Rev. Dr. Bill Bouknight is a retired United Methodist minister, a member of the Memphis Annual Conference. He was educated at Duke, University of Edinburgh- Scotland, and Yale Divinity School. He served churches in South Carolina for 28 years. From 1994 until 2007 he served as Senior Minister of Christ UMC in Memphis, TN. Currently he is a part-time Associate Director of the Confessing Movement within the United Methodist Church.
UMVoices is a forum for different voices within the United Methodist Church on pressing issues of denominational concern. IRD/UMAction does not necessarily endorse every view expressed by UMVoices contributors, nor do UMVoices contributors necessarily endorse every view expressed by IRD.
IRD’s Mark Tooley wrote on this topic in an article, Kim Davis, Christianity & Civil Disobedience.
Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky, has stopped signing marriage licenses. For that offense, U.S. District Judge David Bunning sentenced her to jail. Her defense is exactly the same as that of St. Peter and the apostles long ago before the Sanhedrin: “WE MUST OBEY GOD RATHER THAN MEN!” (Acts 5:29).
Kim Davis stands in a long line of Christians who have claimed that God’s mandates trump man’s laws. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. took the same position in his classic “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” God’s laws and those of the state of Alabama were not in harmony. Dr. King sided with God’s laws.
In a democracy, when one engages in civil disobedience, one is bound to step forward and take the punishment. Kim Davis has done that, just as Dr. King did, choosing to go to jail rather than to resign her position. Some urged her to resign. But her resignation would have set a bad example for other Christians, suggesting that it is an honorable escape from the arena of Christian choices to yield one’s position to someone who does not feel bound by God’s laws.
The Supreme Court’s OBERGEFELL decision was an unprecedented tragedy in American history. For the first time, the Supreme Court directly contradicted a biblical standard specifically endorsed by Jesus. The Court redefined marriage even though the word “marriage” is not in the U.S. Constitution. The marriage covenant comes from the three major religions of the world. The original definition is in Genesis 2:24. Jesus endorsed it in Matthew 19:4-6: “Haven’t you read, that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
Kim Davis is demonstrating the awesome power of an individual conscience. Therefore, the forces of a secular culture despise her and are fearful of her, recognizing that this solitary woman of conscience is a bigger threat than a thousand-man army. The U.S. government would be well advised to listen to the advice of Gamaliel, an ancient, respected teacher of Israel’s laws, who gave this advice to the Sanhedrin as it tried to decide the fate of St. Peter and the apostles: “I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God” (Acts. 5:38-39).
Perhaps Judge Bunning has heeded Gamaliel’s advice. On September 8, he ordered her released from jail after five days behind bars.
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