He who places his hope on thee, O Virgin all-glorious, will prosper in all he does.

Inscription on Byzantine coin during reign of Romanus III



Thursday, January 17, 2013

Second Amendment Insurrection




The Battle of Athens (Tennessee) in 1946 shows the value of exercising Second Amendment rights against a corrupt and tyrannical government.

3 comments:

George Kleinert said...

An interesting and inspiring story.

However, it seems appropriate to ask, is armed resistance to tyranny a biblical option? When in church history did the church endorse armed resistance? We are warned against trusting in the weapons of carnal warfare. Each person must be persuaded in his/her own mind, but resisting the authority is a serious matter.

Visibilium said...

It depends. One could say that the history is mixed. Those who favor obedience to civil authority are eager to trot out the well-known views of St. Paul and St. John Chrysostom as well as the example of various traditional Orthodox tyrannies to support the view that one should submit to authorities. On the other hand, those who favor conditional obedience to particular civil authorities may trot out the examples of Ss. Nestor and Demetrius as well as the well-traveled insurrections in Ottoman Greece and Serbia and early Bolshevik Russia. Orthodoxy doesn't have an easy relationship with warfare, unlike the various Western traditions, and since insurrection necessarily involves armed conflict, one would expect to find mixed views amongst Orthodox lay and clerics.

One caution that I would inject into this whole discussion would pertain to extrapolating Orthodoxy's traditional unease with civil warfare into an endorsement of a particular political theory or realm or leader.

George Kleinert said...

Understood. Thanks for the examples.
I am learning to live with mixed views. I am actually trying to stay out of these discussions and will bite my tongue now.