Whoever killed George Tiller has committed murder.  For that they will have to give an answer to the civil authorities and, ultimately, to God.

As will George Tiller for his actions. But Tiller’s notorious guilt as a late-term abortionist does not make the act of murdering him any less wicked.

The best immediate quote I have seen today came from Prof. Robert P. George,  McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University:

Whoever murdered George Tiller has done a gravely wicked thing. The evil of this action is in no way diminished by the blood George Tiller had on his own hands. No private individual had the right to execute judgment against him. We are a nation of laws. Lawless violence breeds only more lawless violence. Rightly or wrongly, George Tilller was acquitted by a jury of his peers. “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.” For the sake of justice and right, the perpetrator of this evil deed must be prosecuted, convicted, and punished. By word and deed, let us teach that violence against abortionists is not the answer to the violence of abortion. Every human life is precious. George Tiller’s life was precious. We do not teach the wrongness of taking human life by wrongfully taking a human life. Let our “weapons” in the fight to defend the lives of abortion’s tiny victims, be chaste weapons of the spirit.

Conversations I have had with a few friends today have prompted me to review the Christian and Biblical case for the use of the sword.

The sword is a symbol for civil authority. It is referenced as such in Romans 13:4:

for it [the governing authorities] is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.

I am not a pacifist, though I do believe that for a private individual, gentleness and a soft answer are our first line of defense, and when confronted with a tyrannical authority it is our only appropriate response.

But there are those to whom God has legitimately entrusted the sword – the civil authorities. They not only may use force, they have an obligation to use force to protect those who are in their charge. Civil authorities are called “minister of God” (diakonos) twice and “servant of God” (leitourgos). They are directly commissioned by God as his servants and ministers. They have the responsibility to use the sword to restrain wickedness and punish evil-doers.

This is why a police officer may legitimately use force to arrest a law-breaker, and why the civil authorities may biblically, legitimately use corporal punishment, up to and including putting to death. It is also a justification for the use of military force – not in every instance, obviously, but to restrain wickedness in the world, and to be a terror to evil-doers.

But what is lawful for a civil magistrate, commissioned by God, is NOT lawful for those who have NOT been commissioned by God. NOTE: I am not saying that every use of force by the civil authorities is biblical or justified. All are subject to God’s law. But as individual Christians, we have NO authority to use the sword to punish evil-doers. Personally, I believe I have the right to use force to protect those in my charge – but not necessarily to protect myself. Translation: I may not fight back if you attack me, but if you attack my wife or one of my children, expect me to use any means at my disposal to protect them.

What has this got to do with the murder of George Tiller? Tiller did evil. The dismemberment of children in the third tri-mester of pregnancy is evil. Partial birth abortion is evil. But only the magistrates have a legitimate commission from God to punish evil-doers. The magistrates of Wichita and of Kansas had an obligation to stop him. They could have done so. They should have done so. When they first learned that he had killed the first child, they should have arrested him and punished him. It is an outrage that he was allowed to continue to commit his evil deeds. But we who are not magistrates have no commission from God to use force to punish him.

Many of these issues were worked out in thoughtful detail during the 16th & 17th century by Huguenot resistance leaders dealing with the persecution of French Protestants and then further developed by John Locke, the great English philosopher and father of political science. The French Protestants had to deal with the very real and troubling issue of how to respond when the civil authorities persecuted Christians. They concluded, after exhaustive study of the scriptures, and with special reference to Romans 13:4, that an individual Christian did NOT have the right to use force to resist the persecution of the civil authorities, but that lesser magistrates, who had been commissioned by God to bear the sword DID have a right to resist the persecution of those under their care and in their charge. This became known as the “right of resistance.” The right of lesser magistrates to use force, in some circumstances may very well prove to be an obligation to use force to protect those in their charge.

These ideas played a key role in the political thought of the English colonists in North America in the 1700s. They held that it would be illegitimate for private citizens to rebel and take up arms against the English authorities. But it would be legitimate for the colonial legislatures, and local magistrates to resist the attempt to impose tyrrany by the English government. There is a legimate use of force. There is, indeed, a legitimate right to resist tyranny. But it is limited to those whom God has commissioned with the sword.

The killing of George Tiller by a private individual was wicked and sinful. Though the deeds of Tiller were evil, it was the duty of the civil authorities to stop him and to punish him.

We may need to revisit this issue again in the coming days. . .

– Rob Shearer