There are a wide variety of views about the relationship between Christianity and the state. Some Christians strongly support a nationalistic partnership with the state, while others hold to a strict separation between church and state and deny that believers should have anything to do with the state at all. Most Christians exist somewhere on a continuum between these two views. But what if the correct view doesn’t lie on this spectrum at all – what if Christians should actually be opposed to the state as an institution? This is the view of Christian anarchism.
Admittedly, Christian anarchism seems very counterintuitive. The early anarchist theorist Mikhail Bakunin was avowedly anti-theistic and saw religion and the state as twin unjustified hierarchies that propped each other up. Most anarchists aren’t Christians, and anarchism is underrepresented within Christianity. Even so, people like Leo Tolstoy, Jacques Ellul, and Gary Chartier have argued that anarchism is not only compatible with Christianity, but is actually the fullest political expression of Christian values (especially love). I too am a Christian anarchist, and in this post, I’ll present the Scriptural case for anarchism.
The state in the story of Israel
First, let’s look at the role that the state plays in the story of the Hebrew Bible (HB). From a Christian perspective, the HB tells the story of God’s people, Israel, which will culminate in the arrival of Israel’s Messiah Jesus. For the most part, this story is a story of failure, which is the perspective that the HB itself takes, along with most second-Temple period Jews. Israel is sent into exile for her sins, and the exile is seen as continuing even after many Judeans return to their homeland. (For a summary of the second-Temple literature on this topic, see N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, chap. 2.)
Let’s go back to the high point of Israel’s history, according to the HB: the exodus from Egypt. This was the point at which the people of Israel were rescued from slavery by their God YHWH and given the law that defined them as a polity. The Mosaic Law was certainly not anarchistic, since it upheld social hierarchies (for example, foreigners were allowed to be enslaved for life; Lev 25:39–46) and promoted the genocide of Canaanite peoples. Even so, the extent to which the role of the state is reduced in the Mosaic Law is remarkable.
The key section of the Mosaic Law which describes the roles of governing officials is Deuteronomy 16–18. This legal code makes no provision for any legislative role, which is unsurprising, since the Law had already been set down. As for judicial roles, the community as a whole was expected to “appoint judges and officials” in each of their towns to “justly govern the people” (Deut 16:18–20); if they couldn’t reach a decision in their town, they could appeal to the priests, who were the final authority (17:8–13). The executive role was given to the people of the community themselves, who would carry out a punishment of summary execution if necessary (17:2–7). The role of king is only given as a concession to the people, since they desire to be like other nations; but the king isn’t allowed to acquire excessive sexual or economic power for himself, and isn’t regarded as above the law, “so that his heart isn’t exalted above his brethren” (17:14–20). The most important role is that of “the prophet”, who is to be regarded as Moses’ successor and recognized by the truth of his statements (18:15–22).
This model of the Israelite polity isn’t an anarchist one, to be sure, but it’s far less hierarchical than the typical ancient Near Eastern polity. The people as a whole are given the role of appointing judicial positions, the people as a whole take on the executive function, and the people are the ones expected to recognize the prophet. The king isn’t even prescribed a role by the Law, and if the people do choose to have a king anyway, there are numerous brakes on his power. The only office that has unambiguous authority over the entire land is the Levitical priesthood, and this is only a judicial role that follows from a voluntary appeals process; everything else belongs to the communities of the individual towns.
Moreover, there is no compulsory taxation prescribed by the Mosaic Law, unlike in other ancient Near Eastern polities. There is instead a voluntary “tithe”, ten percent of each household’s produce which provides a social safety net for Levites (who aren’t involved in agricultural work), migrants, the poor, widows, and orphans (Lev 27:30–33; Num 18:20–32; Deut 14:22–29; 26:12–15). There’s no punishment given for those who fail to provide a tithe, but there’s clearly social and religious pressure to do so. The later prophets consistently rebuke Israel for failing to provide for these at-risk groups, even after they’re exiled (cf. Mal 3:8–12).
According to the HB, this model seems to have been followed for the most part during the period of the judges, and at least two prophets, Deborah and Samuel, are said to have led Israel (Judg 4:4; 1 Sam 7:15–17). But because of corruption in the priestly and prophetic offices (1 Sam 2:12–26; 8:1–3; which may indicate the dangers of even these limited hereditary positions), the “elders” of Israel ask for a king to govern them “like other nations” (1 Sam 8:4–5). Samuel’s response is worth quoting in full:
“These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots, and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. He will take your male and female slaves and the best of your cattle and donkeys and put them to his work. He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And on that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but YHWH will not answer you on that day.”
Clearly Samuel (and the author of this history) takes a low view of the king, which is remarkable for the ancient Near East where kings were regularly divinized. Choosing a human king was even viewed as abandoning YHWH as king (1 Sam 8:7). There are no possible upsides to the monarchy; it’s an entirely parasitic office which will only enrich itself through conscription and taxation. The author of the Deuteronomistic History goes on to make it very clear that Samuel’s speech is much more than an empty warning.
Only two years after the monarchy is established, the king Saul already begins to unlawfully aggregate power to himself by taking over some of the responsibilities of the prophetic office, which causes him to be rejected by YHWH (1 Sam 13:8–14). His successor David uses his position of power to rape Bathsheba and murder her husband (2 Sam 11), and finishes out his reign by calling a census for war contrary to the will of YHWH (2 Sam 24) — although the historian takes a more positive overall view of David’s reign. His son Solomon, however, used forced labor to build his cities, and aggregated massive amounts of sexual, political, and economic power, all contrary to the law (1 Kgs 9:15–21; 10:14–11:8; cf. Deut 17:14–20). The harsh slavery under which Solomon and his son placed Israel caused the northern tribes to secede and choose their own king (1 Kgs 12), but their kings also turned out to be evil. In retrospect, it was primarily the kings (of both north and south) who led Israel into sin and caused her exile (2 Kgs 17:7–23; 23:26–27; 24:1–4).
It’s not an exaggeration to say that, from the perspective of the Deuteronomistic historian, the turning point for Israel was when the people chose a monarchy. He explicitly refers to this decision as “sin” and an “evil” (1 Sam 12:19). By rejecting the (much more horizontal) structure of the Israelite polity prescribed by YHWH in favor of a typical ancient Near Eastern monarchy, Israel set the stage for her own downfall. As soon as he was given power, the king began to aggregate more and more power and lead the people into sin. (Within the second-Temple period, the monarchy began to be viewed in a more favorable light, but that’s not the perspective taken in the HB itself.)
The sermon on the mount
The HB isn’t univocal in its perspective on the state. While the Deuteronomistic History clearly takes a low view of the monarchy, other parts of the HB seem to have a more favorable view, and much of the HB takes a pretty nationalistic tone (with the exception of some prophets, esp. Isaiah 40–66). Fortunately, as Christians, we don’t just have the HB but also the New Testament to guide our beliefs. Where the HB accommodated, upheld, and even supported some human hierarchies, many of Jesus’ teachings repudiate these hierarchies and point in an implicitly anarchist direction.
Jesus’ sermon on the mount (Matt 5–7; Lk 6) has been a primary focus for many Christian anarchists, such as Leo Tolstoy and Alexandre Christoyannopoulos. It’s easy to see why: in this sermon, Jesus reinterprets much of the Mosaic Law in a direction that looks very anarchistic. He didn’t regard himself as having overturned any of the Law, but instead having brought it to fulfillment (Matt 5:17–20). Let’s briefly look at some of his teachings in this sermon.
First, he reinterprets the commandment not to murder as a command not to be angry at one’s brethren (Matt 5:21–24). But this applies not only to one’s siblings; it even applies to one’s “legal adversary” (Gk: antidikos; 5:25–26). You should reconcile with your adversary before bringing them to be judged in court, lest you be judged — by God. This ties into Jesus’ later teaching, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged” (7:1–5). He rebukes his audience for judging a “speck” in someone else’s eye while they have a “log” in their own, directing them away from petty moralism and toward their own improvement.
Of course, if no sinful person can judge others, they can’t delegate the ability to judge others to other sinful people. This means that Christians should reconcile with their adversaries outside of the government judicial system. In fact, Paul says this explicitly in his letter to the Corinthian church! “To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud” (1 Cor 6:1–8). This mentality of non-judgment overturns the basis for a government judiciary in the first place.
Christian anarchists have also emphasized Jesus’ repudiation of the lex talionis, the law of retribution. “You have heard it said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer” (Matt 5:38–39). In context, Jesus isn’t renouncing all opposition to evil, but his instructions are paradoxical. Instead of resisting evil by fighting back, his disciples are supposed to resist evil by giving further to the evildoer, and thereby breaking the cycle of violence (5:39–42). Jesus isn’t concerned with whether retribution is ‘just’ in some abstract sense, but whether it reflects the character that we should be cultivating in the world, and he’s clear that it does not. He perfectly lived out this teaching by giving up his very life to evildoers, and in doing so, he paradoxically defeated evil once and for all.
Jesus goes on to interpret Lev 19:18 (“You shall love your neighbor as yourself”) to include even one’s enemies: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:43–44). Once again, he isn’t concerned with the abstract ‘justice’ of it all, but whether it reflects God’s character; since God loves his enemies, we should too (5:45–48).
Another teaching which is anarchistic in its implications is the golden rule: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (7:12). This teaching, which Jesus makes central to the (reinterpreted) law, explicitly places each person on an equal footing and thereby repudiates human hierarchy. Robert Ellsberg, a member of the anarchistic Catholic Worker movement, says that the golden rule is at “the root of anarchist morality... If you would not be exploited, then you must not exploit others. If you would not be ruled, then you must refuse to rule others.”
This repudiation of hierarchy can be seen in the ‘beatitudes’ at the beginning of Jesus’ sermon. He blesses those at the bottom of social hierarchies — the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted for righteousness — thereby bringing them up to a higher status in God’s eyes (Matt 5:3–10). Luke’s account goes even further, as Jesus blesses the poor, hungry, and mourners, and condemns the rich, the full, and the mockers (Lk 6:20–26). Although this isn’t as explicit as the golden rule, it clearly relates Jesus’ desire to flatten human economic and spiritual hierarchies.
Finally, a common concern about anarchy is whether and how a non-hierarchical society would function. We could give many examples which show that anarchy can and does work even better than hierarchy. But Jesus rejects the logic of this concern altogether; instead, he says, as long as people “seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness,” they shouldn’t worry about the future (Matt 6:33–34). Just as God takes care of the grass and flowers of the field, he will also take care of us (6:25–32). Rather than worrying about the future of society, we should simply seek righteousness in the present.
Taken together, Jesus’ teachings in the sermon on the mount repudiate the whole logic of hierarchy and the state. If retribution is wrong, if we are supposed to love our enemies and treat everyone as we would treat ourselves, then there’s no justification for asymmetric, hierarchical relationships between people. None of this means that, as some Christian leftists have suggested, Jesus was the “first socialist” or “first anarchist.” It would be anachronistic to attribute to him any modern political ideology, right- or left-wing. But if we consistently apply Jesus’ teachings within the modern political landscape, it ends up looking a whole lot like anarchism, with its refusal of human hierarchies and retribution (Meggitt 2017).
The political significance of agape
A concept central to the New Testament is love, agapē in Greek. In Matthew and Mark, when Jesus is asked about the most important commandments, he responds that the Law is summed up in the two commands, “You shall love [agapēseis] the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind,” and “You shall love [agapēseis] your neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22:34–40; Mk 12:28–34). In Luke’s account, he asks someone else to sum up the Law, they respond with these two commands, and he says, “You have given the right answer” (Lk 10:25–28).
In John’s gospel, Jesus gives his disciples a “new command,” to “love [agapate] one another as I have loved you,” and says that this is how they will be known as his disciples (13:34–35). He goes on to tell them that if they keep his commandments, they will “abide in my love [agapē],” and that he gives them these commands “so that you may love [agapate] one another” (15:10–17). In his letters, John actually makes this — love for one another — the test of whether someone is a true child of God (1 Jn 2:8–11; 3:10–24; 4:7–5:2; 2 Jn 5–6). John even asserts that “God is love [agapē], and those who abide in God abide in love, and God abides in them” (1 Jn 4:16).
Paul tells the believers in the Roman church to “owe no one anything, except to love [agapan] one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law” (Rom 13:8–10). No spiritual gift is worth anything if it isn’t accompanied by agapē (1 Cor 13:1–3). Love binds together every other virtue (Col 3:14). To the Galatian church, he writes, “in Messiah Jesus... the only thing that matters is faith working through love... For the whole law is summed up in a single command: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal 5:6, 13–14). Likewise, the author of 1 Timothy says that “the aim of [the law] is love [agapē] which comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith,” but he warns that “some people have deviated from this and turned to meaningless talk, desiring to be teachers of the law without understanding what they are saying or the things they confidently assert” (1:5–7).
In his letter to the diaspora, the apostle James writes, “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing well” (Jas 2:8). The apostle Peter, in his own letter to the diaspora, agrees: “Above all, maintain constant love [agapēn] for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pet 4:8).
This brief summary makes it clear that agapē was central to the Christian ethic of the New Testament authors. Nearly all of them, with the exception of Jude, the Hebraist, and the authors of 2 Peter (?) and Revelation (?), explicitly say that love is the greatest commandment and even sums up the whole law. But what exactly does agapē look like? Paul and John paint a clear picture:
- “agapē does not do evil to a neighbor” (Rom 13:10)
- “Through agapē serve one another... bear one another’s burdens, and you will fulfill the law of Messiah” (Gal 5:13; 6:2)
- “agapē is patient and kind; agapē is not envious; agapē is not boastful or arrogant or rude; it does not seek its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no account of wrongs; it does not delight in injustice but rejoices in truth” (1 Cor 13:4–6)
- “No one has greater agapē than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15:13)
- “God demonstrates his agapē to us, in that while we were still sinners, the Messiah died for us... while we were enemies” (Rom 5:8)
- “We know agapē by this, that he laid down his life for us” (1 Jn 3:16)
No comments:
Post a Comment