Whose law to follow?

A Christian group in Costa Mesa, the Piecemakers, has been back in the news in recent weeks following the arrest of several members. Four have been charged with, among other things, operating a food business without a proper permit and blocking a health inspection. The group’s leader, Marie Kolasinsky, has repeatedly denied that the group needs the government sanctioning of its operations.

How should religious organizations best deal with government authority, especially if there are disagreements?

Religious organizations do answer to authority higher than secular government. Members of faith communities must carefully discern demands given by their higher authority and be willing to accept consequences when their behavior following perceived mandates of that higher authority conflict with legislation.

Whenever their confrontations fail to communicate compassion and grace and love, our neighbors, the Piecemakers, should not be mentioned alongside civil disobedience and nonviolent behavior that has changed ways of believing, thinking and acting around our world. Such movements have been led by saintly persons like Mahatma Gandhi, Dorothy Day and Martin Luther King Jr.

Is it true that the Piecemakers do not “need the government sanctioning of their operations” as their leader has said? I wish they would talk more about the obligations they believe they’ve been given and who their giver is, and less about the rights they perceive are theirs because they believe themselves to be under such higher authority and beyond “government sanctioning.”

Clearly, our neighbors are subject to the same legitimate governmental regulations as are all blessed to be citizens.

(THE VERY REV’D CANON)

PETER D. HAYNES