How Jeff Sessions reads Romans 13 and how my Mennonite Sunday school class does
In the hands of coercive power, the Bible is a weapon.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Some rights reserved by Gage Skidmore.
My Sunday school class was abuzz with intrigue and investigative insight. We spent the quarter in Paul’s letter to the Romans, an exercise in cross-cultural and theological study.
But when we got to Romans 13 the rooms felt different, still and confused.
We’re Anabaptists, Mennonites who are descendants of an illegal breakaway from the Catholic Church. Early Anabaptists were hunted down, drowned, tortured, and burned for the anti-government action of baptizing one another upon confession of faith in Jesus Christ. This was a political act, one that defied the authorities of the day.
