What if Socialism, Capitalism, Democracy, Communism etc. are all bad choices? What if as Christians we are called to be anarchists?I don't mean that we go off torching governmental buildings, compose a hit-list of public officials, or even refuse to pay all of our taxes. But what if we, as T said, "If we all happily gave out of our own resources." I suggest that by acknowledging any of the above social structures as the correct way to lead a people, one in turn denies the Church-the living and breathing Body of Christ in the world-its proper role in our lives and the way we understand everything. Socialism, Capitalism, Democracy, Communism...they're all forever screwed because they necessarily seek the good of ONE people or nation. The way of the Slain Lamb--the way of the Church is where I propose we hold a conversation. –Me
ben, truly a prophetic lead into the conversation that is needed in the church today.
i think what ben is saying is faithful to the teachings of Christ and potent in the world of domination that oppresses the imagination that will lead humankind out of its enslavement to the powers and principalities of this world.
To reiterate what ben said, anarchism is not about chaos and violent rebellion or revolution. anarchism believes that humankind are essentially good and therefore will come to a common understanding which will create a community of peace and justice. Violence which is commonly associated with anarchism by the powers that be is the antithesis of the anarchist ideals. To participate in violence is to assume power and in turn dominate another human being. Anarchism is not lawlessness. Anarchism requires that humankind discipline oneself to live faithfully to the common understanding of the community.
Christian anarchism lives by Christ's teaching of forgiveness, contrary to retribution. Retributive action would undermine the community because it estranges the offender by assuming the power to levy punishment. Forgiveness seeks reconciliation. Christian anarchist share, and they work hard because that preserves peace and justice in a community. Most notably Christian anarchism does not seek to overthrow the existing government through the means of a revolution. Christian anarchist communities, like the community of the Exodus and the early Christian church, disobey and suffer under the empire all the while reminding Pharaoh that Christ is saying, "Let my people go." --Paul Reeser
Following the last post, there was some confusion in regard to the notion of Christian Anarchy. So, over the next few weeks I will attempt to clarify the term.
What is the gospel if it is not social? One may be tempted to say well it is spiritual, but doesn’t that response separate the spirit and the physical? If one says stealing a car is not socially acceptable, does that not imply that the physical action is part and parcel with its negative moral and spiritual value?If we want to use logic then don’t separate the physical and the spiritual; they are the same.
Given that, what does it mean to say that the “kingdom of God,” on of Christ’s favorite topics is “spiritual.”It means that it is social; the kingdom of God must have reign over all of our life. The Kingdom of God is our reality.Therefore the gospel of Jesus Christ is social. It’s preaching was always followed by healing, feeding, raising the dead, teaching and uplifting children, redistributing wealth, venerating the elderly. This is the primary concern of the church.
As the first post lacked all the intellect and lacquer that it promised by claiming to have been written by some bearded Cornelius (wise wizard from Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis) who’d supposedly penned some thirteen tomes, I purpose to offer an alternate and hopefully creative piece of my own intellect—I did not find this in my spam box. First, I decry the voice above solely on the grounds of his words. He concluded his piece by claiming to be a “a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions,” while he had clearly spent over 1200 words trying to sway his readers thru mere emotion— “An enemy who cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.” But let’s not waste our time on the particulars of his argument, rather the effects of a fundamental element of the anonymous wizards understanding—the “sacred political process”. If the American political process is “sacred,” to what in dear Heaven does that reduce Jesus of Nazareth? And what might you and I think about His legal and rightful—according to the political process that is—crucifixion? But I encourage us to take some time to remember and pay homage to our “sacred process.” It was from a glorious revolution that our Aryan forefathers wrought their salvation. It was their holy republican process that protected the institution of slavery for twenty years following the Aryan-scrotal-slumber party in 1787(the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention of 1787 was composed of 55 affluent Aryan males who secretly met to create a new constitution without the demand or influence of “we the people”). It was the 13th amendment of the LORD’s Holy Word (if the political process is sacred, then might the constitution be considered the Bible’s equal or at least a parallel) that made way for the continuing of the incendiary institution via a convict lease system that would formally exist until 1942 (I recommend Douglas Blackmon’s book Slavery by Another Name, note that I offer a specific source; I’m not telling you to “look it up if you think I am exaggerating.”). The South in particular utilized the convict lease system in which Black men were arrested and sold back into slavery for minutia; eaves dropping, consensual inter-racial sex, adultery, using obscene language, selling whiskey, violating contracts with white employers, selling cotton after sunset, bastardy, gambling, false pretense, and vagrancy (which meant any freedman—black man—not directly under the “protection of a white man”) were all common indictments (pages 53, 99, & 331 of Slavery by Another Name). Following their conviction they were quickly tried and auctioned off to the highest bidding corporation for much less than one could have purchased a slave prior to the Emancipation. And moving on, you and I see the women who were granted legal recognition 133 years after the original drafting. And even further down the righteous path of the free and the brave we salute the American Indian, maybe the incarnation of the effects of Aryan Scrotal Supremacy. In our parallel with the gospels and the early church, the American Indians represent the ministry of reconciliation, which certainly does not mean a putting to rights or any other sustained sign of humility by the former oppressor, but reconciliation, my friend, is the passing of a bill, a signing of a treaty, or a several million dollar national buy out of a vulgar and unowned history. My friends if we want to talk of the “sacred political process” then count me out. There is nothing sacred in such an institution, especially the one to which I am being urged to subscribe. Rather let us consider the perfect suffering love found only in the way of Jesus the Christ from Nazareth. There is a stark true dichotomy here. At the Anarchic event of baptism, the follower of Christ, the Christian, must take on an entirely and wholly different ethic not rooted in the history of a power-lusting nation-state but in the stories of the body of Christ at large in the world and through history—the church.
I hope and pray that this was of some benefit. Grace and peace. -Benj
What did ordinary German citizens think as they became aware of Hitler and his rise to power? Just the average guy on the street, what was he thinking as he read about the huge changes that were sweeping across his country?
The following letter has been circulating the internet since last fall. We don't know who wrote it, but it is very well written and becomes a fair starting point for any discussion of Capitalism, Democracy, and Christianity. -whm
I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied it all my life. I think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is just a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into sharper focus.
Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten - fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.
We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back. Why?
We learn that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has 'loaned' two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom, or why, or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three times the $700B we all argued about so strenuously just this past September. Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of 'we the people', who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.
We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy. Why? We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and we no longer teach our founding documents, showing why we are exceptional and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, and school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?
We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (now violently in California over a proposition that is so 'controversial' that it wants marriage to remain between one man and one woman!). Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago? We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then allow mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?
Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, Social Security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government, and our education system is worse than a joke. (I teach college and know precisely what I am talking about.) The list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth. It is potentially 1929 x ten. And we are at war with an enemy we cannot name for fear of offending people of the same religion, an enemy who cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.
Now we have elected President a man no one knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla, Alaska . All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling, if not downright scary. Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a 'mandatory civilian defense force' stronger than our military for use inside our borders. No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over, and then demand he explain it. Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe is more important to the media.
Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word: change. Why?
I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now! This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.
And that is only the beginning.
I thought I would never be able to experience what the ordinary, moral German felt in the mid-1930s. In those times, the savior was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they did know was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed. He edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory and promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his 'brown shirts' would bully them into submission. And then, he was duly elected to office as full-throttled economic crisis was at hand [the Great Depression]. Slowly but surely he seized the controls of government power, department-by-department, person-by-person, bureaucracy-by-bureaucracy.
He did it with a compliant media. Did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and ..... change. And the people surely got what they voted for. (Look it up if you think I am exaggerating.)
Read your history books. Many people objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and made fun of. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though.
Don't forget that Germany was the most educated, cultured country in Europe . It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And in less than six years --- a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency --- it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors. All with the best of intentions, of course. The road to hell is paved with them.
As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around me.
Some people scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or both. Perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe, and why I believe it.
