The broader context of Romans thus indicates that Paul’s admonition to submit to authorities rests on several critical assumptions that recast submission not as base compliance, but as a glorious partnership. Romans 13 could be reframed thusly: God’s moral law has authority over civil authorities. God institutes civil authority (including the power to tax) for the common good. What is good can be known and acted on. Government has a duty to do and defend this good (that’s the only way its use of the sword is legitimate). We have a duty to work towards, encourage and fulfill that good in as, and in cooperation with, civil authorities. All of these ideas are presented as being assumed to be true in Romans 13, meaning Paul either outlined them earlier in Romans and/or is referencing other Scripture.

A homeschooling parent emailed me this past summer asking for recommendations on Christian resources to work into her student’s government curriculum. She specifically asked about applying Romans 13 to thinking about government and politics. After replying to the email with some book recommendations, I found myself stuck on that perception of Romans 13. Why do we keep going back to this passage as the seminal biblical passage on the relationship of Christians to the state? In some cases, it may be the only passage that gets cited in discussions on Christian participation in the political space. However, the more I thought about Romans 13 as the starting point for a political theology the less I liked the idea and the more I realized why: it’s too easy a proof-text.
At best, it creates contradictory applications (see progressive calls to submit to COVID-19 restrictions while opposing enforcement of border security), and at worst promotes a view of blind compliance with the state (see former Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s comments to pastors) that is totally at odds with Paul and indeed the whole of Scripture. I acknowledge this mostly as a corrective to myself, because I know I’ve often started discussions with students on thinking Christianly about politics with Romans 13. However, I’ve now come to the conclusion that this passage is not the place to start a discussion on Christians and politics. An overemphasis on Romans 13 as the linchpin of our political theology obscures the broader context of Romans and Paul’s life, draws the wrong parallels between Paul’s time and our, and creates a false model of citizenship for Christians in liberal democracies.
Paul and the Limits of Compliance
The political theology of Paul does not start in Romans 13, but in Romans 1. Paul’s treatment of the depth of man’s sinfulness in Romans 1 indicates that associations of humans were part of God’s created order, but were subsequently corrupted by the Fall. For example, Paul’s references to collective man in Romans 1:18-23 demonstrate that the fall from grace was a collective action. As Paul develops his argument about God’s salvific plan (Romans 4-8), though, he doesn’t do away with human associations as beyond redemption, indeed, in Christ it is redeemed. Paul doesn’t talk of an atomistic individual in Romans 8 as being “more than conquerors,” he refers to a community. In other words, human society and presumably the governing entities that organize them are not necessary evils to restrain a corrupt humanity, but integral to humanity realizing its cultural mandate to “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1: 26-28). The broader context of Romans thus indicates that Paul’s admonition to submit to authorities rests on several critical assumptions that recast submission not as base compliance, but as a glorious partnership. Romans 13 could be reframed thusly:

God’s moral law has authority over civil authorities.

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Together Adam and Noah and Melchizedek and Joseph and Moses and Joshua and Samson and Solomon and Jonah, and they would not make a fragment of a Christ, a quarter of a Christ, the half of a Christ, or the millionth part of a Christ. He forsook a throne and sat down on His own footstool. He came from the top of glory to the bottom of humiliation, and exchanged a circumference seraphic, for a circumference diabolic. Once waited on by angels, now hissed at by brigands.

We have a natural tendency to attempt to understand what we don’t know by extrapolating from what we do. This works well in much of life, but not so much when it comes to theology, for God comes before comparisons and supersedes them all. When it comes to Christ, he is more unlike than like what we know. This quote from the old preacher De Witt Talmage celebrates how Christ was “the great unlike.”
All good men have for centuries been trying to tell whom this Substitute was like, but every comparison, inspired and uninspired, evangelistic, prophetic, apostolic, and human falls short, for Christ was the Great Unlike.

Adam a type of Christ, because he came directly from God;
Noah a type of Christ, because he delivered his own family from the deluge;
Melchizedek a type of Christ, because he had no predecessor or successor;
Joseph a type of Christ, because he was cast out by his brethren;
Moses a type of Christ, because he was a deliverer from bondage;

Joshua a type of Christ, because he was a conqueror;

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Scientific research is valuable insofar as it can reinforce the truths of the Bible and principles of natural law; namely, that when we observe the way the world works (and does not work), it becomes abundantly clear that marriage matters for human flourishing almost more than anything else.

Humanly speaking, there is nothing more important for personal well-being, positive social behavior, and general success in life than being raised by one’s biological parents committed to each other in a stable marriage. Over the past forty years, a vast body of research has demonstrated conclusively that children are deeply affected by family structure and that married parents are best for children. Any efforts — whether governmental, educational, or ecclesiastical — that mean to encourage human flourishing must take this reality into account as both an explanation for many societal ills and as a means to the end of hoped-for societal health and vitality.
Not a Myth
Family life in America has changed dramatically in a relatively short period of time. In 1960, 73% of children lived with two parents in their first marriage. By 2014, less than half (46%) of children were living in this type of family. Conversely, the percentage of children living with a single parent rose from 9% in 1960 to 26% in 2014. An additional 7% of children now live with cohabiting parents. Moreover, the increase in non-traditional family arrangements has coincided with the decoupling of marriage and childbearing. In 1960, just 5% of all births occurred outside of marriage. By 2000, around 40% of all births occurred outside of marriage (a percentage that has held steady over the last twenty years). As of 2014, 29% of births to white women, 53% of births to Hispanic women, and 71% of births to black women were out-of-wedlock. In the span of only 60 years, what were once considered exceptional family circumstances have become the norm.[1]
Given the changing portrait of the American family, it is not surprising that many people believe — or, given the uncomfortable prospect of implicitly judging others, feel compelled to say they believe — that there is no difference between one parent or two parents when it comes to raising children. According to one online survey, “more than 70% of participants believed that a single parent can do just as good a job as two parents.” Further, 60% of women “agreed that children do best with multiple adults invested and helping, but that two married parents are not necessary.”[2] Christina Cross, writing in the New York Times, went so far as to decry “The Myth of the Two-Parent Home,” citing evidence that black children in two-parent families still fare worse than white children in two-parent families.[3] But Cross’s argument fails to take into account how much better all children do in two-parent families compared to one-parent families of the same race. The percentage of white children living in poverty goes from 31% in families with only a mother, to 17% in families with only a father, all the way down to 5% in families with a married couple. The same percentages for black children go from 45% (mother-only), to 36% (father-only), to 12% (married couple). We can lament that black children in two-parent families are still 2.4 times more likely to be in poverty than white children (12% v. 5%), but we should also observe that white children raised by only a mother are 2.6 times as likely to be in poverty as black children raised by two parents (31% v. 12%). While there are still advantages to being white in this country, he much bigger advantage is being raised by two parents. It is better in America to be a black child raised by two parents than to be a white child in a one-parent home. The breakdown of the family is not a black problem; it is a problem wherever two-parent families decline and single-parent households become normalized.[4]
Family Structure and Child Well-Being
The conclusion that children raised by their biological, married parents do better, by almost every measure,  has been proven in hundreds of studies over the last several decades.[5]
One of the best and most concise summaries of the academic literature comes from a policy brief published in 2003 by the Center for Law and Social Policy.[6] Citing a 1994 study by Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, the 2003 brief notes that children who do not live with both biological parents were roughly twice as likely to be poor, to have birth outside of marriage, to have behavioral and psychological problems, and to not graduate from high school.[7] Another study found that children in single-parent homes were more likely to experience health problems, such as accidents, injuries, and poisonings.[8] Other research found that children living with single mothers were five times as likely to be poor.[9]
Importantly, not all types of single-parent households fare the same. Children of widowed parents, for example, do better than children in families with divorced or cohabiting parents.[10] Children of divorce are two-and-a-half times as likely to have serious social, emotional, or psychological problems as children from intact families.[11] Likewise, children in cohabiting families are at a higher risk of poor outcomes in a host of economic and emotional categories. Critically, these poor outcomes are not erased when the single-parent family is better off financially.[12] Marriage is the issue, not economics. In short,
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