Essentially the idea of Christian Anarchy begins with a similar slogan to that of the anarchists, only replacing the word “no” with the word “one.” “One God, One master.” The main point of this slogan lies in refusing to be subject to any existing government authority or institution except God himself. Greg Boyd who is a pastor, writer, and philosopher, says in his article, “The Bible, Government, and Christian Anarchy,” that, Christianity is essentially a group of people who belong to the ‘Kingdom of Heaven,’ as Jesus called it (Mathew 4:7) and are therefore called to pledge allegiance to God alone, and not to any nation, government, political party, or ideology (1).
This does not mean Christians can do whatever they want and are free to break the law, because Christians above all are called to live under the “Law of Love” as famous writer and thinker Leo Tolstoy called it (i.e. Jesus’ claim that all of the commandments of scripture are summed up in these two, “Love God, Love others” Mathew 22:36-40). Tolstoy says in his book, The Kingdom of God is Within You, that “The Christian is independent of every human authority by the fact that he regards the divine law of love, implanted in the soul of every man” (186). Therefore it is the Christian duty to abstain from following any law that contradicts the law of love and is imposed upon society from the government. The societal philosophy or unspoken “laws” that impede against the law of love could be the use of force or violence against one’s fellow man, war, a military draft, the death penalty, or the exploitation/abuse of others. Whenever these issues are deemed acceptable by society or given exception, they are to be broken by the follower of Jesus. For instance, if Jesus says that we are to love our enemies, then the government’s call for us to take up arms against an enemy cannot be followed out of adherence and respect for the sanctity of life and the law of love (even for one’s enemies) that the Christian believes in. It is not simply pacifism but non-violent resistance.
The Kingdom of God is Within You was one of the major inspirations for Mahatmas Gandhi and his resistance of the British Empire in India, which is also a great example of the non-resistance and non-violence to resist the empire that Christian Anarchy believes in. It was after a brief introduction to these ideas that I began to reexamine the politics of my faith and the nature of faith in relation to politics in general.
The idea of Christian Anarchy can seem a bit off putting. When I first told my parents I was dabbling in ideas of Christian Anarchy I don’t think they knew what to say. I think to placate me they might have said something like, “Oh, well isn’t that neat,” and then went back to discussing the weather, thinking I was off on another one of my ideological torrents. In general my belief system is not that different from my parents, but I think that they thought me being a Christian Anarchist meant that I would start wearing spiked black leather jackets, and get skull tattoos with yellow flames. You see, I grew up believing in God in a mainstream Christian denomination. My parents would cart my brother, my sister, and I off to church every Sunday, dragging us like reluctant Indie rockers to a Britney Spears concert. Both of my parents came from highly involved Christian households, influenced from a variety of church denominations. Both of them went to Bible College and both were Christian counselors. All of my family was Christian—except for maybe one of my uncles (he drank beer and rode motorcycles). Half of them were pastors of some kind. Being a Christian was a part of life; I knew nothing else.
I also grew up Republican in a small, conservative mountain town of Colorado. Slowly I learned that being a Christian in a Republican context meant you supported gun control, the war on terror, lower taxes and the free market system. Why these were Christian issues I wasn’t quite sure, but I was sure it was important. I knew that if we were not allowed to have guns, the government would take over 1984 style and it was our right to protect ourselves from this (I think this is like the twelfth or thirteenth commandment.) I knew that if taxes were raised we would have less money, and this was a bad thing (no one ever told me that it also meant more money could go to public expenditures like better schools and community programs, but why is that important?) Christianity and the Republican Party were like Starsky and Hutch. All the Christian magazines and articles I read wrote support for Republican candidates, and against the Democratic Party because once the Democrats got in, everyone knew that Christian morality would decay like Bruce Willis at a poetry reading. We would sing nationalistic, patriotic hymns during church and ask for God to “Bless America,” which I always considered strange considering we were the richest country in the world (sort of like asking God to bless Bill Gates).
I watched documentaries about the “Christian” foundation of America and even remember taking a Sunday school class about how the Founding Fathers were Christians and started this country as a Christian nation, but that now it was all going to hell because people were having abortions while watching Comedy Central. I also learned growing up that the government was an authority which God had set up and therefore must be obeyed, and in America’s case, supported 100%. I believed that God was on America’s side and that the other people, terrorists or whoever, were “evil” and we, we were, “good,” of course.
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