Back in the days of Rescue we faced off against a pro-abort group that called itself “Refuse and Resist.” They were mostly volunteers who organized the clinic escorts and others interested in violently breaking through sit ins to ensure that babies were aborted as soon as possible and with as little aforethought as possible.

Refuse and Resist is still around. Click here to go to their site.

The Refuse and Resist crew tended to be Marxists and/or Pagans. Which is quite ironic if you think about it, for societies organized by Marxists (like the former USSR) and Pagans (like pre-Christian Rome) tend to allow NO room for Refusing or Resisting.

Refusers (conscientious objectors) and resisters in ancient Rome usually ended up as the subjects of violent entertainment. The same social dissidents in the USSR usually ended up ordered into psychiatric observation. Refuse and Resist is fortunate to have the USA to operate in. I doubt they have any chapters in China, Burma, Yemen, the Sudan, Cuba, etc and etc.

At the end of the day the moniker Refuse and Resist does not really work for Pagans or Marxists. But it does work for Christians. Very well, in fact. Earlier in the week we looked at Refuse. Here is the ancient and accepted Church teaching on Resistance to misused governmental authority:

The right to resist

400. Recognizing that natural law is the basis for and places limits on positive law means admitting that it is legitimate to resist authority should it violate in a serious or repeated manner the essential principles of natural law. Saint Thomas Aquinas writes that “one is obliged to obey … insofar as it is required by the order of justice”.[823] Natural law is therefore the basis of the right to resistance.

There can be many different concrete ways this right may be exercised; there are also many different ends that may be pursued. Resistance to authority is meant to attest to the validity of a different way of looking at things, whether the intent is to achieve partial change, for example, modifying certain laws, or to fight for a radical change in the situation.

***end of citation to The Compendium of Social Teaching of the Church

And thus disobeying your government can be a very Christian thing to do!

Think about it — Jesus did it, St. Paul did it, the Apostle John did it, the early Christian Church did it, Martin Luther King, Jr. did it, Dietrich Bonhoeffer did it . . .

Have you done it . . . yet?

What are you waiting for, a time when Natural Law is completely erased and Marxists and Pagans run the show?

Don’t count on a right to refuse or resist once that sad day dawns.

The parable of the frog in the kettle comes to mind.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 19th, 2008 at 12:01 am and is filed under Refuse, Resist and/or Rebel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.