Is “anarchism” the right word?
Reflection on the merits and deficiencies of a label
“Jesus rejects leadership by coercion and favours leadership by example.” — Alexandre Christoyannopoulos
1What is anarchism?2 Maybe we associate it with the angry slogan “No gods, no masters!” and the stereotypical punk with a mohawk—you know what I mean—or maybe we associate it with the more malevolent vision of a violent rioter or revolutionary, “as if it were simply synonymous with chaos.”3 These are real images, but equally so are the many Christians who have grown comfortable with certain semantic nuances of the scary “A-word” or express theologies friendly to it.4
If you’ve been a reader of this substack or know me personally, you know that “Christian anarchism” is for me an interesting topic and a helpful term. But why?
Admittedly, the label “Christian anarchy” unsettles. Why partner the loving, affirming love of Jesus with a chaotic, destructive ideology like anarchy? Although “Christian anarchy” might elicit strong, negative reactions, it is important to distinguish between connotations and denotations. Indeed, it describes a profitable historic political theology, with some disciples [of Jesus] self-identifying as “Christian anarchists.”5
What exactly is meant by “Christian anarchism”? Like any label, it varies from individual to individual. Jacques Ellul, one of my favorite thinkers, put it simply:
By anarchy I mean first an absolute rejection of violence. Hence I cannot accept either nihilists or anarchists who choose violence as a means to action…Not using violence does not mean doing nothing. I will have to show that Christianity means a rejection of power and a fight against it.6
But it’s not just Christians who have an understanding of anarchism that sounds reasonable to most of us. Noam Chomsky, the father of modern linguistics and one of the most cited scholars of all time,7 described it as a sort of tendency rather than a concrete system:
Well, anarchism is, in my view, basically a kind of tendency in human thought which shows up in different forms in different circumstances, and has some leading characteristics. Primarily it is a tendency that is suspicious and skeptical of domination, authority, and hierarchy. It seeks structures of hierarchy and domination in human life over the whole range, extending from, say, patriarchal families to, say, imperial systems, and it asks whether those systems are justified. It assumes that the burden of proof for anyone in a position of power and authority lies on them. Their authority is not self-justifying. They have to give a reason for it, a justification. And if they can’t justify that authority and power and control, which is the usual case, then the authority ought to be dismantled and replaced by something more free and just. And, as I understand it, anarchy is just that tendency. It takes different forms at different times.8
Parts of this sound appealing to Christians all over the political spectrum.
How do Christian anarchists compare to secular anarchists?
Secular anarchists, for all their flaws, seek a world that looks an awful lot like Acts 2:42-47 and 4:32-37 (minus all the praying and praising God and stuff, of course). Justin Meggit provocatively compares disciples of Jesus and secular anarchists,
It is true that if we could follow the precepts of the Nazarene this would be a different world to live in. There would then be no murder and no war; no cheating and lying and profit-making. There would be neither slave nor master, and we should all live like brothers, in peace and harmony. There would be neither poor nor rich, neither crime nor prison, but that would not be with the church wants. It would be what the Anarchists want.9
Alexandre Christoyannopaulos contrasts the groups, a little more graciously,
Christian anarchists’ anarchism does — perhaps somewhat paradoxically — derive from the authority they ascribe to God and to Jesus’ teaching in particular…It is precisely this acceptance of God’s authority that leads to their negation of all human authority. Yet most anarchists can also be said to derive their anarchism from the authority they ascribe to their understanding of freedom, for instance, or equality.10
I’m fond of anarchism as a rejection of the gods of this world, which would include political parties and systems—and the “falsified democracy of bourgeois states”11 we’re so fond of in the US and the rest of the first world.
“We can only speculate about what the boy-king Jesus might have pondered during his life as a poor laborer, but we know for certain that he knew personally the awful consequences of the messes kings make.” — Shane Claiborne & Chris Haw
12Kings were gods to the ancient inhabitants of the Eastern Mediterranean. Is it any less true today?
If Christian anarchism is just a rejection of violence, why not call it pacifism?
Plenty of people do! The problem I see is that most pacifists, perhaps including myself (still working out what I believe on that one), aren’t dogmatic anti-violence-in-every-imaginable-scenario-possible pacifists. In other words, most aren’t as extreme as Leo Tolstoy. And that’s fine—it doesn’t mean the word “pacifist” can’t apply. However, most Christian pacifists, whether they use the label or not, are far too comfortable with the violence caused by the state, thanks to a problematic understanding of Romans 13. Here’s an example of what I mean, although it must be noted the author does not use the label “pacifist” for the perspective outlined in the book:
There is no call for kingdom [of God] people to utilize violence, ever.
[A few pages later]
We can acknowledge the right of the governing authorities to limit evil while recognizing that it is not our role. We can respect and appreciate that role without participating in it. It would not be hypocrisy, then, to call a police officer, for example, if we were being threatened by a criminal.13
Certainly, we must respect police officers and all sorts of people in various jobs no matter our personal views, but we cannot advocate what appears to be a hardline pacifist stance and then invite the potential for violence into the life of our enemy. Labels are only so helpful, and I get that. I don’t assume a hardline pacifist stance, and I’m not saying that Christians should never call the police. I just think these two quoted statements are incompatible insofar as indirect violence is still violence.
What I understand to be biblical pacifism must begin with something like anarchism, which is my main qualm with most Christian pacifists. Hopefully it isn't getting too nitpicky here, but as long as we’re discussing petty labels it’s gonna be subjective.
I’m not saying we need to apply the word “anarchist” to our biblical understanding of the political. It’s just a label, and a good label is still no more than a good metaphor: if you overanalyze it or over-rely on it, it exceeds its usefulness. There are plenty of reasons for Christians to be uncomfortable with the word, and that’s fine.
I’m saying it needs to be applicable, in the sense of total rejection of the gods this world worships and a refusal to put our faith in them instead of God. When we put our faith in a human ideology, a party, a system, a state, or a person, we are idolaters. And I’ve been guilty of it—maybe we all have. But our theology must start and end with a rejection of fallen powers. How that rejection looks in our life is up to us.
Why do I like the word “anarchist”?
I’m fond of the label for two reasons. The first is rather silly: it raises eyebrows and sparks discussion.
Your mileage may vary.
The second is a little more practical: when we take this relatively new word14 and, with an awareness of its anachronistic nature, look for Christians in our past to apply it to, we find many lovers of God and lovers of those who needed it most, including martyrs and outcasts. Whatever we want to name this category of people, I want to be like these heroes of the faith who took Jesus’ words seriously. Frankly, the category of “Christian” is ineffective, given our collective history of oppression and abuse of God’s Word.
Potentially, there’s a third reason I’m fond of the word, but it is decidedly antagonistic toward secular anarchism. This is that Christian anarchism, as I and many others mean it, eschews the utopian dream so many other people in this world get caught up in: the idea that we can make the world the way it’s supposed to be. It’s a trap that catches many Christians, unfortunately, who take a realist or transformationist stance and attempt to use worldly means to usher in the Kingdom of God.15 I’m not saying progress is bad (although it’s not the inherent good we assume it to be), but I follow a God who promised that the kingdom is already here if we’ll just open our eyes to it, and that one day He will open everyone’s eyes.
“We must not think about ‘human beings’ but about my neighbor Mario. It is in the real life, which I can easily come to know, about this particular person, that I see the true repercussions of the machine, the press, political speeches, and government. I may be told that things are different for a farmer in Texas or for a Kolkhozian, but I know nothing about that (and news reports are not what will inform me), and I have my doubts, because I believe in a human nature.” — Jacques Ellul
16People we might call Christian anarchists have continued to live as holy fools, quietly—or loudly—without participating in violent schemes or compromising to build toward some nebulous “greater good.” They have always been there, part of the remnant. Unlike many schools of thought, including secular anarchist schools “that propose concrete theories to achieve an ‘ideal’ anarchist society (or even only a better one) and how to order it,” a truly biblical “approach to the sphere of the socio-political needs to refuse to offer such an account.”17 Emma Brown Dewhurst puts it this way:
What is really required is a change in our priorities, so that instead of our ultimate aim being an ideal of, say, the distribution of property, we instead dedicate ourselves to the well-being of all and giving to each according to their needs.18
Christian anarchism is concerned with living as a disciple of Jesus, not achieving anarchy. What I mean is that we Christians have a superpower (yet not us, but Christ who lives in us) that enables us to step outside the realm of realism and compromise the world is beholden to: the superpower of seeing God’s already-victory and assurance of its not-yet realization.
There are times I hope I’m wrong; it would be nice to know that there is actually some ideal political system I could vote for and maybe, if I’m feeling extra spunky, write to my legislator about or even protest about, knowing that I have performed my civic duty.19 Other people can save the world while I cheer the correct side on!
And maybe I am wrong.
But there is only one Redeemer, and He is not associated with any political party, past or present.
“Who are the masters and Caesars that we pledge allegiance to by the way we live and through the things we put our trust in? We vote every day with our feet, our hands, our lips, and our wallets. We are to vote for…the ones Jesus voted for, those whom every empire had left behold, those whom no millionaire politician will represent.” — Shane Claiborne & Chris Haw
Opening quote from Christian Anarchism: A Political Commentary on the Bible. Imprint Academic, 2011.
David Miller writes, “Of all the major ideologies confronting the student of politics, anarchism must be one of the hardest to pin down. It resists straightforward definition.” Anarchism, pg 2. JM Dent, 1984.
Justin Bronson Barringer, Subordination and Freedom: Tracing Anarchist Themes in First Peter, in: Essays in Anarchism and Religion, Volume II by Christoyannopaulos, A. & Adams, M. S. (eds.), pg 139. Stockholm University Press, 2018.
Ibid. See also Christian Anarchism: A Political Commentary on the Gospel by Alexandre Christoyannopaulos.
Richard C. Goode, Peaceable Pilgrim or Christian Anarchist: David Lipscomb’s Political Theology, in: Resisting Babel: Allegiance to God and the Problem of Government by John Mark Hicks (ed.), pg 85-86. ACU Press, 2020.
Jacques Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, pg 11-13. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1991. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley.
Noam Chomsky, 2013. Taken from an interview with Michael S. Wilson titled “The Kind of Anarchism I Believe in, and What’s Wrong with Libertarians”, available online here at the time of writing.
Justin Meggit, Was the historical Jesus an anarchist? Anachronism, anarchism, and the historical Jesus, in: Essays in Anarchism and Religion: Volume I by Christoyannopoulos, A. & Adams, M. S. (eds.), pg 124. Stockholm University Press, 2017.
Alexandre Christoyannopoulos, Christian Anarchism: A Political Commentary on the Gospel. Imprint Academic, 2011.
Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, pg. 13.
Quote from Shane Claiborne & Chris Haw, Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals, pg 82. Zondervan, 2008.
Michael Burns, Escaping the Beast: Politics, Allegiance, and Kingdom, pg 315-318. Lumination Publishers, 2020. Emphasis mine. Admittedly, the book contains helpful material and thoughtful consideration on how to engage the socio-political sphere as a Christian. It may be particularly useful for Christians who are upset by the more “extreme” language that I prefer.
The modern notion of anarchism, which only dates back to the time of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865), couldn’t come into being until the modern notion of nation-states did. Understanding this is important to avoid anachronistic conclusions in our study of history.
Communism is basically the culmination of this approach: using the state to abolish itself and accomplish something like Acts 2-4.
Quotation from Ellul’s 1948 work, Presence in the Modern World. Translated by Lisa Richmond. Wipf and Stock, 2016.
Davor Džalto, Anarchy and the Kingdom of God: From Eschatology to Orthodox Political Theology and Back. Fordham University Press, 2021.
Emma Brown Dewhurst, To Each According to their Needs: Anarchist Praxis as a Resource for Byzantine Theological Ethics, in: Essays in Anarchism and Religion: Volume II, by Christoyannopoulos, A. & Adams, M. S. (eds.), pg 83. Stockholm University Press, 2018.
My intent is not to dog on anyone who partakes in these sorts of activities. That would be hypocritical. They have their place, although I feel these days that their value is more limited than most of us assume.