What scriptural support is there that the state is inherently bad?
Question 6 in Faith Seeking Freedom: Updated & Expanded
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Amazingly enough, it all begins in the book of Genesis. The Tower of Babel narrative (Gen 11) is the “origin story” of the state. In the passage, we learn that the people of Babel aspire to build for themselves a tower that would “reach the heavens” so that they could “make for themselves a name.” They do this as they “journey eastward,” which parallels the language of separation from God being “east of Eden.”
Many commentators as far back as the first-century Jewish historian Josephus have noted that these things together mean they are either literally or symbolically rebelling against God by trying to take over heaven itself. They are responding to their separation not by turning to God in repentance but by turning against God entirely.
In Jewish antiquities writing, it was Nimrod, the “mighty rebel” before the Lord (some versions read “hunter,” but this is not the best translation) and the first king of Babel/Babylon, who incited them to do so. God disrupts their plan and scatters them about both in their location and in their languages. We can see this story as the theological beginning of all states, which are ultimately founded in rebellion against God and trying to take the place of God on the earth.