Any rational person should wade into the waters surrounding Ferguson, MO very cautiously. Why? We have no idea what happened to touch off the events. We know that a young, unarmed man is dead at the hands of a police officer. We know he was shot six times. We know very little about the event beyond that and,  chances are, whatever we find out in the future will be from the police officer involved, other witnesses, and from forensic evidence, all of which will be stringently challenged. We also know that since Brown’s death, the streets of Ferguson have exploded with violence.

Many issues flow in and through these protests. Race, as always, complicates, and sometimes obscures, reality. I don’t say that to denigrate the racial interests at stake, but the emotional tendrils attached to race render nearly unknowable many things they touch. Surely, we could say much about economics, police behavior, and the general inefficacy of our elected leaders. All of these things deserve analysis, but I want to focus for a bit on the protests surrounding Ferguson.

We have, in some ways, a romantic attachment to the idea of protest in the United States. We are a nation born out of political protest. This kind of unconventional political participation has waxed and waned throughout American history, though it is most recently associated with the civil rights and student protests of the 1960s.

In some ways, our ethic of political protests is rooted in that phase. The obvious injustice that confronted African-Americans in that era added legitimacy to their protests. Deprived of political, legal, economic, and social equality in the South, African-Americans had precious few avenues for change. We also glorify one particular mode of protest–Martin Luther King, Jr.’s non-violent civil disobedience. This generally involved a peaceful demonstration, no resistance to authorities on site, and the acceptance of whatever punishment instituted. All of this was done to raise awareness and to confront governments through pacifistic means.

If we break this into components, protests involve the cause behind the protest, the method of protest, and the reaction to government both during and after the protest. Notice that King’s decision to accept government’s response, even if that meant violence or jail, actually upheld the fundamental notion of government and its authority to punish criminal activity, even if government unjustly defined what was or was not criminal.

Too often, though, we look at protests today and attach all of these attributes to them by proxy, thereby justifying them in spite of the extent to which they adhere, or don’t adhere, to this ethic. The success of King’s protests has positively colored future protests–deserved or not.

Let’s take this basic framework and apply it to Ferguson.

First, the cause behind the protests is murky. We know so little of what actually happened that the nature of the injustice is in question. African-Americans during the 1960s were obviously deprived of basic rights as a class, but we do not yet know who was deprived of what in this instance.

Second, the nature of the protests in Ferguson have often been violent and destructive. Looting is not protesting. Destroying others’ property is not civil and demands a governmental response in order to protect the rights of others.

Third, the response to government in Ferguson has served only to undermine the nature of government itself. Unlike King and his followers, who accepted arrest or worse, protestors in Ferguson have too often instigated violence, both against government and innocent parties.

None of this should be read to excuse the government or its actions, but the governments King confronted were, no matter what anyone thinks, demonstrably more malevolent and racist than anything we have seen in Ferguson, Missouri. No matter how we understand Ferguson, I have neither seen nor heard evidence that suggests political, legal, and economic discrimination that is anywhere on the spectrum of what happened in the South from the 1890s through the 1960s.

What about the theology of civil disobedience? Christians today sometimes cite King as a model for protest. The Christian Left has frequently embraced these methods. Jim Wallis, for instance, has been arrested more than a dozen times during protests over federal budgets and American military involvement abroad.

Rom. 13 makes it clear that we are commanded to obey government since its authority is divine. We recognize God’s authority by submitting to government’s authority over us.

Is this submission absolute? There are several biblical instances of civil disobedience. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, the Disciples, and Hebrew mid-wives during the Egyptian period of enslavement all disobeyed government directly, but they did so in fairly limited circumstances. The general principle seems to be that when God’s commands and government’s laws conflict, we have an obligation to obey God’s laws. Put briefly, when government attempts to force us to sin, either by making us do something we are forbidden from doing (like worshiping an idol) or by preventing us from doing something we are commanded to do (like sharing the gospel), we must obey God at the expense of government.

Notice, however, that when we see this disobedience in Scripture, those who disobeyed government also willingly suffered government’s wrath. Daniel went into the Lion’s Den. Shadrach and his friends did not resist the fiery furnace. By accepting government’s punishment, while at the same time obeying God, we honor God in both ways–through obedience and through the acknowledgment of government’s inherent, divine authority.

Clearly, these arguments lead to difficult questions. What do we do about inherently wicked governments like in Nazi Germany or Pol Pot’s Cambodia? Are we justified in rebelling against, much less disobeying, government? How do we address systemic injustice that is wicked even when we, personally, have not been forced to sin? These are all good questions that lead to excellent discussions. No matter how you answer these questions, however, what has taken place in Ferguson is not within barking distance of those conversations.

Ferguson has no killing fields. The right to vote, trial by jury, and a free public education are all still operative in Ferguson. Religious freedom is still enshrined, and economic transactions are allowed, encouraged, and protected through the American free enterprise system. None of this means that life in Ferguson is grand or the way life ought to be for those who feel aggrieved. And, for Michael Brown’s family, no abstract discussion will assuage a pain that most of us cannot imagine. But, we should seek perspective in order to understand and evaluate what has happened in Ferguson.