Christian anarchism is a
Christian movement in
political theology
Political theology is a term which has been used in discussion of the ways in which theological concepts or ways of thinking relate to politics. The term ''political theology'' is often used to denote religious thought about political principled qu ...
that claims
anarchism
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
is inherent in
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...
and the
Gospel
Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...
s. It is grounded in the belief that there is only one source of authority to which Christians are ultimately answerable—the authority of God as embodied in the teachings of
Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...
. It therefore rejects the idea that human governments have ultimate authority over human societies. Christian anarchists denounce the
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
, believing it is violent, deceitful and, when glorified,
idolatrous.
[
Christian anarchists hold that the "Reign of God" is the proper expression of the relationship between God and humanity. Under the "Reign of God", human relationships would be characterized by divided authority, ]servant leadership
Servant leadership is a leadership philosophy in which the goal of the leader is to serve. This is different from traditional leadership where the leader's main focus is the thriving of their company or organization. A servant leader shares powe ...
, and universal compassion—not by the hierarchical, authoritarian structures that are normally attributed to religious social order. Most Christian anarchists are pacifists
Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigne ...
who reject war and the use of violence.
More than any other Bible source, the Sermon on the Mount
The Sermon on the Mount ( anglicized from the Matthean Vulgate Latin section title: ) is a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth found in the Gospel of Matthew (chapters 5, 6, and 7). that emphasizes his moral teachings. It ...
is used as the basis for Christian anarchism. Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...
's ''The Kingdom of God Is Within You
''The Kingdom of God Is Within You'' ( pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform rus, Царство Божие внутри вас, Tsárstvo Bózhiye vnutrí vas) is a non-fiction book written by Leo Tolstoy. A Christian anarchist philosophical trea ...
'' is often regarded as a key text for modern Christian anarchism.
Origins
Old Testament
Jacques Ellul
Jacques Ellul (; ; January 6, 1912 – May 19, 1994) was a French philosopher, sociologist, lay theologian, and professor who was a noted Christian anarchist. Ellul was a longtime Professor of History and the Sociology of Institutions on ...
, a French philosopher and Christian anarchist, notes that the final verse of the Book of Judges
The Book of Judges (, ') is the seventh book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. In the narrative of the Hebrew Bible, it covers the time between the conquest described in the Book of Joshua and the establishment of a kingdo ...
( Judges 21:25) states that there was no king in Israel and that "everyone did as they saw fit". Subsequently, as recorded in the first Book of Samuel
The Book of Samuel (, ''Sefer Shmuel'') is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Samuel) in the Old Testament. The book is part of the narrative history of Ancient Israel called the Deuteronomistic history, a series of books (Jos ...
(1 Samuel 8
1 Samuel 8 is the eighth chapter of the First Book of Samuel in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible or the first part of the Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition the book was attributed to the prophet Samuel, w ...
) the people of Israel wanted a king "so as to be like other nations".
God declared that the people had rejected him as their king. He warned that a human king would lead to militarism
Militarism is the belief or the desire of a government or a people that a state should maintain a strong military capability and to use it aggressively to expand national interests and/or values. It may also imply the glorification of the mili ...
, conscription
Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to Ancient history, antiquity and it continues in some countries to th ...
and taxation
A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, o ...
, and that their pleas for mercy from the king's demands would go unanswered. Samuel
Samuel ''Šəmūʾēl'', Tiberian: ''Šămūʾēl''; ar, شموئيل or صموئيل '; el, Σαμουήλ ''Samouḗl''; la, Samūēl is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the bib ...
passed on God's warning to the Israelites but they still demanded a king, and Saul
Saul (; he, , ; , ; ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the first monarch of the United Kingdom of Israel. His reign, traditionally placed in the late 11th century BCE, supposedly marked the transition of Israel and Judah from a scattered tri ...
became their ruler. Much of the subsequent Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
chronicles the Israelites trying to live with this decision.
New Testament
More than any other Bible source, the Sermon on the Mount
The Sermon on the Mount ( anglicized from the Matthean Vulgate Latin section title: ) is a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth found in the Gospel of Matthew (chapters 5, 6, and 7). that emphasizes his moral teachings. It ...
is used as the basis for Christian anarchism.[ Alexandre Christoyannopoulos explains that the Sermon perfectly illustrates Jesus's central teaching of love and ]forgiveness
Forgiveness, in a psychological sense, is the intentional and voluntary process by which one who may initially feel victimized or wronged, goes through a change in feelings and attitude regarding a given offender, and overcomes the impact of t ...
. Christian anarchists claim that the state, founded on violence, contravenes the Sermon and Jesus' call to love one's enemies.
The gospels tell of Jesus's temptation in the desert. For the final temptation, Jesus is taken up to a high mountain by Satan and told that if he bows down to Satan he will give him all the kingdoms of the world. Christian anarchists use this as evidence that all Earthly kingdoms and governments are ruled by Satan, otherwise they would not be Satan's to give. Jesus refuses the temptation, choosing to serve God instead, implying that Jesus is aware of the corrupting nature of Earthly power.
Christian eschatology
Christian eschatology, a major branch of study within Christian theology, deals with "last things". Such eschatology – the word derives from two Greek roots meaning "last" () and "study" (-) – involves the study of "end things", whether of ...
and various Christian anarchists, such as Jacques Ellul, have identified the state and political power
In social science and politics, power is the social production of an effect that determines the capacities, actions, beliefs, or conduct of actors. Power does not exclusively refer to the threat or use of force ( coercion) by one actor again ...
as the Beast in the Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament (and consequently the final book of the Christian Bible). Its title is derived from the first word of the Koine Greek text: , meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". The Book of ...
.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
and Frank Seaver Billings criticize Christianity and anarchism by arguing that they are the same thing.
Early Church
According to Alexandre Christoyannopoulos, several of the Church Fathers
The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical per ...
' writings suggest anarchism as God's ideal. The first Christians opposed the primacy of the state: "We must obey God as ruler rather than men" (Acts
The Acts of the Apostles ( grc-koi, Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; la, Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its message ...
4:19, 5:29, 1 Corinthians
The First Epistle to the Corinthians ( grc, Α΄ ᾽Επιστολὴ πρὸς Κορινθίους) is one of the Pauline epistles, part of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The epistle is attributed to Paul the Apostle and a co-au ...
6:1-6); "Stripping the governments and the authorities bare, he exhibited them in open public as conquered, leading them in a triumphal procession by means of it." ( Colossians 2:15). Also, some early Christian communities appear to have practised anarchist communism
Anarcho-communism, also known as anarchist communism, (or, colloquially, ''ancom'' or ''ancomm'') is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that advocates communism. It calls for the abolition of private property but retains r ...
, such as the Jerusalem group described in Acts
The Acts of the Apostles ( grc-koi, Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; la, Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its message ...
, who shared their money and labour equally and fairly among the members. Roman Montero claims that using an anthropological framework, such as that of the anarchist David Graeber, one can plausibly reconstruct the communism of the early Christian communities and that the practices were widespread, long-lasting, and substantial. Christian anarchists, such as Kevin Craig, insist that the communities were centred on true love and care for one another, rather than liturgy
Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. ''Liturgy'' can also be used to refer specifically to public worship by Christians. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and partic ...
. They also allege that the reason for the early Christians were persecuted was not that they worshipped Jesus Christ but that they refused to worship human idols claiming divine status (see Imperial cult
An imperial cult is a form of state religion in which an emperor or a dynasty of emperors (or rulers of another title) are worshipped as demigods or deities. "Cult" here is used to mean "worship", not in the modern pejorative sense. The cult may ...
). Since they refused to worship the Roman Emperor, they refused to swear any oath of allegiance
An oath of allegiance is an oath whereby a subject or citizen acknowledges a duty of allegiance and swears loyalty to a monarch or a country. In modern republics, oaths are sworn to the country in general, or to the country's constitution. Fo ...
to the Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...
. When requested that he swear by the emperor, Speratus, spokesperson of the Scillitan Martyrs
The Scillitan Martyrs were a company of twelve North African Christians who were executed for their beliefs on 17 July 180 AD. The martyrs take their name from Scilla (or Scillium), a town in Numidia. The '' Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs'' are c ...
, said in 180CE, "I recognize not the empire of this world... because I know my Lord, the King of kings and Emperor of all nations.
In his introduction to a translation of the ''Sayings of the Desert Fathers
The ''Sayings of the Desert Fathers'' ( la, Apophthegmata Patrum Aegyptiorum; el, ἀποφθέγματα τῶν πατέρων, translit=Apophthégmata tōn Patérōn) is the name given to various textual collections consisting of stories and ...
'', Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton (January 31, 1915 – December 10, 1968) was an American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist and scholar of comparative religion. On May 26, 1949, he was ordained to the Catholic priesthood and g ...
describes the early monastics as "Truly in certain sense 'anarchists,' and it will do no harm to think of them as such."
During the Ante-Nicene Period, there were several independent sect
A sect is a subgroup of a religious, political, or philosophical belief system, usually an offshoot of a larger group. Although the term was originally a classification for religious separated groups, it can now refer to any organization that ...
s who took a radically different approach to Christianity from that of the Proto-Orthodox Church and displayed anarchist tendencies by relying on direct revelation
In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing of some form of truth or knowledge through communication with a deity or other supernatural entity or entities.
Background
Inspiration – such as that bestowed by God on the ...
, rather than scripture, such as:
* Gnosticism
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...
, particularly Valentinianism
Valentinianism was one of the major Gnostic Christian movements. Founded by Valentinus in the 2nd century AD, its influence spread widely, not just within Rome but also from Northwest Africa to Egypt through to Asia Minor and Syria in the East. ...
(2nd to 4th centuries) – reliance on revealed knowledge from a transcendent, unknowable God, who was a distinct divinity from the Demiurge
In the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy, the demiurge () is an artisan-like figure responsible for fashioning and maintaining the physical universe. The Gnostics adopted the term ''demiurge'' ...
who created and oversees the material world.
* Montanism
Montanism (), known by its adherents as the New Prophecy, was an early Christian movement of the late 2nd century, later referred to by the name of its founder, Montanus. Montanism held views about the basic tenets of Christian theology simi ...
(2nd century) – relied on prophetic
In religion, a prophecy is a message that has been communicated to a person (typically called a ''prophet'') by a supernatural entity. Prophecies are a feature of many cultures and belief systems and usually contain divine will or law, or pret ...
revelation
In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing of some form of truth or knowledge through communication with a deity or other supernatural entity or entities.
Background
Inspiration – such as that bestowed by God on the ...
s from the Holy Spirit
In Judaism, the Holy Spirit is the divine force, quality, and influence of God over the Universe or over his creatures. In Nicene Christianity, the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is the third person of the Trinity. In Islam, the Holy Spirit acts as ...
.
Conversion of the Roman Empire
For Christian anarchists, the moment that epitomised the degeneration of Christianity was the conversion of Emperor Constantine
Constantine I ( , ; la, Flavius Valerius Constantinus, ; ; 27 February 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337, the first one to convert to Christianity. Born in Naissus, Dacia Mediterrane ...
after his victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge
The Battle of the Milvian Bridge took place between the Roman Emperors Constantine I and Maxentius on 28 October 312. It takes its name from the Milvian Bridge, an important route over the Tiber. Constantine won the battle and started on the pa ...
in 312. Christianity was then legalized under the Edict of Milan
The Edict of Milan ( la, Edictum Mediolanense; el, Διάταγμα τῶν Μεδιολάνων, ''Diatagma tōn Mediolanōn'') was the February 313 AD agreement to treat Christians benevolently within the Roman Empire. Frend, W. H. C. ( ...
in 313, which hastened the Church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* Chri ...
's transformation from a humble bottom-up sect
A sect is a subgroup of a religious, political, or philosophical belief system, usually an offshoot of a larger group. Although the term was originally a classification for religious separated groups, it can now refer to any organization that ...
to an authoritarian top-down organization. Christian anarchists point out that marked the beginning of the "Constantinian shift
''Constantinian shift'' is used by some theologians and historians of antiquity to describe the political and theological changes that took place during the 4th-century under the leadership of Emperor Constantine the Great. Rodney Clapp claims th ...
" in which Christianity gradually came to be identified with the will of the ruling elite by becoming the state church of the Roman Empire
Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire when Emperor Theodosius I issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380, which recognized the catholic orthodoxy of Nicene Christians in the Great Church as the Roman Empire's state religion ...
and in some cases (such as the Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were ...
, Inquisition
The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...
, and the French Wars of Religion
The French Wars of Religion is the term which is used in reference to a period of civil war between French Catholics and Protestants, commonly called Huguenots, which lasted from 1562 to 1598. According to estimates, between two and four mil ...
) a religious justification for violence.
Peasant revolts in the Post-Reformation era
Various libertarian socialist authors have identified the written work of the English Protestant social reformer Gerrard Winstanley
Gerrard Winstanley (19 October 1609 – 10 September 1676) was an English Protestant religious reformer, political philosopher, and activist during the period of the Commonwealth of England. Winstanley was the leader and one of the found ...
and the social activism of his group, the Diggers, as anticipating their line of thought. For the anarchist historian George Woodcock
George Woodcock (; May 8, 1912 – January 28, 1995) was a Canadian writer of political biography and history, an anarchist thinker, a philosopher, an essayist and literary critic. He was also a poet and published several volumes of travel wri ...
, "Although (Pierre Joseph) Proudhon was the first writer to call himself an anarchist, at least two predecessors outlined systems that contain all the basic elements of anarchism. The first was Gerrard Winstanley
Gerrard Winstanley (19 October 1609 – 10 September 1676) was an English Protestant religious reformer, political philosopher, and activist during the period of the Commonwealth of England. Winstanley was the leader and one of the found ...
(1609–1676), a linen draper who led the small movement of the Diggers during the Commonwealth. Winstanley and his followers protested in the name of a radical Christianity against the economic distress that followed the Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...
and against the inequality that the grandees of the New Model Army seemed intent on preserving.
In 1649–1650, the Diggers squatted on stretches of common land in southern England and attempted to set up communities based on work on the land and the sharing of goods. The communities failed following a crackdown by the English authorities, but a series of pamphlets by Winstanley survived, of which ''The New Law of Righteousness'' (1649) was the most important. Advocating a rational Christianity, Winstanley equated Christ with “the universal liberty” and declared the universally corrupting nature of authority. He saw “an equal privilege to share in the blessing of liberty” and detected an intimate link between the institution of property and the lack of freedom." For Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin (January 14, 1921 – July 30, 2006) was an American social theorist, author, orator, historian, and political philosopher. A pioneer in the environmental movement, Bookchin formulated and developed the theory of social ...
"In the modern world, anarchism first appeared as a movement of the peasantry and yeomanry against declining feudal institutions. In Germany its foremost spokesman during the Peasant Wars was Thomas Müntzer
Thomas Müntzer ( – 27 May 1525) was a German preacher and theologian of the early Reformation whose opposition to both Martin Luther and the Roman Catholic Church led to his open defiance of late-feudal authority in central Germany. Müntzer w ...
; in England, Gerrard Winstanley, a leading participant in the Digger movement. The concepts held by Müntzer and Winstanley were superbly attuned to the needs of their time — a historical period when the majority of the population lived in the countryside and when the most militant revolutionary forces came from an agrarian world. It would be painfully academic to argue whether Müntzer and Winstanley could have achieved their ideals. What is of real importance is that they spoke to their time; their anarchist concepts followed naturally from the rural society that furnished the bands of the peasant armies in Germany and the New Model in England."
Modern era
The 19th-century Christian abolitionists Adin Ballou
Adin Ballou (1803–1890) was an American proponent of Christian nonresistance, Christian anarchism and socialism, abolitionism and the founder of the Hopedale Community. Through his long career as a Universalist and Unitarian minister, he ...
and William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison (December , 1805 – May 24, 1879) was a prominent American Christian, abolitionist, journalist, suffragist, and social reformer. He is best known for his widely read antislavery newspaper '' The Liberator'', which he fo ...
were critical of all human governments and believed that they would be eventually supplanted by a new order in which individuals are guided solely by their love for God. Ballou and Garrison advocated Christian nonresistance to evil, as they saw Christ as the embodiment of "passive nonresistance," or nonviolent praxis against the state. They both condemned violence against southern slave owners and advocated instead for moral suasion
Moral suasion is an appeal to morality, in order to influence or change behavior. A famous example is the attempt by William Lloyd Garrison and his American Anti-Slavery Society to end slavery in the United States by using moral suasion. In ...
or consistent rebukes against the institution of slavery in efforts to persuade racist southerns and indifferent northerners to the abolitionist' cause. At the outbreak of the Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...
, however, Garrison later embraced the armed struggle for black liberation and the Lincoln administration. Ballou remained a lifelong pacifist and condemned the Civil War for fear of the eventual retaliation by white southerns on freed black Americans.
Ballou's and Garrison's writings heavily influenced Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...
, who was inspired by their lifelong commitment to abolitionism. Tolstoy wrote extensively on his burgeoning Christian anarchist principles in nonfiction books like ''The Kingdom of God is Within You
''The Kingdom of God Is Within You'' ( pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform rus, Царство Божие внутри вас, Tsárstvo Bózhiye vnutrí vas) is a non-fiction book written by Leo Tolstoy. A Christian anarchist philosophical trea ...
'', which is considered a key Christian anarchist text. Tolstoy sought to separate Russian Orthodox
Russian Orthodoxy (russian: Русское православие) is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, whose liturgy is or was traditionally conducted in Church Slavonic language. Most ...
Christianity, which was merged with the state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
, from what he believed was the true message of Jesus as contained in the Gospels, specifically in the Sermon on the Mount
The Sermon on the Mount ( anglicized from the Matthean Vulgate Latin section title: ) is a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth found in the Gospel of Matthew (chapters 5, 6, and 7). that emphasizes his moral teachings. It ...
. He took the viewpoint that all governments that wage war and churches that in turn support those governments, are an affront to the Christian principles of nonviolence
Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...
. Although Tolstoy never actually used the term "Christian anarchism" in ''The Kingdom of God Is Within You'', reviews of the book after its publication in 1894 appear to have coined the term.
The antireligious former priest Thomas J. Hagerty
Thomas Joseph Hagerty (ca. 1862–1920s?) was an American Roman Catholic priest and trade union activist. Hagerty is remembered as one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), as author of the influential Preamble to t ...
was a primary author of the Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...
(IWW) Preamble ("an injury to one is an injury to all"). IWW members included Christian anarchists like Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic without abandoning her social and anarchist activism. She was perhaps the best-known ...
and Ammon Hennacy.
Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic without abandoning her social and anarchist activism. She was perhaps the best-known ...
was a journalist turned social activist who became known for her social justice campaigns in defense of the poor. Alongside Peter Maurin
Peter Maurin (; May 9, 1877 – May 15, 1949) was a French Catholic social activist, theologian, and De La Salle Brother who founded the Catholic Worker Movement in 1933 with Dorothy Day.
Maurin expressed his philosophy through short pieces of ...
, she founded the Catholic Worker
''Catholic Worker'' is a newspaper published seven times a year by the flagship Catholic Worker community in New York City. The newspaper was started by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin to make people aware of church teaching on social justice.
...
Movement in 1933, which espoused nonviolence and hospitality for the impoverished and the downtrodden. Day was declared Servant of God
"Servant of God" is a title used in the Catholic Church to indicate that an individual is on the first step toward possible canonization as a saint.
Terminology
The expression "servant of God" appears nine times in the Bible, the first five in ...
when a cause for sainthood was opened for her by Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
. Day's distributist
Distributism is an economic theory asserting that the world's productive assets should be widely owned rather than concentrated.
Developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, distributism was based upon Catholic social teaching princ ...
economic views are very similar to Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, , ; 15 January 1809, Besançon – 19 January 1865, Paris) was a French socialist,Landauer, Carl; Landauer, Hilde Stein; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl (1979) 959 "The Three Anticapitalistic Movements". ''European Soci ...
's mutualism by which she was influenced. Day also named the phrase "precarious work." based on the former anarchocommunist Léonce Crenier
Léonce Crenier (1888 – May 10, 1963) was a Catholic monk who promoted the theological-political concept of precarity.
Early years
Léonce Crenier was born in Ceton, a small village of the diocese of Séez, in Savoie, France, July 31, 1888. Acc ...
's embrace of poverty. Peter Maurin's vision to transform the social order
The term social order can be used in two senses: In the first sense, it refers to a particular system of social structures and institutions. Examples are the ancient, the feudal, and the capitalist social order. In the second sense, social order ...
consisted of establishing urban houses of hospitality
A house of hospitality or hospitality house, in the United States, is an organization to provide shelter, and often food and clothing, to those who need it. Originally part of the Catholic Worker Movement, houses of hospitality have been run by o ...
to care for the destitute, rural farming communities to teach city dwellers agrarianism
Agrarianism is a political and social philosophy that has promoted subsistence agriculture, smallholdings, and egalitarianism, with agrarian political parties normally supporting the rights and sustainability of small farmers and poor peasants ag ...
and encourage a movement back-to-the-land, and roundtable discussions in community centres to clarify thought and initiate action.
Simone Weil was a French philosopher who was very early animated by a great compassion for the exploited. She was first a socialist and then an anarchist. In 1930s, she converted to "love of Christ." During her experience, she explains that she suddenly felt that Christianity was the religion of the slaves and that she, like other slaves, could not resist adhering to it. She is considered a "Christian mystic" and an "anarchist Christian".
Anarchist biblical views and practices
Church authority
With some notable exceptions such as the Catholic Worker Movement
The Catholic Worker Movement is a collection of autonomous communities of Catholics and their associates founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in the United States in 1933. Its aim is to "live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus ...
, many Christian anarchists are critical of Church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* Chri ...
dogma
Dogma is a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Islam ...
and ritual
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized ...
s. Christian anarchists tend to wish that Christians were less preoccupied with performing rituals and preaching dogmatic theology, and more with following Jesus' teaching and practices. Jacques Ellul and Dave Andrews claim that Jesus did not intend to be the founder of an institution
Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...
al religion, while Michael Elliot believes one of Jesus' intentions was to bypass human intermediaries and do away with priests.
Pacifism and nonviolence
Christian anarchists, such as David Lipscomb
David Lipscomb (January 21, 1831 – November 11, 1917) was a minister, editor, and educator in the American Restoration Movement and one of the leaders of that movement, which, by 1906, had formalized a division into the Church of Christ ( ...
, Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...
, Ammon Hennacy, Jacques Ellul
Jacques Ellul (; ; January 6, 1912 – May 19, 1994) was a French philosopher, sociologist, lay theologian, and professor who was a noted Christian anarchist. Ellul was a longtime Professor of History and the Sociology of Institutions on ...
, and Dave Andrews, follow Jesus' call to not resist evil but turn the other cheek
Turn may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Dance and sports
* Turn (dance and gymnastics), rotation of the body
* Turn (swimming), reversing direction at the end of a pool
* Turn (professional wrestling), a transition between face and heel
* Tur ...
. They argue that this teaching can only imply a condemnation of the state, as the police and army hold a monopoly over the legitimate use of force. They believe freedom
Freedom is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one's purposes unhindered. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving one ...
will only be guided by the grace of God if they show compassion to others and turn the other cheek when confronted with violence. Christian anarchists believe violence begets violence and the ends never justify the means.
Many Christian anarchists practice the principles of nonviolence
Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...
, nonresistance, and turning the other cheek. To illustrate how nonresistance works in practice, Alexandre Christoyannopoulos offers the following Christian anarchist response to terrorism
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
:
Simple living
Christian anarchists such as Ammon Hennacy, Peter Maurin
Peter Maurin (; May 9, 1877 – May 15, 1949) was a French Catholic social activist, theologian, and De La Salle Brother who founded the Catholic Worker Movement in 1933 with Dorothy Day.
Maurin expressed his philosophy through short pieces of ...
and Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic without abandoning her social and anarchist activism. She was perhaps the best-known ...
often advocate voluntary poverty. This can be for a variety of reasons, such as withdrawing support for government by reducing taxable income or following Jesus' teachings. Jesus appears to teach voluntary poverty when he told his disciples
A disciple is a follower and student of a mentor, teacher, or other figure. It can refer to:
Religion
* Disciple (Christianity), a student of Jesus Christ
* Twelve Apostles of Jesus, sometimes called the Twelve Disciples
* Seventy disciples in t ...
, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Mark 10:25) and "You cannot serve both God and Mammon" (Luke 16:13).
State authority
The most common challenge for anarchist theologians is interpreting Paul's Epistle to the Romans
The Epistle to the Romans is the sixth book in the New Testament, and the longest of the thirteen Pauline epistles. Biblical scholars agree that it was composed by Paul the Apostle to explain that salvation is offered through the gospel of Jes ...
13:1–7, in which Paul
Paul may refer to:
*Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name)
* Paul (surname), a list of people
People
Christianity
*Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...
demanded obedience to governing authorities and described them as God's servants exacting punishment on wrongdoers. Romans 13:1–7 holds the most explicit reference to the state in the New Testament but other parallel texts include Titus
Titus Caesar Vespasianus ( ; 30 December 39 – 13 September 81 AD) was Roman emperor from 79 to 81. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death.
Before becoming emperor, Titus gained renown as a mili ...
3:1, Hebrews
The terms ''Hebrews'' (Hebrew: / , Modern: ' / ', Tiberian: ' / '; ISO 259-3: ' / ') and ''Hebrew people'' are mostly considered synonymous with the Semitic-speaking Israelites, especially in the pre-monarchic period when they were still ...
13:17 and 1 Peter 2:13-17.
Some theologians, such as C.E.B. Cranfield, have interpreted Romans 13:1–7 to mean the Church should support the state, as God has sanctified the state to be his main tool to preserve social order. Similarly, in the case of the state being involved in a "just war
The just war theory ( la, bellum iustum) is a doctrine, also referred to as a tradition, of military ethics which is studied by military leaders, theologians, ethicists and policy makers. The purpose of the doctrine is to ensure that a war i ...
", some theologians argue that it's permissible for Christians to serve the state and wield the sword. Christian anarchists do not share these interpretations of Romans 13 but still recognize it as "a very embarrassing passage."
Christian anarchists and pacifists such as Jacques Ellul
Jacques Ellul (; ; January 6, 1912 – May 19, 1994) was a French philosopher, sociologist, lay theologian, and professor who was a noted Christian anarchist. Ellul was a longtime Professor of History and the Sociology of Institutions on ...
and Vernard Eller
Vernard Marion Eller (July 11, 1927 – June 18, 2007) was an American author, Christian pacifist and minister in the Church of the Brethren. Born in Everett, Washington, and raised in Wenatchee, Eller graduated from the University of La V ...
do not attempt to overthrow the state given Romans 13 and Jesus' command to turn the other cheek. As wrath and vengeance are contrary to the Christian values of kindness
Kindness is a type of behavior marked by acts of generosity, consideration, rendering assistant or concern for others, without expecting praise or reward in return.
Kindness is a topic of interest in philosophy, religion, and psychology. Kin ...
and forgiveness
Forgiveness, in a psychological sense, is the intentional and voluntary process by which one who may initially feel victimized or wronged, goes through a change in feelings and attitude regarding a given offender, and overcomes the impact of t ...
, Ellul neither supports, nor participates in, the state. Eller articulates this position by restating the passage this way:
Christians who interpret Romans 13 as advocating support for governing authorities are left with the difficulty of how to act under tyrants or dictators. Ernst Käsemann, in his ''Commentary on Romans'', challenged the mainstream Christian interpretation of the passage in light of German Lutheran Churches using this passage to justify the Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europ ...
.
Paul's letter to Roman Christians declares "For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong." However Christian anarchists point out an inconsistency if this text were to be taken literally and in isolation as Jesus and Paul were both executed by the governing authorities or "rulers" even though they did "right."[ The content of Paul's letter to the Romans is also denied by Paul himself in the same letter's 12:2 verse: "Do not conform to this world's system of things, but change yourselves by using your own intellect, so that you shall understand by yourselves the good and perfect will of God." In his ]Epistle to the Ephesians
The Epistle to the Ephesians is the tenth book of the New Testament. Its authorship has traditionally been attributed to Paul the Apostle but starting in 1792, this has been challenged as Deutero-Pauline, that is, pseudepigrapha written in Pa ...
, 6:12, Paul states: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this world's obscurantism".
There are also Christians anarchists such as Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...
and Ammon Hennacy, who favor Jesuism and do not see the need to integrate Paul's teachings into their subversive
Subversion () refers to a process by which the values and principles of a system in place are contradicted or reversed in an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority, hierarchy, and social norms. Sub ...
way of life. Tolstoy believed Paul was instrumental in the church's "deviation" from Jesus' teaching and practices whilst Hennacy believed "Paul spoiled the message of Christ". In contrast to Eller, Hennacy and Ciaron O'Reilly advocate nonviolent civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". H ...
to confront state oppression.
Swearing of oaths
In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:33-37), Jesus tells his followers to not swear oaths in the name of God or Man. Tolstoy, Adin Ballou
Adin Ballou (1803–1890) was an American proponent of Christian nonresistance, Christian anarchism and socialism, abolitionism and the founder of the Hopedale Community. Through his long career as a Universalist and Unitarian minister, he ...
and Petr Chelčický
Petr Chelčický (; c. 1390 – c. 1460) was a Czech Christian spiritual leader and author in the 15th century Bohemia, now the Czech Republic. He was one of the most influential thinkers of the Bohemian Reformation. Petr Chelčický inspire ...
understand this to mean that Christians should never bind themselves to any oath as they may not be able to fulfil the will of God if they are bound to the will of a fellow-man. Tolstoy takes the view that all oaths are evil, but especially an oath of allegiance
An oath of allegiance is an oath whereby a subject or citizen acknowledges a duty of allegiance and swears loyalty to a monarch or a country. In modern republics, oaths are sworn to the country in general, or to the country's constitution. Fo ...
.
Tax
Some Christian anarchists resist taxes in the belief that their government is engaged in immoral, unethical or destructive activities such as war
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
, and paying taxes inevitably funds these activities, whilst others submit to taxation. Adin Ballou wrote that if the act of resisting taxes requires physical force to withhold what a government tries to take, then it is important to submit to taxation. Ammon Hennacy, who, like Ballou also believed in nonresistance, eased his conscience by simply living below the income tax threshold
The income tax threshold is the income level at which a person begins paying income taxes. The income tax threshold equates to the:
*Personal allowance in the UK, which is £12,500 for 2019/20.
*Basic allowance in Germany, which is €9,408 in 20 ...
.
Christian anarchists do not interpret the injunction in Matthew 22:21 to " give to Caesar what is Caesar's" as advocating support for taxes, but as further advice to free oneself from material attachment. For example, Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic without abandoning her social and anarchist activism. She was perhaps the best-known ...
said if we were to give everything to God there will be nothing left for Caesar, and Jacques Ellul
Jacques Ellul (; ; January 6, 1912 – May 19, 1994) was a French philosopher, sociologist, lay theologian, and professor who was a noted Christian anarchist. Ellul was a longtime Professor of History and the Sociology of Institutions on ...
believed the passage showed that Caesar may have rights over fiat money
Fiat money (from la, fiat, "let it be done") is a type of currency that is not backed by any commodity such as gold or silver. It is typically designated by the issuing government to be legal tender. Throughout history, fiat money was sometim ...
but not things that are made by God, as he explained:[
]
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter.
Vegetarianis ...
in the Christian tradition has a long history commencing in the first centuries of Church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* Chri ...
with the Desert Fathers
The Desert Fathers or Desert Monks were early Christian hermits and ascetics, who lived primarily in the Scetes desert of the Roman province of Egypt, beginning around the third century AD. The is a collection of the wisdom of some of the ea ...
and Desert Mothers
Desert Mothers is a neologism, coined in feminist theology in analogy to Desert Fathers, for the ''ammas'' or female Christian ascetics living in the desert of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria in the 4th and 5th centuries AD. They typically lived in ...
who abandoned the "world of men" for intimacy with the God
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
of Jesus Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...
. Vegetarianism amongst hermit
A hermit, also known as an eremite ( adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions.
Description
In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a C ...
s and Christian monastics in the Eastern Christian
Eastern Christianity comprises Christian traditions and church families that originally developed during classical and late antiquity in Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Northeast Africa, the Fertile Crescent and ...
and Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
* Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
* Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
traditions remains common to this day as a means of simplifying one's life, and as a practice of asceticism
Asceticism (; from the el, ἄσκησις, áskesis, exercise', 'training) is a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from sensual pleasures, often for the purpose of pursuing spiritual goals. Ascetics may withdraw from the world for their p ...
. Leo Tolstoy, Ammon Hennacy, and Théodore Monod
Théodore André Monod (9 April 1902 – 22 November 2000) was a French naturalist, humanist, scholar and explorer.
Exploration
Early in his career, Monod was made professor at the '' Muséum national d'histoire naturelle'' and founded the '' Ins ...
extended their belief in nonviolence and compassion to all living beings through vegetarianism.
Present-day Christian anarchist groups
Brotherhood Church
The Brotherhood Church is a Christian anarchist and pacifist community. The Brotherhood Church can be traced back to 1887 when a Congregationalist minister called John Bruce Wallace started a magazine called "''The Brotherhood''" in Limavady
Limavady (; ) is a market town in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, with Binevenagh as a backdrop. Lying east of Derry and southwest of Coleraine, Limavady had a population of 12,032 people at the 2011 Census. In the 40 years betwee ...
, Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is #Descriptions, variously described as ...
. An intentional community
An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious ...
with Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...
origins has been located at Stapleton, near Pontefract, Yorkshire, since 1921.
Catholic Worker Movement
Established by Peter Maurin
Peter Maurin (; May 9, 1877 – May 15, 1949) was a French Catholic social activist, theologian, and De La Salle Brother who founded the Catholic Worker Movement in 1933 with Dorothy Day.
Maurin expressed his philosophy through short pieces of ...
and Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic without abandoning her social and anarchist activism. She was perhaps the best-known ...
in the early 1930s, the Catholic Worker Movement
The Catholic Worker Movement is a collection of autonomous communities of Catholics and their associates founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in the United States in 1933. Its aim is to "live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus ...
is a Christian movement dedicated to nonviolence, personalism
Personalism is an intellectual stance that emphasizes the importance of human persons. Personalism exists in many different versions, and this makes it somewhat difficult to define as a philosophical and theological movement. Friedrich Schleie ...
and voluntary poverty. Over 130 Catholic Worker communities exist in the United States where "houses of hospitality
A house of hospitality or hospitality house, in the United States, is an organization to provide shelter, and often food and clothing, to those who need it. Originally part of the Catholic Worker Movement, houses of hospitality have been run by o ...
" care for the homeless. The Joe Hill House
The Joe Hill House was a Catholic Worker Movement house of hospitality in Salt Lake City, Utah co-founded in 1961 by Ammon Hennacy and Mary Lathrop. Providing social services and housing to the homeless, the Joe Hill House operated until 1968.
...
of hospitality (which closed in 1968) in Salt Lake City, Utah featured an enormous twelve feet by fifteen foot mural of Jesus Christ and Joe Hill. Present-day Catholic Workers include Ciaron O'Reilly, an Irish-Australian civil rights and anti-war activist.
Anne Klejment, professor of history at University of St. Thomas, wrote of the Catholic Worker Movement:
The Catholic Worker Movement has consistently protested against war and violence for over seven decades. Many of the leading figures in the movement have been both anarchists and pacifists, as Ammon Hennacy explains:
Maurin and Day were both baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church and believed in the institution, thus showing it is possible to be a Christian anarchist and still choose to remain within a church. After her death, Day was proposed for sainthood by the Claretian Missionaries
The Claretians officially named the Congregation of Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary ( la, Congregatio Missionariorum Filiorum Immaculati Cordis Beatae Mariae Virginis) abbreviated CMF is a Catholic clerical reli ...
in 1983. Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
granted the Archdiocese of New York
The Archdiocese of New York ( la, Archidiœcesis Neo-Eboracensis) is an ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church ( particularly the Roman Catholic or Latin Church) located in the State of New York. It encompasses the boroug ...
permission to open Day's cause for sainthood in March 2000, calling her a Servant of God
"Servant of God" is a title used in the Catholic Church to indicate that an individual is on the first step toward possible canonization as a saint.
Terminology
The expression "servant of God" appears nine times in the Bible, the first five in ...
.
In literature, in Michael Paraskos
Michael Paraskos, FHEA, FRSA (born 1969) is a novelist, lecturer and writer on art. He has written several non-fiction and fiction books and essays, and articles on art, literature, culture and politics for various publications, including ''Art ...
's 2017 novel, ''Rabbitman'', a political satire prompted by Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
's presidency, the heroine, called Angela Witney, is a member of an imagined Catholic Worker commune located in the southern English village of Ditchling
Ditchling is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. The village is contained within the boundaries of the South Downs National Park; the order confirming the establishment of the park was signed in Ditchling ...
, where the artist Eric Gill
Arthur Eric Rowton Gill, (22 February 1882 – 17 November 1940) was an English sculptor, letter cutter, typeface designer, and printmaker. Although the '' Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' describes Gill as ″the greatest artist-cr ...
once lived.
Doukhobors
Online communities
Numerous Christian anarchist website
A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and W ...
s, social networking sites, forums, electronic mailing list
A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers is re ...
s and blog
A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in Reverse ...
s have emerged on the internet over the last few years. These include
The AnarchoChristian Podcast and Website
Biblical Anarchy: Obey God Rather Than Men, The Libertarian Christian Institute, started by Norman Horn, ''A Pinch of Salt'', a 1980s Christian anarchist magazine, revived in 2006 by Keith Hebden as a blog and bi-annual magazine; Libera Catholick Union founded in 1988 and re-organized in 2019; ''Jesus Radicals'' founded by Mennonite
Mennonites are groups of Anabaptist Christian church communities of denominations. The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the R ...
s in 2000; ''Lost Religion of Jesus'' created in 2005;[ ''Christian Anarchists'' created in 2006;] ''The Mormon Worker'', a blog and newspaper, founded in 2007 to promote Mormonism
Mormonism is the religious tradition and theology of the Latter Day Saint movement of Restorationist Christianity started by Joseph Smith in Western New York in the 1820s and 1830s. As a label, Mormonism has been applied to various aspects o ...
, anarchism and pacifism;[ and ''Academics and Students Interested in Religious Anarchism'' (ASIRA) founded by Alexandre Christoyannopoulos in 2008.][
]
Other
Criticism
Critics of Christian anarchism include both Christians and anarchists. Christians often cite Romans 13 as evidence that the State should be obeyed, while secular anarchists do not believe in any authority including God as per the slogan "no gods, no masters
Anarchists have employed certain symbols for their cause, including most prominently the circle-A and the black flag. Anarchist cultural symbols have been prevalent in popular culture since around the turn of the 21st century, concurrent with t ...
". Christian anarchists often believe Romans 13 is taken out of context, emphasizing that Revelation 13 and Isaiah 13, among other passages, are needed to fully understand Romans 13 text. Petr Chelčický
Petr Chelčický (; c. 1390 – c. 1460) was a Czech Christian spiritual leader and author in the 15th century Bohemia, now the Czech Republic. He was one of the most influential thinkers of the Bohemian Reformation. Petr Chelčický inspire ...
interpreted the verse in the sense that it was addressed in a pagan age with a pagan society telling Christians that a Christian out of humility should submit to such pagan practices, but that in a Christian society such pagan practices should not be imposed in any way.
See also
* Anarchism and Islam
Anarchists have traditionally been skeptical of or vehemently opposed to organized religion. Nevertheless, some anarchists have provided religious interpretations and approaches to anarchism, including the idea that the glorification of the state i ...
* Anarchism and Orthodox Judaism
* Anarchism and religion
Anarchists have traditionally been skeptical of or vehemently opposed to organized religion. Nevertheless, some anarchists have provided religious interpretations and approaches to anarchism, including the idea that the glorification of the state i ...
* Christianity and politics
The relationship between Christianity and politics is a historically complex subject and a frequent source of disagreement throughout the history of Christianity, as well as in modern politics between the Christian right and Christian left. There ...
* Christian libertarianism
* Christian communism
Christian communism is a theological view that the teachings of Jesus Christ compel Christians to support religious communism. Although there is no universal agreement on the exact dates when communistic ideas and practices in Christianity be ...
* Christian socialism
Christian socialism is a religious and political philosophy that blends Christianity and socialism, endorsing left-wing politics and socialist economics on the basis of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. Many Christian socialists believe ca ...
* Utopian socialism
Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen. Utopian socialism is often ...
* Distributism
Distributism is an economic theory asserting that the world's productive assets should be widely owned rather than concentrated.
Developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, distributism was based upon Catholic social teaching prin ...
* Liberation theology
Liberation theology is a Christian theological approach emphasizing the liberation of the oppressed. In certain contexts, it engages socio-economic analyses, with "social concern for the poor and political liberation for oppressed peoples". I ...
* New Monasticism New Monasticism is a diverse movement, not limited to a specific religious denomination or church and including varying expressions of contemplative life. These include evangelical Christian communities such as " Simple Way Community" and Jonathan ...
* Plowshares movement
* Postmodern theology
* Radical Reformation
The Radical Reformation represented a response to corruption both in the Catholic Church and in the expanding Magisterial Protestant movement led by Martin Luther and many others. Beginning in Germany and Switzerland in the 16th century, the Ra ...
* Render unto Caesar
"Render unto Caesar" is the beginning of a phrase attributed to Jesus in the synoptic gospels, which reads in full, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" ().
This phrase has become a widely q ...
* Statolatry
Statolatry, which combines idolatry with the state, first appeared in Giovanni Gentile's '' Doctrine of Fascism'', published in 1931 under Mussolini's name, and was also mentioned in Gramsci's Prison Notebooks (1971) sometime between 1931–1932, w ...
* Theonomy
Theonomy, from ''theos'' (God) and ''nomos'' (law), is a hypothetical Christian form of government in which society is ruled by divine law. Theonomists hold that divine law, particularly the judicial laws of the Old Testament, should be observed ...
* Tolstoyan movement
The Tolstoyan movement is a social movement based on the philosophical and religious views of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910). Tolstoy's views were formed by rigorous study of the ministry of Jesus, particularly the Sermon on th ...
References
Bibliography
*
Further reading
19th century
* Ernest Renan
Joseph Ernest Renan (; 27 February 18232 October 1892) was a French Orientalist and Semitic scholar, expert of Semitic languages and civilizations, historian of religion, philologist, philosopher, biblical scholar, and critic. He wrote in ...
(1863)
The Life of Jesus
'.
* Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...
(1886–94)
What I Believe
'; and ''The Kingdom of God Is Within You
''The Kingdom of God Is Within You'' ( pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform rus, Царство Божие внутри вас, Tsárstvo Bózhiye vnutrí vas) is a non-fiction book written by Leo Tolstoy. A Christian anarchist philosophical trea ...
''.
* Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ,["Engels"](_blank)
'' Elbert Hubbard
Elbert Green Hubbard (June 19, 1856 – May 7, 1915) was an American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher. Raised in Hudson, Illinois, he had early success as a traveling salesman for the Larkin Soap Company. Hubbard is known best as th ...
(1910)
Jesus Was An Anarchist
' (originally titled ''The Better Part'').
* Ammon Hennacy (1954)
The Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist
' (reprinted in 1965 as ''The Book of Ammon'').
* Archie Penner (1959) ''The Christian, The State, and the New Testament'' (reprinted in 2000 as ''The New Testament, the Christian, and the State'').
* Ruth Gilmore (1970) ''The Christian Anarchists: Ruskin and Tolstoy, and a Consideration of Their Influence on Gandhi''.
* Niels Kjaer (1972)
Kristendom og Anarkisme
' (translated as ''Christianity and Anarchism'').
* Mary Segers (1977) ''Equality and Christian Anarchism: The Political and Social Ideas of the Catholic Worker Movement''.
* Vernard Eller
Vernard Marion Eller (July 11, 1927 – June 18, 2007) was an American author, Christian pacifist and minister in the Church of the Brethren. Born in Everett, Washington, and raised in Wenatchee, Eller graduated from the University of La V ...
(1987)
Christian Anarchy: Jesus' Primacy Over the Powers
'.
* Linda H. Damico (1987) ''The Anarchist Dimension of Liberation Theology''.
* Jacques Ellul
Jacques Ellul (; ; January 6, 1912 – May 19, 1994) was a French philosopher, sociologist, lay theologian, and professor who was a noted Christian anarchist. Ellul was a longtime Professor of History and the Sociology of Institutions on ...
(1988) ''Anarchy and Christianity''.
* Patrick Coy, et al. (1988)
A Revolution of the Heart: Essays on the Catholic Worker
''.
* Michael C. Elliott (1990) ''Freedom, Justice and Christian Counter-Culture''.
* George Tarleton (1993) ''Birth of a Christian Anarchist''.
* Dave Andrews (1999) ''Christi-Anarchy: Discovering a Radical Spirituality of Compassion''.
21st century
* Frederick G. Boehrer (2001) ''Christian Anarchism and the Catholic Worker Movement: Roman Catholic Authority and Identity in the United States''.
* Jonathan Bartley (2006) ''Faith and Politics After Christendom: The Church as a Movement for Anarchy''.
* Ted Lewis ed. (2008) ''Electing Not to Vote: Christian Reflections on Reasons for Not Voting''
* Shane Claiborne (2008) '' Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals''.
* Tripp York
''Anesthesia: A Brief Reflection on Contemporary Aesthetics'' is a novella written by Mennonite theologian Tripp York. Anesthesia explores the interconnections of love, death and philosophy. The novella is heavily influenced by Greek philosophy, co ...
(2009) ''Living on Hope While Living in Babylon: The Christian Anarchists of the 20th Century''.
* David Alan Black
David Alan Black (born 9 June 1952, Honolulu, Hawaii) is Professor of New Testament and Greek and the Dr. M. O. Owens Jr. Chair of New Testament Studies at the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He specialises in New Testament Greek gram ...
(2009) ''Christian Archy''.
* Alexandre Christoyannopoulos (2010) ''Christian Anarchism: A Political Commentary on the Gospel''.
* Ronald E. Osborn (2010) ''Anarchy and Apocalypse: Essays on Faith, Violence, and Theodicy''.
* Keith Hebden (2011–13) ''Dalit Theology and Christian Anarchism''. and ''Seeking Justice: The Radical Compassion of Jesus''.
* Tom O'Golo (2011) ''Christ? No! Jesus? Yes!: A Radical Reappraisal of a Very Important Life''.
* Jacques de Guillebon and Falk van Gaver (2012) ''L'anarchisme chrétien'' (translated as ''Christian anarchism'').
* Mark Van Steenwyk (2012–13)
That Holy Anarchist: Reflections on Christianity & Anarchism
'. and ''The Kingdom of God: Embracing the Subversive Power of Repentance''.
* Noel Moules (2012) ''Fingerprints of Fire, Footprints of Peace: A Spiritual Manifesto from a Jesus Perspective''.
* Davor Džalto (2016) ''Anarchism and Orthodoxy'
.
* Davor Džalto (2021) ''Anarchy and the Kingdom of God: From Eschatology to Orthodox Political Theology and Back'
.
* Montero, Roman A. 2017. ''All Things in Common: The Economic Practices of the Early Christians.'' Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock.
* Beno Profetyk (2017) ''Christocrate, la logique de l'anarchisme chrétien''
* Beno Profetyk (2020) ''Credo du Christocrate – Christocrat's creed'' (Bilingual French-English edition)
External links
Works on Christian anarchism
at Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
Books on Christian anarchism
at the Open Library
Open Library is an online project intended to create "one web page for every book ever published". Created by Aaron Swartz, Brewster Kahle, Alexis Rossi, Anand Chitipothu, and Rebecca Malamud, Open Library is a project of the Internet Archive, ...
"Union Square Speech"
Dorothy Day, November 6, 1965
Commentary: John 18:33-38
Ollie Harrison, ''Third Way Magazine
''Third Way'' was a British magazine which invited Christian thinkers and writers to analyse or comment on the political, social and cultural issues of the day. Notable columnists over the years included Jeremy Vine, Paul Vallely and Mike Ridd ...
'', February 1996
''Christian Anarchism: A Revolutionary Reading of the Bible''
Alexandre Christoyannopoulos, World International Studies Conference (WISC), July 23–26, 2008
''Jesus Is an Anarchist''
James Redford, Social Science Research Network
The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a repository for preprints devoted to the rapid dissemination of scholarly research in the social sciences, humanities, life sciences, and health sciences, among others. Elsevier bought SSRN from S ...
(SSRN), October 17, 2009
Was Jesus an anarchist?
- interview with Alexandre Christoyannopoulos by William Crawley
William Crawley, MRIA, is a Belfast-born BBC journalist and broadcaster. He is the presenter of ''Talkback'', a daily radio programme on BBC Radio Ulster, and he is a presenter of ''Sunday'' on BBC Radio 4. He has also made several television ...
, BBC Northern Ireland
BBC Northern Ireland ( ga, BBC Thuaisceart Éireann; Ulster-Scots: ''BBC Norlin Airlan'') is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Northern Ireland. It is widely available across both Northern Ireland and the Republic of I ...
, May 2011
Jesus Radicals
- A webzine exploring Christianity and anarchism
Compassionistas
- A resource for Spiritual Activism with some Christian Anarchist material
Christianarchism
- An interpretation of Christian Anarchism
Beno Hasopher
- Webpage of Beno Hasopher, christian anarchist theologian
Maurin, Day, the Catholic Worker, and Anarcho-Distributism
by Nicholas Evans 2018
Pantarchy: Voluntary State and a New Catholic Church: Brief Overview of the Views of the Individualist Anarchist Stephen Pearl Andrews
by Nicholas Evans 2018
Catholic Freedom: Why Confession To A Priest Is Not Necessary To Have Sins Forgiven
A Brief History of Confession from a Cafeteria Catholic Anarchist perspective by Nicholas Evans
Jesus was an anarchist!
- interview with Alexandre Christoyannopoulos by Matt Archer, June 2021
{{DEFAULTSORT:Christian Anarchism
Anarchist schools of thought
Christianity and political ideologies