Perhaps the primary text employed to justify the Just War Theory is found in the book of Romans:
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
(Romans 13:1-7 ESV)
First, it is glaringly obvious that this passage is discussing the role of governments, not the role of the church, the community of people who have decided to follow Jesus. This is a significant distinction which must be noticed. In the passage are instructions of how the church ought to respond to governmental authority and that is through general obedience and paying taxes.
There is an instance in the book of Acts that indicates we should not always obey the human authorities placed above us, as Peter and John testify, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard...We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 4:19-20; 5:29 ESV). When told not to preach the Gospel, they rebel against the authorities and even pray: "Grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness" (Acts 4:29, ESV). They do not pray for this earthly power to have a change of heart and thus allow them to preach the Gospel, but the apostles simply rebel.
Second, the passage certainly allows for the established authorities to wage war, but we must remind ourselves that Jesus commands His followers to engage in no acts of violence. In this sense, a Just War Theory would be ideal, for we would hope that our governments would not be temerarious with human lives and would instead take every precautionary measure to prevent war. Remember, in the prior paragraph, Paul practically recites the teaching of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount (in Matthew 5:38-48) by instructing the church to never retaliate, exact vengeance or engage in violent acts (Romans 12:14-21). Therefore, it seems that this paragraph at hand is articulating one way in which God justly delivers recompense to evildoers (see 12:19).
While more questions could be raised about Romans 13:1-7, these primordial points suffice to demonstrate that Jesus' disciples are forbidden from rebelling against Him in favor of being submissive to humans. Allow me to close with this thought: for the first 300 years of church history, it was unanimously considered apostasy (leaving the faith) to enlist in the military. If a bishop heard of a Christian who was a Roman soldier, the bishop would seek them out and call them to repentance. If you know even a little bit about early church history, you know that theologians of this epoch disagreed on almost every topic imaginable, but it is interesting to note that they have a unified consensus that engaging in violence and/or enlisting in the military was not negotiable. They debated about every theological topic under the sun, but this issue was never questioned until the Constantine became a Christian and established Christianity as the official religion of the empire, baptizing those who resisted this edict by the sword.
Therefore, we must ask: can one serve both God and country? Can we pledge allegiance to the flag and the cross? Can we find a middle ground by somehow draping the flag over the cross? Certainly, we should love our country in the sense that we love all people, including all the people in America. We should submit to the American government insofar as we are not asked to compromise the Gospel and the teachings of the New Testament. However, I must ask if we have compromised what Jesus has called us to "for (too much) love of country?" To explore this specific issue further, I highly recommend Dr. Gregory Boyd's "The Myth Of A Christian Nation: How The Quest For Political Power Is Destroying The Church."
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