> Jacques Ellul > Simone Weil > Dorothy Day > Ivan Illich > the late Philip K. Dick (in his Exegesis)
-The Gospel of Thomas -> gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom.html > 3. Jesus said, "If your leaders say to you, 'Look, the (Father's) kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the (Father's) kingdom is within you and it is outside you.
Here's J. Ellul talking about it: > Christians were never meant to be normal. We’ve always been holy troublemakers, we’ve always been creators of uncertainty, agents of dimension that’s incompatible with the status quo; we do not accept the world as it is, but we insist on the world becoming the way that God wants it to be. And the Kingdom of God is different from the patterns of this world.”
Possible discussion ideas: Why is Christian Anarchism so unknown or rare? What are your thoughts on it? Why is Christianity, not always, but usually seen as capitalist and conservative. Do you agree or disagree with these folks? What are the most important works on it? Is it logically sound enough?... and other stuff.
Christian Anarchism is Monarchism with the sovereign power inhabiting Being not Becoming and thus beyond the reach of any man. In this way it precludes usurpation or succession, the power games that arise with the potentiality of usurpation or succession, and thus give rise to oppressive hierarchical amongst man; and so the Kingdom of God is the anarchy of Man, BUT not vice versa.
This is so obviously the only way to run the world but even I can't be sure I believe in God. I don't know what to do.
Isaiah Jackson
Ah, Christian Anarch-- >Rom. 13:1 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. >2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. >3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: >4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. >5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. >6 For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Nevermind.
Connor Cooper
Encouragement of constant revisionism is what sets Christianity apart from other religions.
Asher Baker
t. Based Mormon
Colton Cooper
>Encouragement of constant revisionism You mean the existence of heretics? Pretty sure they're not unique to Christianity.
Camden Martinez
>rulers are not a terror to good works but to evil >gets dabbed on by Nero
What did Paul mean by this?
Gabriel Cruz
Rulers are humans and thus have the capability of sinning and not fulfilling their duty to God.
Lucas Lee
protestant cope
Jaxson Powell
shame Paul didn't qualify that statement at all or I might buy what you're selling.
Noah Phillips
If you do not understand it within the bounds of reason then of course it will seem nonsensical. The magistrate is a minister of God. So is a bishop, for example. We owe obedience to the bishop, but what if a bishop engages in evil? Does that mean that bishops are not lawful ministers of God? Do you honestly think that Paul never conceived of the fact that a civil ruler would engage in evil? Or did he perhaps think that the people reading his letters had functioning brains? The Christian doctrine of our relation to the state is that the civil magistrate is a minister of God to whom we owe our obedience. This obedience refers only to lawful ordinances of the state, which means that the state cannot compel you to sin and cannot hinder you in fulfilling your duties to God. This is because our obedience is first to God; the magistrate is God's minister and thus secondary to God.
Jaxon White
Given the nature of sin, any action that is not in Christ is inherently corrupted by sin-nature and therefore displeasing to God. So how can any Christian be beholden to any decree made by a ruler unless that decree is made in and through the love of Christ?
Eli Peterson
Colossians 2:13-15
Jonathan Miller
Me too. You could just follow Christ, even if you don’t believe in God, and see him as the supreme example of human goodness. A non-believer living in such a way that his actions are not discernible from believers
Tyler Torres
he was trying to disprove the Gnostics, but then god proven wrong when the Archons dabbed on him :^)
Aiden Walker
I do admire Christ as the only flawless social leader but I worry my skepticism still angers God.
Colton Cruz
Only thing I know about Christian Anarchism is what I learned from the book "The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages". It seemed more than a tad insane desu but interesting nonetheless. The one work it mentioned I remember most is "Marguerite Porete, The Mirror of Simple Souls". Seemed like their beliefs mostly came to be "If you're god you don't have to do anything and everyone is god". I can see why they were killed for heresy
Ryan Morris
Dorothy Day is not an anarchist at least by the popular sense of the term. She is a communitarian.
Anarchism is an inherantly anti-metaphysical system of government that if anything actively resists religion. Anyone that tries to interpret ancient regions as fitting nicely into their modern political ideologies is horribly deluded.
Juan Gomez
>I don't know what to do. Be a regular anarchist
>She is a communitarian. Explain. No one under capitalism is all one way, why would a libertarian socialist world be any different?
Asher Turner
Explain what. That's literally what she identified the Catholic worker movement as being: communitarian.
Levi Carter
There are no anarchists in heaven. Only monarchists.
Aiden Reyes
Sounds like Christian anarchism to me. Reality is inherently anti-metaphysical, but we see dopey Christians still to this day. Not taking an active part in any revolution for it, they will just don it like a cap they’ve always had. Same with abolitionism
Jack Garcia
Good bait. I assume you haven't read her. I suppose that was to be expected.
Logan Perez
>> the late Philip K. Dick (in his Exegesis) what was pkd's relation to christianity? i'm curious
Ayden Morgan
Catholic monarcho-communism is a much more appealing thing desu
Carson Allen
hey antonio conselheiro watcha doin here
Dylan Rivera
>Why is Christianity, not always, but usually seen as capitalist and conservative. I think you're confusing the faith for the people who practice it (especially the cornfed snake-handling retards in the Protestant churches).
The concept of private property is essential to the Christian theological virtue of charity.
Isnt anarchism about having no governments or power structures above men? Christian anarchism would fit nicely in that description: the power of God is within everyone and nobody is above anyone else, everyone equal in Christ, etc
He was, more or less, religious and interested in it [religion] generally (at one time, he was really into Buddhism). However, at one point, due to the influence of the wife and the community where he lived at that time, he became Episcopalian. Then, he met bishop Jim Pike who got him into studying Early Christianity, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Gnosticism and other things related. Then, later on, he also arrives at some form of anarchism. In his Exegesis, Phil writes:
> Surely, if all goes well, less will be handed down to the people progressively more and more; and the people will take their destinies in their own hands. (But that is only if unobstructed; yet, that should be their fight: if God is within each man, then the enemy of man is any top-heavy system claiming a monopoly on truth and dispensing it downward.) Why eventually will laws be necessary at all? I foresee a godly anarchy. No authority here on earth will have to tell any man what to do, or even educate him; the Logos will do that — link him up. A truly egalitarian society should result. [5:127]
> Without proof of this Inward Light there could be no rational justification for anarchy. With proof (as I have) there is no rational excuse to maintain any sort of centralization of power; no state of any sort, as we conceive it. We will be linked anyhow. We cannot not be. The social implications are beyond calculation, for good. [5:127]
> Autonomy. Inner-directed. Totally. Religious anarchists. Self-regulating because in inward direct touch with God. I’ve thought of much of this before, but I never visualized the Third Age as pitted against Christianity just as Christ was pitted against Judaism and the Law. [83:30]
I mainly respond to this because it’s anarchism without the usual cringey materialist nihilist edge garbage you find alongside it. I feel like anarchism should be for people who love life and creation rather than those who hate it. Is Christian anarchism the only thing that addresses this?
Carter Morris
> Jacques Ellul He was a christian anarchist?
Juan Nguyen
Yes, and it's the very same Ellul that wrote criticism on technology and propaganda. Pic related to book, but even on Wikipedia you can check out more on this. Ellul certainly was a Christian Anarchist. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_anarchim
>This is so obviously the only way to run the world but even I can't be sure I believe in God. I don't know what to do.
Start attending mass and start praying and your faith will grow, faith is something which grows by doing it, intellectual contemplation will only get you so far. I was in the same situation for a long time.
Evan Bennett
Paul is the punchline of countless ironies, and the Antichrist.
Anthony Taylor
The main idea being that God is NOT the tyrant of tyrants or even the opposite of a tyrant, which upon thorough contemplation would be even more tyrannical and the further opposition thereof doubly so, and so on and so forth; but the INVERSION of tyranny, or rather, tyranny is the inversion of God. The top of the parent-policeman-president pyramid is not the last rung before Heaven but the precipice before Hell.
Caleb James
I ask because I study philosophy of technology. I've only read his stuff on technological determinism and related stuff. But that's really interesting, I'm gonna check out that book.
Noah Rogers
>Reality is inherently anti-metaphysical Words have meaning, you know. You can't just string letters randomly and expect it to make sense.
Brayden Gonzalez
>tfw not living in a Christian anarcho distributist community
