Leftist anarchism would embrace the old slogans about property being theft, and in some cases 'No Gods, No Masters', while the Rightist version views taxation as theft, private property and the market as virtually sacred.
But every Christian must ultimately confront the teaching of
the New Testament. Romans 13 is of course the text that must be wrestled with
and is undoubtedly one of the most misinterpreted passages in history. For
Ellul, who did not believe Scripture to be inspired or infallible, it was easy
enough to treat it as a form of lesser Scripture or for others, not Scripture
at all. Some have rejected the authority of the Apostles and believe they
honour Christ by only following his specific mandates in the Gospels. They
reject the subsequent body of doctrine taught by the Apostles, especially Paul.
This is obviously an unacceptable position.
Others reject the New Testament's supremacy and its
authority as the canon of the New Covenant. Of course Dispensationalist don't
believe we're in the New Covenant at all! Many Christians refuse to submit to
the Apostolic teaching and its interpretation of the Old Testament. They nod
their heads when reading a New Testament interpretation of the Old, but then
cling to the Judaized forms of interpretation and insist on applying Mosaic law
to modern states, or the fulfilled and now obsolete rites of the Temple to the
New Covenant Church or some future epoch. The New Testament teaches us how to
read and interpret the Old and thus we learn quite clearly in numerous passages
that the Old Covenant forms (of which political Israel was a part) were
typological, have been fulfilled and are now obsolete. This is perhaps the main
theme in the book of Hebrews but this teaching is by no means restricted to
that epistle.
Israel and its conduct must be understood typologically.
Israel was a picture of Christ and its administration one of redemption and
judgment. Even its wars of conquest must be understood as pictures of Christ
the Saviour and Holy Judge.
To attempt to treat the Old Covenant polity as something
normative for today is to strip it of its typological, theological and
covenantal meaning. It is quite literally a form of sacrilege as are all the
attempts to argue that Israel was some kind of democratic republic. Israel was
an absolute Theocracy. This is not in the sense of modern theocracy, a state
run by clerics or dominated by religious legislation. It was an unrepeatable
specific Theocracy, a state created by and ruled directly by God Himself.
Sacralists come to Romans 13 and believe Paul is laying out
a blueprint for idealised government and since the New Testament is absolutely
silent on the issue, and in fact condemns the whole notion, they often turn to
the Old Testament seeking models, paradigms and at the very least inspiration
for the idea of a Holy State. This is not Paul's aim in the least. Romans 13 is
a continuation of the argument in Romans12 and in fact Paul is contrasting the
behaviour of the mind renewed, living sacrificed lives of Christians with that
of the world and its ethic of vengeance. The state is part of this and Paul is
establishing it in opposition to the ethic of the Church.
But the state still exists and always will in this age. Paul
is explaining its purpose. Yes, like Assyria and Babylon, even Neronic Rome
serves God's purposes and provides a function in terms of God's Providence. It
will always be extra- and anti-Christian but at the same time we can be
grateful there is some form of the state. The depravity of Romans 1 makes it
clear that a world without some restraint, even brutal, sinful and imperfect is
better than chaos. We let the dead bury their dead, we will hear of wars and
rumours of wars... we're not part of it. We're here to bear witness and suffer
to the glory of God.
Sacralism has basically said that in order to fill an 'office'
in the Holy State, you may and of course must abandon the ethics of Romans 12.
Monday thru Saturday (as it were) you can leave your Christianity behind and
utilize this pagan ethic of power and vengeance to help construct the Holy
Society. You are only bound to act as a Christian when you stand alone as an
individual. This of course is a travesty and yet it is ironic they try and pin
the same charge of being Sunday-only Christians on those who insist that we as
Christians do not seek power and influence. Will an off-duty police officer
indeed turn the other cheek? Their sacrilege has blinded them to the fact that
they are doing the very thing they accuse us of. We are Christians all the time
and in all things and thus there are many things in this world that we must
turn away from.
While Romans 13 has been manipulated and abused by
Sacralists, the advocates of a Christo-Anarchism are not properly reckoning
with it either.
Some have labeled Petr Chelcicky as a Christian Anarchist.
My first inclination would be to say this is misleading but I would qualify
that by insisting on a more specific definition of Anarchism. Chelcicky's
position (as well as my own), can find some commonality with Anarchism, but
only in terms of the school's criticism of the Establishment and the questions it
raises. The solutions are something else and tend toward a Utopianism all
Christians must reject. Every political and economic model carries something of
a utopian promise, it seeks to create a social paradigm that will eradicate the
curse of sin and the way it afflicts the world. All are doomed to fail and this
must include Anarchism.
Chelcicky most certainly denounces the state as violent and
thus non-Christian, and yet nowhere does he advocate agitation or its
overthrow. It must be, and its existence is ordained, even specific regimes,
but it can never be Christian and we as Christians are to have nothing to do
with it.
God ordains the state in general terms, providentially
ordains specific regimes, but nowhere does he sanction these specific regimes,
their political models, agendas or policies. In the end they will all be judged
and be purged from the Earth as by fire. Assyria, Babylon and Rome were Providentially
placed and served God's great and mysterious purposes, but they were also
condemned and judged as wicked Beast powers. Grasping this dialectic (or
paradox if you will) is essential.
The powers that be fall under the general REIGN of
Providence, but they are not part of the redemptive REALM... the Kingdom work
wrought by the Holy Spirit that will survive into the Age to Come. They fall
under the auspices of God as Creator but not Christ as Redeemer. The only
nation today that is in covenant with God is the Commonwealth of Israel (Eph.
2)... the Jewish-Gentile Church of Jesus Christ. It is a Kingdom the world cannot
see with their unredeemed eyes.
Even our complete rejection of the state must be qualified.
The state, ordained by God, cannot be escaped, and shouldn't be ignored, but
we're not to participate in or work with the state.
Thus, the state must be, and it is a Means utilized by God
to restrain evil and keep it from overtaking the Earth.
It's there, but its concerns are not ours. We pray for its
peace, we show deference... that does not mean we're to venerate it, or become patriotic 'citizens'.
We pay taxes and in general obey the laws. Some have taken the concept of
'honour' to the point of blind idolatry. The Bible nowhere envisions us as
'citizens' vested in the society. We're always second-class and we must be
content in this subject position. We seek neither the privileges of citizenship nor do
we desire to be mere subjects.
We're strangers and pilgrims, sojourners and exiles.
Conflict is inevitable. The state always carries within it
the Beast-tendency and it is this tendency that will persecute all dissent, all
who do not venerate the Sacral State.
Chelcicky would say that we're called to suffer. The state
will persecute us, we will be poor, and success and prosperity are not for
those who would remain faithful to Christ.
But like Chelcicky we speak the truth, expose evil, and bear
witness. It won't make us popular but the Gospel will spread.
It helps if we recognize the true nature of the world, of
This Age, of the Spiritual Warfare in which we are engaged. Only then can we
see the real enemy.
It's not the state. The state is not our friend and thankfully most of
the time it isn't our enemy either.
The true enemy is the False Church which throughout history has
often united itself with state power. The False Church aligned with the
State... that's the precise imagery in Revelation. That manifestation of the
State is in fact the great enemy to the True Church. It presents a false
worldview, inverts the ethics of the New Testament and teaches the Church to
behave like the world. It baptizes culture and the state and thus teaches that to
utilize violence and wage war are Christian virtues. It's a great manifestation
of evil, and will persecute and destroy those who insist on remaining faithful
to Scripture. This is more or less the default position of American
Christianity and certainly American Evangelicalism.
This position I'm arguing for, this view of the state, has
some similarities to anarchism but in the end it's not a position an anarchist
would appreciate. Chelcicky was also less than fond of private property,
excoriated the rich and the values of the burgher class...the medieval
equivalent of the Middle Class.
But... he did not believe that we should agitate for change
or take up arms. It was as if he was content to leave the world in its sinful
state... how can we do otherwise? Does God ordain the powers that be or not? But
Christians shouldn't behave the same way as the world which we would have to do
if we're going to run a nation. They shouldn't embrace the status quo. The
enticements of the world, even its possibilities are of little interest. We're
called to otherworldliness and obedience, to suffering and humility. The Church
itself should be classless... his views were picked up on by later Marxist
historians... but Chelcicky never expected the world to embrace this.
How can the lost embrace that which can only be wrought by
the work of the Spirit?
Society will never embrace a rejection of class. If need be
it will simply create a new one as we saw with the Nomenklatura which emerged under
Communism. And no state can legislate away fallen man's covetousness. All
political and economic systems are doomed to fail.
But the Church... that's different. We're to think and most
certainly live in a different way, one the world cannot understand. We know
from the New Testament, contrary to the Judaizing dreams of Postmillennialism, that the True Church will always be a minority, even a remnant. We don't wield
power and the true number of Christians will always be small. Even if we were
to seek power, there wouldn't be enough of us to stop the evil regimes of the
world. The lost will wage the wars of the lost and for their own interests.
They will coerce people to die in order to preserve their own power. They'll
couch it in terms of honour, nation and liberty, but these are all lies and deceptions.
They will try and tell us how to live, how to think about
the world. They will try and teach us to find the meaning of life in the narrative
of the nation. They will declare wars and demand we fight and die in them.
We'll obey their laws, but why would we listen to them, why would offer
ourselves to them and pledge our lives and the lives of our children? We have
nothing to do with them and they have nothing to do with us.
Perhaps it could be said the Christian view could be one in
which we as individuals and as a Church think as Anarchists... but we don't act
upon it.
Our task even in the darkest of times is to behave right,
show mercy, be light and love and continue to spread the Gospel though 'the
powers that be' hate to hear it and sometimes will violently lash out at those
who refuse to bow down to their golden images.