Thanks for your responses. Forgive me for pushing a literal reading again, but I still can't get my head around the potential for whopping contradictions here.

I can accept the proposition that God wields the power to institute governments or regimes in any way shape or form that He so pleases. I also have no problem with the idea that no matter what, Christians are obliged to follow the rules set down in the N.T. Rom. 13:1 says, pretty explicitly, that Christians are supposed to follow the rules of the authorities (there is also, of course, the famous saying of Christ's, "give unto Caesar what is Caesar's, etc. etc."), right? So what if the authorities are completely ad odds with the NT?

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"see this letter I, o world"
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