DISQUS

Daniel · 1 year ago

Thank you for this story.

hewhocutsdown · 1 year ago

Thank you Aaron. I think I agree with you in theory, but my willingness to follow through in action is still trailing behind.

All the best with the forthcoming move.

Ted · 1 year ago

Great stuff, Aaron. Intriguing questions and a compelling testimony.

Sara · 1 year ago

At one point in my life I had read and gone along with some of the beliefs of the Christian reconstruction/ theonomist movement. The claims Khalid made about Islam seem very similar. That Jesus did not leave us with a system of social law because it already existed in the Old Testament and it forms the right basis for governing a "Christian society"- I thought it made sense at the time. But the fact that Jesus chose the cross over and against all the other means of social reform, condemning the Pharisees who were zealous for a restoration of the Law, and commanded his followers to do the same...What was it he said after all, when he was accused of breaking the sabbath Law, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice"? After reading all that brilliant stuff written about how the Law gives us a perfect model for governing society (including the institution of the death penalty), I've come to see as you do that giving up control in these areas is essential if we are to take up the cross and follow Jesus.

mountainguy · 1 year ago

"At the cross, Jesus taught humanity that it’s better to suffer injustice than to be the cause of it, it’s better to relinquish power than to pursue power, and, perhaps most importantly, it’s better to die than to kill."

WOW, I love those words.

Thanks for sharing your story Aaron.

Maria Kirby · 1 year ago

So does that mean you've become an anarchist or christarchist?

Aaron Taylor · 1 year ago

I'm pleading ignorance here. I'm not sure I know the difference, but if I had to choose between the two without knowing how the term christarchist is normally used, I'd choose christarchist. Christ alone is supreme!

hewhocutsdown · 1 year ago

Wise choice! I find labels, even well-intended, often serve very different purposes in other's mouths.

Maria Kirby · 1 year ago

Not meaning to try and label you. I just was unclear from your beautiful story whether or not you concluded that it was better to have no government but Christ or whether you felt that it didn't matter which government style was used as long as those in power were dedicated to Christ first.

hewhocutsdown · 1 year ago

Thanks for taking my well-intentioned jab gracefully, Maria. I too, am curious as to your answer, Aaron.

Ted · 1 year ago

Which is which (Christarchism and anarchism) and where are you getting your definitions?

I don't know the details of Christarchism but I can tell you that most Christian anarchists (see the Jesus Radicals website for one articulation of such a position) would not be comfortable being described as espousing "no government but Christ", at least not for the world at large (this would certainly apply to the believer, and has anarchistic implications, or as they put it "Christianity, lived rightly, looks a lot like anarchism"), and I'm pretty sure they would take issue with the idea that it "didn't matter which government style was used as long as those in power were dedicated to Christ first."

Maria Kirby · 1 year ago

Okay, now I'm really confused. Are you saying it's okay for Christian's to have no government but Christ, but not unbelievers? Anarchism is the idea that we can all get along with out government, right? If Jesus didn't give any direction for government then is the conclusion that we shouldn't have government, or is the conclusion that it's not important what the government style is, or is the conclusion that God gives us direction for government style in other ways? Or maybe there is another conclusion I didn't mention?

Ted · 1 year ago

Anarchism is a political philosophy that rejects coercive control of others (violence being but one form of coercion), and works toward the realization of forms of human organization that are non-coercive. Christian anarchists like the Jesus Radicals recognize the anarchistic implications of Jesus' teachings of non-coercion and join the anarchist quest for a more just society. Their motivation would be something like "no government but Christ" but they would not impose that understanding of things on all anarchists. Nevertheless, many anarchist groups employ consensus decision-making that looks a lot like what Yoder called the "rule of Paul," whereas many churches simply duplicate coercive models of leadership.

Others, like myself, recognize those same implications but do not believe that an anarchist society is possible for the world at large. The difficulty with some of your other questions is that I don't know who "we" is. If "we" means Christians, then we already have no government but Christ -- "Jesus is Lord" means that Caesar is not, and that George W. Bush is just the President of the United States. As aliens and strangers, we respect the governing authorities where we find ourselves, but our true allegiance is pledged to a crucified king, and our citizenship is elsewhere.

In that sense, then, it doesn't matter what forms of government the world experiments with, though some forms of government are more pleasant and more subtle in their coercions than others. [There is also the issue of economics, which would only add to the length of this comment, so I'll refrain.] I reject the assumption often found in American Christians that God has some sort of preference for modern democracy.

Jesus did give us direction for government -- the church -- but the ethics of that directive are incompatible with nation-building. The true site of non-coercive human organization is the Church, though unfortunately it is frequently colonized by principalities and powers to the point that it often models the world rather than functioning as sign, a foretaste, and a herald of the future God has for us.

Aaron Taylor · 1 year ago

To clarify my position, I believe that Jesus left us with an anarchist model that seeks to create an ideal community in the life of the Church, but isn't necessarily a model that Christians should try to impose on the whole of society. I believe Jesus didn't leave the world with a system of government because His intention was to create an alternative society that renounces violence and aims for economic equality among its ranks. To the degree that the Church lives out its calling as a society that renounces violence and aims for economic equality, the Church exposes the inadequacy of earthly kingdoms built on violence as instruments for achieving moral ends. I agree with Ted that an anarchist society isn't possible for the world at large--although I'm sure there are a lot of secular anarchist that would take issue with me on that.

Ted · 1 year ago

Well said, Aaron.

Maria Kirby · 1 year ago

Does manipulation fall into the coercion category that anarchists are trying to avoid? I've observed a lot of that in churches, even ones that are pacifists and use consensus decision making. And how would one discriminate between manipulation and appropriate social discipline? I guess I'm confused as to how coercion is defined. For example, is making my child have a time out a form of coercion? Is removing someone from membership coercion? Church discipline at its extreme excludes people, that's not very do able in the world at large with 6+ billion people, unless excluding them means putting them in prison. And I don't think its possible to put a person in prison without resorting to force.

Ted · 1 year ago

You ask some great questions. Yes, I would consider manipulation a form of coercion, or at least something unsavory. And a too-narrow definition would render any form of social influence "coercive" in some fashion. It may not be the best word, but I don't have a better one at the moment. Struggling over the limits of language and ethics, however, is preferable to resorting to violence or condoning the use of force because they are easier to understand. I'm not sure how coercive a time-out is, but giving my six-year-old a time out is preferable to hitting him, though hitting him might be more 'effective' sometimes.

It is also true that even (especially?) groups with the best of intentions fail to live up to their ideals. To the person who is disappointed that pacifism cannot stop violence, I might retort that neither can violence. But there are deeper questions here. Does this even work? Is it worth holding such a standard, which looks stranger and stranger as you poke at it? To this I can only offer a counter-example: most of us would affirm a sexual ethics of chastity -- fidelity in marriage and celibacy for single persons. And most of us do so in spite of the fairly obvious fact that chastity is ineffectual against promiscuity in the world at large -- or even among Christians, it would seem. Do we abandon the standard for this reason? Most of us don't.

The NT concept of the church always presumes an "outside" to which one might return (or be sent) if the terms of community seem unfavorable. It's true that this limits personal autonomy in the sense that one cannot be a part of the community on his or her own terms. But no one is forced to be a part of the community. This only works for a social group that is, among other things, non-territorial -- hence the NT imagery of aliens, or sojourners. It is not a program for governing all people in a given geographical territory, but it still comprised a constellation of political claims that were made over and against the political claims of the Roman Empire.

It is possible that this is an unsatisfying view of the political, that it does not answer the big-ticket questions about good governance in a given geographical territory. Perhaps this simply means, as many have assumed over the centuries, that we must find those answers someplace other than the New Testament. But maybe it means that to make ourselves responsible for those questions is to pretend to the knowledge of good and evil.