Reading Romans 13:1–7 as a Hidden Transcript of Public Theology

Abstract

Romans 13:1–7 is a potential key text in determining the theological response of the churches in Myanmar to the 2021 coup. The text presents those who invoke its use with a dilemma that requires resolution and decision. Is it an oppressive text that justifies the coup and commands the church’s blind obedience to the coup-led state? Does Paul’s exhortation to be subject to the governing authorities’ (13:1) justify the line of the church’s uncritical obedience? Or does his description of the governing authorities as ‘servants for good’ (v.4) provide the basis for resistance to the coup conceived as adharma or untruth or evil? James Scott’s creative theory of hidden transcripts suggests that the text can be read as a script for a public theology that demands the church’s faithful disobedience to the coup. It invites a fresh reading of Paul being resistant to empire in a hidden and indirect way. Rom: 13.4 may then be placed in dialogue with Rom. 12:9 (‘resisting evil and loving good’). Through a hermeneutic of correspondence between Paul’s texts and contemporary protesters of the coup forms of everyday public resistance to the military power are disclosed. The text becomes a vehicle through which the goals of the resistance movement can be set in a biblical case for a public theology.