The twisting and abuse of Romans 13 continues unabated from Canon City pulpits.

The inadequacy of Curtis’ interpretation is on full display as he went into the story of Paul being persecuted by government for preaching the gospel (40:50 mark) and then in the next breath saying that government is God’s servant (42:55). He mentions that it’s possible government is not behaving correctly, but never explains what to do other than blindly obeying. He never explains what we should be doing even though the government has allowed the murder of 70 million unborn babies without punishing the evildoers who perpetrated that massacre, much less the relentless string of smaller injustices we face every day other than to just do what they say.

In that portion of the sermon, he says that Paul (and Christians) didn’t lead a rebellion even though they were being persecuted. Rebellion isn’t the only alternative to the milquetoast interpretation of the blind obedience to government hermeneutic of contemporary American Christianity. The weapons of Christianity aren’t a sword, but the word of God and the gospel working to change society. If the gospel you’re preaching doesn’t include calling the nations to repent and obey all that Christ has commanded (Matthew 28:18-20), then you have a false gospel. It took generations, but Christianity defeated Rome and the rest of Europe more thoroughly than if they had used swords. The pagans in Rome would abandon unwanted babies in the garbage dump and Christians would rescue the babies. They faced much persecution as they disobeyed government.

To top it all off, Curtis propagates the lies of enemies of the gospel who say that Kent Hovind went to prison for not paying his taxes (50:28 mark). In reality, Hovind went to jail for withdrawing amounts of cash under $10,000–a crime known as structuring. You may not have known that withdrawing $9800 cash from your own bank account was a crime, but it’s a crime that can get you long periods in prison. It’s just another example of how evil our government is.

Here’s the video that’s not worth watching, but I’m posting so you can check my references:

In the future, I’d like the discussion around this passage to be this: How do Christians respond when our government in almost no way matches the description of Romans 13 government. Telling Christians to just obey an evil government and betraying Christians who are unjustly persecuted by an evil government (as Curtis does to Kent Hovind) will only get us more evil government.