Kim Davis: Putting the ‘protest’ back in ‘Protestant’

Before a judge today ordered her release, Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee announced their plans to meet with Kentucky clerk Kim Davis whose refusal to worship at the First Church of Justice Kennedy and sign her name to same-sex marriage licenses landed her in jail over the Labor Day weekend. Had her stand happened a few short centuries ago, Huckabee and Cruz would likely have been joined by a few notable figures from Christian history — men like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Knox — the men who first put the “protest” in “Protestant.” They would have understood her stand completely. It’s the stand of the “lesser magistrate” — the lesser public figure — against a “greater magistrate” who has not only abandoned his God-given role and forsaken his God-ordained responsibilities, but is demanding that his subordinates participate in his rebellion.

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At the dawn of the Reformation, the early Protestants faced the twin challenge of defying both ecclesiastical and earthly authority — often combined in the form of rulers acting in the name of the Catholic Church. The result wasn’t just a clash of arms, but a clash of ideas — a theological argument over whether the Reformers, including Protestant public officials, were required to obey their Catholic rulers as God-ordained authorities, abandon their new faith practices, and bring themselves — and their cities — back into obedience to the Holy Roman Emperor.

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