Can a Christian Be an Anarchist?

[JWK]

I suppose this thread could easily go several places, but it seemed to lean more toward the politics side.

In any event here's the link: http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2011/03/...chist.html

This is actually something I've thought about quite a bit and I think Murphy makes some good points. To answer the question, yes, I think it is possible for a Christian to be an anarchist.

[chris1000bc]

(03-28-2011 09:35 AM)JWK Wrote:  I suppose this thread could easily go several places, but it seemed to lean more toward the politics side.

In any event here's the link: http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2011/03/...hist.html.

This is actually something I've thought about quite a bit and I think Murphy makes some good points. To answer the question, yes, I think it is possible for a Christian to be an anarchist.

Your link is not working for me...but I will try to find the post on the blog. You raise a very interesting question.

Edit: It is working. Thanks.

[JWK]

The link should be working now. If it still isn't, this particular post should be somewhere near the top.

[chris1000bc]

@JWK

Thanks for linking to the blog. The guy's ideas and the comments people make in response to them are very interesting.

How are you defining "anarchist"? Do you mean someone who is using violence to overturn government or someone who just makes speeches or blog posts encouraging disorder or revolt?

It seems like Americans who are proud of their nation's founding would have to say "Yes, Christians can support the overthrow of a government." I think that Christians can be anarchists just as Christians can be all sorts of things whether good or bad. If you are asking if a Christian should be an anarchist, that would seem to depend on the situation and what the anarchy requires of them. I don't see it as wrong for a Christian to work for change or revolution with an evil, despotic government, but I don't think they should kill innocents to accomplish that change.

Generally, I don't like the way some extreme fundies talk about the need for revolution today against our government when it does something they don't like. Paul told the Romans to obey their government when Nero was Caesar. Have we ever had an elected official anywhere near as bad?

[JWK]

(03-28-2011 10:20 AM)chris1000bc Wrote:  How are you defining "anarchist"? Do you mean someone who is using violence to overturn government or someone who just makes speeches or blog posts encouraging disorder or revolt?

That's a very important question. No, I don't define an anarchist as one who would employ violence to overthrow the State. I define it pretty much as Murray Rothbard would define it here. One of the bedrock principles of modern anarchists (among whom I do not count the destructive protesters that often pop up) is the principle of nonaggression, an idea that is at least consistent with Scripture if not required by it. When you say "anarchist" to someone, yours is probably the typical reaction: "Anarchists? You mean those college kids with the bandanas on their faces throwing molotov cocktails at protests of the World Trade Organization or at AIG?". In my mind, however, those typically associated with the word "anarchist" are not anarchists at all because they embrace violence as a means when anarchists should practice nonviolence.

(03-28-2011 10:20 AM)chris1000bc Wrote:  Generally, I don't like the way some extreme fundies talk about the need for revolution today against our government when it does something they don't like. Paul told the Romans to obey their government when Nero was Caesar. Have we ever had an elected official anywhere near as bad?

This is where things can get sticky, I think. Actually, when I posted a similar topic for discussion on facebook (a big mistake, in hindsight) the fundies were very quick to bring up Romans 13 and other "support the king" type passages. They seem to forget another passage about Christian response to government, Act 5:29 ("We ought to obey God rather than men."). Obviously, no one is going to agree 100% of the time about when a government has crossed the line into requiring clearly immoral behavior of its citizens. That is not, however, a license to sanction every act of the state simply because they take for themselves the label "government," I think

[chris1000bc]

(03-28-2011 01:06 PM)JWK Wrote:  This is where things can get sticky, I think. Actually, when I posted a similar topic for discussion on facebook (a big mistake, in hindsight) the fundies were very quick to bring up Romans 13 and other "support the king" type passages. They seem to forget another passage about Christian response to government, Act 5:29 ("We ought to obey God rather than men."). Obviously, no one is going to agree 100% of the time about when a government has crossed the line into requiring clearly immoral behavior of its citizens. That is not, however, a license to sanction every act of the state simply because they take for themselves the label "government," I think

I agree with you. When given a command by government that explicitly goes against a command of Christ, we must follow the command of Christ. But paying more taxes or some other controversial measure or law by the government does not necessarily justify resistance under "obeying God rather than man."

And even a law allowing abortion that many conservative Christians would see as wrong may not necessarily give us a right to rise up violently against the government. (I understand you are for non-violence but some of the extreme fundies sound like they would support violence.) Again, the government in Paul's day was persecuting Christians directly but Paul did not call for an uprising but said to obey the government.

I agree that we should speak out against bad government, support better government, and not do evil when commanded to by our government. Still, I am not sure the NT supports violence against a government. I think Christians can be involved in revolution but I don't think they should politically say, "It is the Christian thing to do."

[JWK]

(03-28-2011 01:20 PM)chris1000bc Wrote:  I agree that we should speak out against bad government, support better government, and not do evil when commanded to by our government. Still, I am not sure the NT supports violence against a government. I think Christians can be involved in revolution but I don't think they should politically say, "It is the Christian thing to do."

Well, like I said before, I don't think anarchism implies violence against the state. In fact, I think it requires nonviolence (the nonaggression principle).

[leaving]

I think it's possible to be Christian and almost anything...that doesn't make it RIGHT.

Every anarchist I know (and I know a few) believe in violence...anarchy is a violent belief. How can it be non violent?

[JWK]

(04-01-2011 10:14 AM)leaving Wrote:  I think it's possible to be Christian and almost anything...that doesn't make it RIGHT.

Every anarchist I know (and I know a few) believe in violence...anarchy is a violent belief. How can it be non violent?

There are different schools of anarchist thought (which you can see if you just glance at the Wikipedia page) and a good number of them ascribe to nonviolence. If you're talking about individualist anarchists (or voluntaryists or anarcho-capitalists) the non-aggression principle is really the central tenet of those systems of thought.

So while some people who call themselves anarchists advocate violence, I don't think violence is by any means a prerequisite for being an anarchist. Anarchy refers to the absence of the state and does not necessarily imply that either violence require violence in order to reach that state of affairs.

[Smith]

In my humble opinion, if a Christian adapts the view of Murray Rothbard, Ararchism is a valid choice of political orientation. Personally, I'm a Socialist with ararchist leanings of the Rothbard school. Most who appeal to Romans 13 are intentionally ignorant of what's out there and are usually "elephants" without knowledge why.