebellion: A Theology of Resistance
So you must be careful to do everything they (Pharisees) tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach… Everything they do is done for people to see… Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces.
I love Rage Against the Machine. In particular, the song “Bulls on Parade.” Something about the concussive power of the opening riff mixed with seeing the album artwork of a young boy wearing a superhero outfit with the words ‘Evil Empire’ prominent on his chest deeply satisfies something wild within me.
It seems like something within all humanity is rebellious. Whether it be the Rebel emblem from Star Wars, the Confederate flag for southern folks (unredeemed rebellion, which I’ll talk about later), or something more flagrant like posters of Johnny Cash or Tupac Shakur flipping the bird to the camera, at some level and to varying degrees, we all don’t like being told what to do.
And yet, even a simple Google search of the word rebellion yields primarily negative connotations. Further exacerbating this is exploring how often in the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament, God has anger, wrath, or, bare minimum, frustration, toward Israel for their rebellion.
Additional confusion about rebellion comes with a simple exploration of the life of Jesus. While He did claim to fulfill the law of Moses, His scathing critique of the Pharisees and lack of regard for the then contemporary understanding of the law seems paradoxical at best and heretically misleading at worst.
Even at the beginning, Adam and Eve rebelled. We call it The Fall, yet at its heart, their eating of the tree was direct rebellion against God’s divine order. An order not worth rebelling against. A loving God not worth rebelling against.
The question is, who, or what, should we rebel against?
Before we begin to redeem rebellion, first we have to define unredeemed rebellion.
In our modern moment, it is remarkably easy to identify with a “rebel force” fending off an evil empire. It isn’t just Star Wars either that comes to mind within pop culture. Firefly, Handmaid’s Tale, The Witcher, Eragon, Harry Potter, the Expanse book series, and many more sci-fi and fantasy books center on a conflict between a protagonist band of rebels and an antagonistic tyrannical imperial faction.
It exists even in the Bible. Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Egypt, and Rome all had historical empires which conquered and enslaved entire people groups for profit and land. Israel even did the conquering too in some periods, but more often than not were the subjugated group.
The thrust of the book of Exodus is Israel’s breaking free of their imperial subjugation from Egypt. Clearly there are systems of government and force Yahweh finds corrupt and worth rebelling against.
Unredeemed rebellion, however, has a particular “sinful” bent to it. Whereas in Star Wars the Rebellion resists the Empire due to their evil deeds, unredeemed rebellion is about resisting good systems due to selfish motivation.
We already talked about Adam and Eve. Let’s throw in Cain, Aaron, David, Solomon, Lot’s wife, etc as fellow “rebels.” In a corporate sense, Israel did it seven times. In one book of the Bible alone. For all the good, redeemed occasions of rebellion, there’s an equal amount (if not more) of selfishly motivated defiances against a natural and good order.
That being noted, however, has led to on over emphasis on cultural conformity within Christianity in America. Let me explain.
“Being Christian means being a Republican.”
”God helps those who help themselves.”
“The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.”
I heard these three often along with many other “Christian” sayings that are found nowhere in the Bible. A kind of groupthink emerges within this framework, wherein genuine doubt and even questioning of these accepted ‘truths’ is discouraged at best and grounds for social exiling at worst. If God hates rebellion, and we are God’s people, it’s best not to question accepted Christian concepts. Further, combining regional, political values into sacred, spiritual text is a breeding ground for missing the heart of the Good News. Even two good values from two different cultural frameworks, let’s say, hypothetically, the American love of liberty and the many passages in Proverbs praising hard work, can bleed into each other, creating a troubling trend of chasing corporate pedigree through tireless work and nonstop networking in order to gain economic freedom. The sociologist Max Weber called it the Protestant work ethic. I call it bad theology and blind patriotism. It is unredeemed rebellion.
One can easily do the inverse too. In my own progressive city of Portland, it is easy to dilute the radical love and compassion of Christ and warp it into a bland tolerance for any and all behavior, specifically regarding sexuality. While I don’t expect people who don’t profess Christ to adhere to His sexual ethic, I personally have tried to find loopholes when possible to satisfy my own sinful bent. It is bad theology and selfish sexuality. It is unredeemed rebellion.
Redeemed rebellion, on the contrary, is intentional resistance to cultural forces which deter away from Biblical values and the two greatest commandments. Further, it is not just about what is being resisted but also how it is resisted.
In my blog Jesus Is Political Unless You’re White, I argued about Jesus methodology of this kind of rebellion. I argued that many of Jesus teachings and stories were wildly political and intentionally resistant toward cultural norms of His time. Some of His topics included (but were not limited to): Sabbath observing, racial relations, the importance of the Temple, and, most importantly (I’d argue), the heart of Mosaic Law. It’s interesting that the biggest ideological rivals of Jesus were not the “liberal” or cultural outsiders of His era. It was Jewish religious leaders, Saduccees and Pharisees, those who knew the Torah best and whose own righteousness Jesus praised in some accounts, that were the most lambasted by Christ. It was the guys who read and memorized the law better than all average Jewish citizens, but who “travel(ed) over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.”
If it was normal for the man many profess to be Lord and Savior to probe into cultural values that crept into faith communities and contexts, why would we think our current moment would be any different? What do we think Jesus might say about your specific context, whether it be the heart of the Bible Belt or the “godless” Pacific Northwest?
Whether it is issues of sexuality, of war, of family values, of vocation, of poverty, of race relations, of pro-life or pro-choice, whatever it may be, how would Christ call you to influence change in your community?
A redeemed rebellion is modeled after Jesus intentional resistance. His methodology of resistance did not belittle specific cultural or ethnic people groups, yet it did dismantle groups of people for their associated behavior and heart posture. He did not adhere to Rome’s subjugation of His people, teaching subtlety how to undermine their tyranny, but He wept for and rebuked Israel’s violent obstinance, knowing full well it would led to their violent downfall.
Finally, Jesus rebellion centered on His own heart for those on the bottom of the margins. The widows, the lepers, the poor, the tax collectors, the worst of sinners. He never virtue signaled as people from the political left and right do left and right in our cultural moment. He conversed directly with those far from God and defended them from attacks of those apparently close to God. His fulfillment of the law appeared lawless to the law keepers, but His “lawlessness” championed an even deeper call to the heart of the law.
His movement was about repenting and trusting that the Good News was at hand. While modern news agencies, left and right, scare their viewers into further entrenching to their prejudices and close-mindedness, Christ brought glad tidings for all people. He was a hopeful man while also an inciting man. His disciples found deep love from their Savior, but they also received sharp rebuke from their Rabbi.
All in all, rebelling for rebellion’s sake is ultimately another form of ego absorption. Being counter-cultural because you dislike your culture without any introspection or insight from others leads to fruitless, empty angst. If, however, your rebellious inclination tends toward the downtrodden in your context, the vulnerable and the hurting and the unseen, lean into those gut feelings. Pray directly about it to God, and ask Him what He would have you do for the people you believe are being overlooked. The Gospel is fundamentally in favor of the underdogs, the ‘not good enoughs,’ the desperate and the lonely and the tired and the broken. Draw near to them and the favor of God is yours. Defend them against their adversaries, whether their foes be in your own cultural camp or not, and God will see your heart for the heart of His law.
Here's Jesus own words on the topic. Hopefully it brings affirmation and conviction.
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”