Doctrine · The Articles of Religion

Of the Duty of Christians to the Civil Authority (appended 1939; legislative, not constitutionally protected). It is the duty of all Christians, and especially of all Christian ministers, to observe and obey the laws and commands of the governing or supreme authority of the country of which they are citizens or subjects or in which they reside, and to use all laudable means to encourage and enjoin obedience to the powers that be.

moderately contested

What it says

“Christians, ministers especially, should obey the lawful authority of whatever country they live in and encourage others to do the same.”

The stake
A bare duty of obedience — which, without the prophetic limit the rest of the corpus supplies, slides into the sacralizing of any regime.
Why it matters
It is the 1939 globalizing of the U.S.-specific Article XXIII for a worldwide church — and the place the corpus's prophetic edge must be supplied or the statement is dangerous.
The Wesleyan take
Wesley's own Tory submission ethic, generalized. But Wesley also obeyed God before men where they conflicted, and the General Rules' 'do no harm, especially that most generally practiced' is the limit this bare statement omits — read it with the slave clause.
Original English
It is the duty of all Christians, and especially of all Christian ministers, to observe and obey the laws and commands of the governing or supreme authority of the country of which they are citizens or subjects or in which they reside, and to use all laudable means to encourage and enjoin obedience to the powers that be. Like 'Of Sanctification,' this is NOT a constitutional Article. ¶104 prints it after Article XXV with a note: it was adopted by the Uniting Conference (1939) to *interpret* Article XXIII (the U.S.-specific rulers article) for Methodist churches in other lands; it is 'a legislative enactment but is not a part of the Constitution' (Judicial Council Decisions 41, 176; Decision 6, Interim Judicial Council). Its function is to globalize Article XXIII's principle — obedience to lawful authority *wherever* a Methodist lives — for a church no longer confined to the United States.
VersionRendering
United Methodist Book of Discipline (¶104, appended) It is the duty of all Christians, and especially of all Christian ministers, to observe and obey the laws and commands of the governing or supreme authority of the country of which they are citizens or subjects or in which they reside, and to use all laudable means to encourage and enjoin obedience to the powers that be.
Constitutional status — Uniting Conference, 1939; interprets Article XXIII for non-U.S. churches; legislative, NOT part of the Constitution. A patch on a patch: Article XXIII was itself the 1784 replacement of the Royal Supremacy; this 1939 statement globalizes it. Read with [[articles-of-religion/article-23-of-the-rulers-of-the-united-states]].
The necessary scriptural limit 'We ought to obey God rather than men' (Acts 5:29); 'so it be done… so that nothing be ordained against God's Word' (the General Rules / Article XXII principle). The statement's bare 'obey… enjoin obedience' must be read under the prophetic limit the rest of the corpus supplies, or it sacralizes any regime.

Traditions cited reformed ·anabaptist ·wesleyan ·liberation ·modern ecumenical

Of the Duty of Christians to the Civil Authority (appended 1939)

The Text

This is the last unit in ¶104, and like “Of Sanctification” it is not a constitutional Article. The Uniting Conference of 1939 added it to do one job: take Article XXIII — which names the United States rulers — and globalize its principle for a church that now lived under many governments. Its content is a flat duty: “all Christians, and especially… ministers,” should “observe and obey the laws and commands of the governing or supreme authority of the country” they live in, and “encourage and enjoin obedience to the powers that be.” Read alone it is the most dangerous sentence in the whole document, because it states a duty of submission with no stated limit. The honest annotation’s first task is to supply, from the rest of the corpus, the limit the statement omits.

Translation Notes

“appended 1939; legislative, not constitutionally protected.” The status, again, is the meaning. This is a patch on a patch: Article XXIII was the 1784 replacement of the Royal Supremacy; this is the 1939 globalization of Article XXIII. It binds less than an Article and exists only to make a U.S.-specific article portable.

“observe and obey… encourage and enjoin obedience to the powers that be.” “The powers that be” is Romans 13:1 (KJV). The clause is pure submission language — and conspicuously unqualified. It does not say “in all things lawful,” does not name the Acts 5:29 limit, does not carry the General Rules’ prophetic clause. The omission is exactly what makes it perilous and what this commentary must answer.

“of the country… in which they reside.” The globalizing phrase: not only one’s own nation (Article XXIII) but wherever one lives — written for a worldwide Methodism, including Christians under governments very unlike the American.

Historical Context

By 1939 Methodism was global, and Article XXIII’s “rulers of the United States” plainly could not be the church’s word to Methodists in Britain, Africa, or Asia. The Uniting Conference’s solution was this interpretive statement — and it is telling that the church reached for a strong, unqualified duty of obedience. It echoes Wesley’s own political instincts: in A Calm Address to Our American Colonies and elsewhere Wesley defended “the powers that be” and submission to lawful government against rebellion. The 1939 statement is, in effect, Wesley’s Tory submission ethic generalized into a worldwide rule — without the prophetic limit Wesley himself, and the rest of this corpus, in fact maintained.

That omission is not academic. A church that, in its own constitutional history, wrote an abolition clause it would not keep ([[general-rules/the-slaveholding-clause]]) and grew rich while confessing obligatory almsgiving has every reason to be wary of an unqualified “obey… enjoin obedience.” The twentieth century — the century of this statement — supplied governments obedience to which would have been sin. The statement’s bare letter, read without Acts 5:29, would have counseled exactly the wrong thing in 1939’s own decade.

Lines of Interpretation

The disputed question: is the Christian’s duty to civil authority unconditional submission or conditional obedience under a higher allegiance?

Reformed

Tradition: Romans 13 and the lesser-magistrate limit

The Reformed tradition holds civil authority God-ordained (Romans 13) and limited: when the magistrate commands sin, “we ought to obey God rather than men,” and lesser magistrates may resist tyranny. The statement has the first half; the Reformed tradition insists on the second.

Strengths

  • Supplies exactly the limit the bare statement omits, from a serious political theology
  • Keeps obedience real without making it absolute

Weaknesses

  • “Lesser magistrate” resistance is a developed doctrine not in the text; the statement itself is flat
  • Reformed resistance theory can be invoked too readily; the statement’s caution against rebellion is not nothing

Anabaptist

Tradition: the church’s allegiance prior to the state

The believers’-church tradition is most alarmed here: a confessional duty to “enjoin obedience to the powers that be,” unqualified, is the seed of civil religion and of churches blessing unjust regimes. Its witness is the necessary counter-pressure.

Strengths

  • Names the real danger of the unqualified statement bluntly
  • Keeps the church’s first allegiance to Christ, not the magistrate

Weaknesses

  • Total separation underplays the legitimate Romans 13 duty the statement rightly (if baldly) asserts
  • “No obedience to the state” is as unbalanced as “all obedience”

Liberation

Tradition: obedience to God against unjust law

The liberationist reading presses Acts 5:29 and the prophets: when law itself is the instrument of oppression, “obey the powers that be” is not neutral counsel but complicity. The slave clause is the corpus’s own proof.

Strengths

  • Supplies the prophetic limit the statement omits and the corpus demands
  • Reads the statement against the church’s own documented failures

Weaknesses

  • Can collapse the genuine duty of ordered citizenship into permanent suspicion of all authority
  • Needs the discipline of “lawful means” lest it sacralize any resistance

Modern / Ecumenical

Tradition: responsible citizenship under a higher loyalty

The mainstream modern reading: obey lawful authority, work for justice through lawful means, and disobey — accepting the cost — where obedience would mean sin. The statement supplies the duty; the gospel supplies the limit.

Strengths

  • The balanced position the bare statement needs and the church in practice holds
  • Honors order and conscience, citizenship and the cross

Weaknesses

  • It is a correction of the statement, not the statement itself — honesty must say so
  • “Lawful means” can be used to forbid the very civil disobedience the gospel sometimes requires

Wesleyan Voice

The Wesleyan voice here is, as with Article XXIII, the voice of a tension the church must hold honestly. Wesley genuinely taught submission: his political tracts defended “the powers that be” against rebellion, and the 1939 statement is recognizably his instinct generalized. To pretend otherwise would falsify the record. But the same Wesleyan corpus that yields this statement also yields its limit, and an honest annotation must set them side by side. Wesley obeyed God before men where they conflicted; the General Rules’ first rule commands ceasing the evil “most generally practiced” — which is precisely the evil a government most often commands or protects ([[general-rules/the-catalog-of-harms]]); and the church’s own slave clause is the standing proof that “obey the powers that be,” unqualified, can mean obeying an order that is sin ([[general-rules/the-slaveholding-clause]]). Article XXII’s “so that nothing be ordained against God’s Word” is the same limit in another register.

So the Wesleyan reading of this appended statement is not its bare letter but its letter held under the corpus’s prophetic edge. The duty of ordered citizenship is real and Wesleyan; the unqualified “enjoin obedience” is the statement’s dangerous omission, and the rest of the constitution supplies what 1939 left out: obey God rather than men where they conflict. The corpus’s intellectual honesty requires saying plainly that this is the one place in ¶104 where the bare text, read alone, points the wrong way — and that the remedy is not to ignore it but to read it, as Methodism’s own history of the slave clause forces it to, under the gospel’s higher allegiance.

That this is the final unit, and a non-constitutional patch about obedience to the state, is itself the corpus’s closing self-revelation. The document that began with the triune God ends with a 1939 footnote about obeying the government — and the only way to read that footnote rightly is by everything that came before it: the God who is Lord (Article I), the Scripture that is the sufficient rule (Article V), the prophetic “do no harm” of the General Rules, and the church’s own confessed failure to obey God above its interests. The last word of the lawbook is “obedience to the powers that be”; the gospel’s last word is not.

Hymnody

The Wesleyan political hymnody is, pointedly, eschatological, not submissive — “Rejoice, the Lord is King!”, “Lo! he comes with clouds descending”, “Crown him with many crowns.” The church sings the rule of Christ, the King who comes to judge the rulers, never a hymn enjoining obedience to “the powers that be.” That hymnic silence is the sung correction of this bare statement: Methodism legislated submission in a 1939 footnote and reserved its songs for the One before whom every government will give account. The hymnal supplies the higher allegiance the appendix omits.

Pastoral and Liturgical Use

The first pastoral use is the honest correction. This is the unit a preacher must not read flat. Teach its status (1939, legislative, non-constitutional, an interpretive patch on Article XXIII) and then immediately its limit (Acts 5:29; the General Rules’ prophetic clause; the slave clause as proof). To preach “obey… enjoin obedience” without that limit is to repeat, from the church’s own lawbook, the exact error its history most condemns.

The second use is genuine, against the opposite error. The statement’s positive truth is real: Christians are not anarchists; ordered citizenship, lawful obedience, and working for the common good through lawful means are gospel duties (Romans 13; 1 Peter 2:13–17). To the congregation tempted to treat all authority as illegitimate, the statement is a needed word — held, again, under the higher allegiance.

The third use is closure for the whole corpus. End the Articles where ¶104 ends — on this footnote — and gather the arc: a church confesses the triune God, the sufficient Scripture, justification by faith, the means of grace, a rule of life, and then, last and least in authority, a duty to the state. The right pastoral conclusion is the corpus’s: doctrine ends in a life, and the life ends not in obedience to “the powers that be” but in obedience to God — which is the only allegiance under which obedience to anything else is safe.

Further Reading

  • Romans 13:1–7; 1 Peter 2:13–17 — the duty the statement asserts
  • Acts 5:29; Daniel 3 and 6; Exodus 1:15–21 — “we ought to obey God rather than men,” the limit it omits
  • ¶104 of the Book of Discipline; Judicial Council Decisions 41, 176; Interim Decision 6 — the statement’s non-constitutional status
  • John Wesley, A Calm Address to Our American Colonies; Thoughts Concerning the Origin of Power — the founder’s submission ethic
  • The U.S.-specific article this globalizes: [[articles-of-religion/article-23-of-the-rulers-of-the-united-states]]
  • The prophetic limit the statement omits: [[general-rules/the-catalog-of-harms]]
  • The church’s own proof that “obey” can mean sin: [[general-rules/the-slaveholding-clause]]

Related

The Articles of Religion

Article I — Of Faith in the Holy Trinity. There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body or parts, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the maker and preserver of all things, both visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there are three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Article II — Of the Word, or Son of God, Who Was Made Very Man. The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin; so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be divided; whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men. Article III — Of the Resurrection of Christ. Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took again his body, with all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature, wherewith he ascended into heaven, and there sitteth until he return to judge all men at the last day. Article IV — Of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God. Article V — Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation. The Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. Article VI — Of the Old Testament. The Old Testament is not contrary to the New; for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man, being both God and Man. Although the law given from God by Moses as touching ceremonies and rites doth not bind Christians, nor ought the civil precepts thereof of necessity be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral. Article VII — Of Original or Birth Sin. Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk), but it is the corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and of his own nature inclined to evil, and that continually. Article VIII — Of Free Will. The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and works, to faith, and calling upon God; wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will. Article IX — Of the Justification of Man. We are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our own works or deservings. Wherefore, that we are justified by faith, only, is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort. Article X — Of Good Works. Although good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of God's judgment; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and spring out of a true and lively faith, insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree is discerned by its fruit. Article XI — Of Works of Supererogation. Voluntary works — besides, over and above God's commandments — which they call works of supererogation, cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety. For by them men do declare that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do, but that they do more for his sake than of bounden duty is required; whereas Christ saith plainly: When ye have done all that is commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants. Article XII — Of Sin After Justification. Not every sin willingly committed after justification is the sin against the Holy Ghost, and unpardonable. Wherefore, the grant of repentance is not to be denied to such as fall into sin after justification. After we have received the Holy Ghost, we may depart from grace given, and fall into sin, and, by the grace of God, rise again and amend our lives. And therefore they are to be condemned who say they can no more sin as long as they live here; or deny the place of forgiveness to such as truly repent. Article XIII — Of the Church. The visible church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments duly administered according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same. Article XIV — Of Purgatory. The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardon, worshiping, and adoration, as well of images as of relics, and also invocation of saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture, but repugnant to the Word of God. Article XV — Of Speaking in the Congregation in Such a Tongue as the People Understand. It is a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God, and the custom of the primitive church, to have public prayer in the church, or to minister the Sacraments, in a tongue not understood by the people. Article XVI — Of the Sacraments. Sacraments ordained of Christ are not only badges or tokens of Christian men's profession, but rather they are certain signs of grace, and God's good will toward us, by which he doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm, our faith in him. There are two Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel; that is to say, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. Article XVII — Of Baptism. Baptism is not only a sign of profession and mark of difference whereby Christians are distinguished from others that are not baptized; but it is also a sign of regeneration or the new birth. The Baptism of young children is to be retained in the Church. Article XVIII — Of the Lord's Supper. The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another, but rather is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ's death… The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, only after a heavenly and spiritual manner. And the means whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith. Article XIX — Of Both Kinds. The cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the lay people; for both the parts of the Lord's Supper, by Christ's ordinance and commandment, ought to be administered to all Christians alike. Article XX — Of the One Oblation of Christ, Finished upon the Cross. The offering of Christ, once made, is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual; and there is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone. Wherefore the sacrifice of masses, in the which it is commonly said that the priest doth offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, is a blasphemous fable and dangerous deceit. Article XXI — Of the Marriage of Ministers. The ministers of Christ are not commanded by God's law either to vow the estate of single life, or to abstain from marriage; therefore it is lawful for them, as for all other Christians, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve best to godliness. Article XXII — Of the Rites and Ceremonies of Churches. It is not necessary that rites and ceremonies should in all places be the same, or exactly alike; for they have been always different, and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's Word. Every particular church may ordain, change, or abolish rites and ceremonies, so that all things may be done to edification. Article XXIII — Of the Rulers of the United States of America. The President, the Congress, the general assemblies, the governors, and the councils of state, as the delegates of the people, are the rulers of the United States of America, according to the division of power made to them by the Constitution of the United States and by the constitutions of their respective states. And the said states are a sovereign and independent nation, and ought not to be subject to any foreign jurisdiction. Article XXIV — Of Christian Men's Goods. The riches and goods of Christians are not common as touching the right, title, and possession of the same, as some do falsely boast. Notwithstanding, every man ought, of such things as he possesseth, liberally to give alms to the poor, according to his ability. Article XXV — Of a Christian Man's Oath. As we confess that vain and rash swearing is forbidden Christian men by our Lord Jesus Christ and James his apostle, so we judge that the Christian religion doth not prohibit, but that a man may swear when the magistrate requireth, in a cause of faith and charity, so it be done according to the prophet's teaching, in justice, judgment, and truth. Of Sanctification (appended 1939; legislative, not constitutionally protected). Sanctification is that renewal of our fallen nature by the Holy Ghost, received through faith in Jesus Christ, whose blood of atonement cleanseth from all sin; whereby we are not only delivered from the guilt of sin, but are washed from its pollution, saved from its power, and are enabled, through grace, to love God with all our hearts and to walk in his holy commandments blameless. Of the Duty of Christians to the Civil Authority (appended 1939; legislative, not constitutionally protected). It is the duty of all Christians, and especially of all Christian ministers, to observe and obey the laws and commands of the governing or supreme authority of the country of which they are citizens or subjects or in which they reside, and to use all laudable means to encourage and enjoin obedience to the powers that be.