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Title: Anarchism and Christianity
Author: Jacques Ellul
Date: 1980
Language: en
Topics: Christian anarchism
Source: Retrieved on 4th May 2021 from https://www.jesusradicals.com/uploads/2/6/3/8/26388433/anarchism-and-christianity.pdf
Notes: Published in Katallagete 7, no. 3 (Fall 1980): 14–24.

Jacques Ellul

Anarchism and Christianity

That anarchism and Christianity are the most irreconcilable enemies is

so established that it seems strange to try to reconcile them.

Anarchism’s war cry is “neither God nor master.” Anarchist thinkers have

made anti· Christianity, anti-religion, and anti-theism their

fundamental points of doctrine. While one could say that Marx’s atheism

(or anti-theism) is strictly subordinate since he deals with the

question by neglect rather than by intention, the “against God” is of

major importance to the anarchism of Proudhon, Kropotkin and Bakunin.

True, Marx analyzes religion at length and demonstrates that every

revolution must also be waged against religion’s particularly alienating

form of ideology. Nevertheless, this is not the essential direction of

his thought.

On the other hand it is self-evident that Christianity not only respects

authorities but also considers authorities to be necessary. Everyone

knows that Christianity is a doctrine of order! Certainly Calvin

considered any order to be better than anarchy, the most terrifying

transformation of a society. For Calvin the worst tyrant would clearly

be preferable to the absence of civil powers-a condition in which each

would become a wolf towards the other and the sin of each would manifest

itself against each and against all, without a single limitation or

check. That is, the belief of man as radical sinner completely

contradicts the idea of an-arché. [Ed. note. An-arché, from the Greek

arché the originating, primal or highest principle of order or

authority. Arché moved into English in words archaic, architect,

archangel, archbishop. The prefix an, in Greek and English, indicates a

negation or reversal or denial of the primal, originating or highest

principle of order or authority. An-arché is the absence or overcoming

of order or authority. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,

anarchism assumed a political reference, indeed, became a political

movement, discussed in this article.]

So there is rejection on both sides. For Christianity, a more determined

rejection of anarchism than of socialism, whatever its tendency (and I

do not have in mind only the idealistic, utopian. romantic socialism

that pleased many Christian thinkers so well). Scientific socialism. for

example, continues to attract Christians: it too is a doctrine of order

and organization. It seeks to attain justice. It cares greatly for the

poor. When it speaks of freedom it is a well-regulated freedom. If the

idea of the disappearance of the State is entertained by the extremists

it’s a minor point of doctrine-surely a small manner compared to the

great egalitarian transformation that has penetrated fully and easily

into the perspective of current Christian thought. The State will become

moribund later on, much later on, and so the doctrine of the

disappearance of the Stare is not bothersome to Christians.

Conversely, socialism is ready to accept a host of good qualities in

Christianity: love for others, search for justice, service, and the

importance placed on a social plan (and not merely an extraterrestrial

one). And socialists are ready to recognize Christians as brothers and

sisters on the road. “Those who believe in heaven and those who do not

believe in it ... ·’ After all, people can do the same thing together

even if they have different faiths. It works for Christians too. It is

the theory of “part of the road,” caricatured a little: “ ... since we

both desire a society with greater justice. fraternity and equality, let

us travel together on the part of the road that leads to it. You see,

our faith in God is not bothersome; it has no influence at all on our

ideology regarding that society we work toward (which is the same as

yours), nor on the political means we use to attain it. We shall part

company afterwards, when we have achieved our objective, when we are in

that society. Then we Christians will reaffirm the importance of faith

in Jesus Christ.”

It is obvious that this arrangement is impossible between anarchists and

Christians. When anarchists make the destruction of religion virtually

the centerpiece of the revolution (without which no revolution is

possible), and the other cannot conceive of a society without

pre-established order strictly maintained...well, what can be done?

No doubt the current trend of atheist Christianity makes things easier.

If Christians have decided to kill God, one half of the journey is

finished. The anarchists have little to add, and should be quite

satisfied. The good prophet Jesus, pacifist and defender of the poor,

never bothered the anarchists. On the contrary! Christians today not

only abandon the hideous dogma of original sin-the radical evil which is

in us-but they construct another complete theology (if one can call it

that). This theology argues that the sole objective of the “God”

(so-called, but this “God” does not live) of the Bible is the Kingdom of

Humanity-the realization, accomplishment, blossoming of our potential.

This fulfillment is what, due to a cultural error, has so far been

called the “Kingdom of God”.

That done, both parts of the journey are complete. Anarchists can accept

Christianity, and Christians can participate in anarchy. The curious

thing is that the connection fails to take place. This is because

neither Christians nor anarchism are attractive to each other, and

because today to be a socialist (or even a Marxist) and a Christian

raises few if any eyebrows (at least in France). Today no one thinks of

conjoining anarchism and Christianity.

I think there is a small complementary obstacle: for anarchism there is

still the Church. Although this is not a bothersome factor in the

relationship between Christians and socialists (one institution always

gets along with another institution; church and party: the same thing),

here it is a “nonconforming good”. [tr “obstacle redhibitoire, “ a legal

term meaning a taint in a product which renders the sale null and void.]

It is true that some Christians are ready to make even this small

sacrifice. And we know that an important faction is doing everything it

can to destroy the Church by demonstrating that the Church is a wart on

early Christianity which, along the way, it deformed totally. But this

is not sufficient to reassure and convince the anarchists. It takes a

long time for a judgement like this to penetrate the mass audiences.

Christians see a much greater obstacle: politics. The Christians who are

engaged in the theological overhaul to which we have alluded are

politically Leftist, even extreme Left. But they do not really know what

anarchism is. About twenty years ago, a sociologist who was making a

survey of the political leanings of French Protestants and who knew

perfectly well that I was an anarchist classified me as a Rightist, not

far from the monarchists for that very reason. To the”good” Left of the

Marxists, anarchists are false brothers, dreamers, unscientific people.

Indeed, Marx condemned Proudhon and Bakunin. Anarchists are Rightists

because they hold freedom as their pivotal imperative (freedom being the

virtue of the Right in France, perhaps elsewhere, since 1945). Anarchism

has gilded its coat-of-arms somewhat only to fall into Leftism and thus

be condemned by the serious Left. Organization is the mark of the

serious Leftist; it is the coherent tactic, which presupposes a chain of

commands. It is efficiency. How could Leftist Christians not accept

these criteria? Whereas anarchists ... No, disorder cannot suit

Christians, for how ‘ does one separate anarchy from disorder? Thus,

rejected by both traditional and Leftist Christians anarchism remains

without any relationship to Christianity.

With the Christian abandonment of God, the Personal God, with their

reduction of Jesus to a historical model of humanity, with the advent of

the reign of Humanity, with their expansion of humanity’s power and the

suppression of the church, the final desolating thing is that nothing is

left of Christianity but the name of Jesus. I shall not engage here in a

theological debate on this affair. My refusal is not due to any kind of

traditionalism on my part. It is due to a lack of seriousness on the

part of those theologians who literally will say anything just to be in

fashion.

In what follows I would like to sketch another mode of rapprochement

between anarchism and Christianity which I believe will abandon none of

the biblical message. On the contrary, it seems to me that biblical

thought leads directly to anarchism, and that this is the only

“political anti-political” position in accord with Christian thinking.

I

One must first try to account for the critique against Christianity,

religion and the church brought by the anarchists of the nineteenth

century (resumed by twentieth century anarchists without being either

renewed or enriched!). Bakunin best summarized the question in his book

God and the State:

...God being everything, man and the real world arc nothing. God being

truth, justice, the good, beauty, power, life, man is the lie, iniquity,

evil, ugliness, impotence and death. God being master, man is slave.

Incapable of finding justice, truth and eternal life by himself, man can

do so only by divine revelation. But he who speaks of revelation speaks

of revealers...who will be recognized as God’s representatives on earth

... and who of necessity exercise absolute power. All men owe them

passive and unlimited obedience, for no terrestrial justice can prevail

against divine reason. God’s slaves, men are also slaves to the church

and to the state insofar as the state is consecrated by the church ...

Christianity has understood and realized this better than all other

religions. That is why Christianity is the absolute religion, and the

Roman Church the only consistent and logical one.

[Excursus: One clearly sees here the point at which Bakunin is

influenced by his cultural environment. What he reconstructs as a

deduction from the general to the particular is in fact the fruit of a

completely inverted process: the Roman Church is the support of the

State. He argues that it is the most authoritarian and anti-liberal

structure ever: this is what he gathers from history. He calls on’

history to prove the accuracy of what he says about God. Therefore

Christianity (of which Catholicism represents the extreme) is

authoritarian and anti-liberal; and so are all religions, of which

Christianity is the most evident. And from thence he passes to the

Religion, and finally to what is the object of religions: God who is the

authoritarian master and the inspiration of the whole... That is the

development of Bakunin’s reasoning, which he inverts to make it

philosophical and justifiable.)

...The idea of God implies the abdication of reason and of human

justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty and

necessarily borders 00 roan’s slavery in theory as well as practice...

If God exists, man is a slave. Yet man can and must be free. Therefore

God does not exist. I defy anyone to get out of this circle .... The

contradiction is: they (Christians) want God and humanity. They

obstinately insist on combining two terms which, once separated, can

never meet again without destroying each other. In one breath they say

“God-and-man’s-freedom, God and dignity, justice, equality, fraternity,

men’s prosperity” without caring about the fatal logic by virtue of

which God is of necessity the eternal, supreme, absolute master if He

exists, and man is slave. Yet if man is slave, neither justice,

equality, fraternity nor prosperity are possible. They insist, contrary

to good sense and to all historical experiences, in depicting their God

as animated by the tenderest love for human freedom. A master, no matter

what he does and no matter how liberal he shows himself to be, is no

less a master. His very existence necessarily implies the slavery of all

who find themselves subservient to him. Therefore, if God existed he

would have only one means to serve human freedom; to cease to exist.

Loving human freedom, jealous for it, and considering it to be the

absolute condition for all we adore and respect in humanity, we quote

Voltaire and say, “If God existed, he would have to be abolished.”

[Excursus: I must be precise and state that when I speak here of

anarchism I refer mainly to the anarchism of the great classics, but

also to the active groups of the Jura Mountain Federation and to

anarcho-syndicalism. I do not refer to mutualism, a rather deviant

branch of anarchism. I don’t wish to reject the nihilists and the

violent anarchists, but they pose a complementary (not central) problem

in the relationship between Christianity and anarchism. The problem of

violence is essentially a problem of means, not of the focal point of

the question: an-arche, the absence of authority.)

T0 this there should be added of course all the texts of Proudhon on

authority (God being the one on whom all authorities rest) on the

formula of laws copied from the Decalogue (containing the general idea

of the revolution) and on the Church’s role denying the freedom of

inquiry. On the other hand, the entire scientific position taken by the

anarchists of the second half of the nineteenth century should also be

taken into account. They sought to prove the non-existence of God,

beginning with the developments in science. (For example S. Faure, R.

Reclus.)

But all this is relatively unimportant. What strikes me in this

anarchist affirmation against God, religion and Church is its

circumstantial, dated character. It seems to me that their reproaches

and attacks are tied to precise events in the history of Christianity.

At the center of Christian theology is the confession of God. Since the

thirteenth century many Christian theologians have insisted on the

attributes of God’s power. God is, above all and exclusively, the

All-Powerful, the King, the Absolute Autocrat, the radical Judge, the

terrible One. When anarchism declares, “neither God nor master”, this

God is the target. He is in effect the one who precludes human freedom:

we are but toys in God’s hands; we have no possibility to be; we are

damned a priori. One can understand that a doctrine which affirms

humanity’s dignity cannot accept that. In the final analysis, it is the

Creator who not only is at the beginning but who regulates everything,

who distributes both the good and the bad, misfortunes and blessings.

It is very mange that the Biblical God, the God of Jesus Christ, could

have been so deformed. Jesus, who claims kinship with Yahweh chose the

life of non-power, radically so. The God of Jesus chose to be revealed

to the world by an incarnation in the infant in Bethlehem’s stables. So

the definition of the biblical God’s incarnation in our time and space,

our history, is love. From the Exodus, the action of this biblical God

is liberation: God is above all and foremost our liberator. If God

condemns sin and the powers of evil, it is because they are alien to us.

10 the Old Testament, where the power of God is often stark, this power

is never, never mentioned alone: every proclamation of power is

associated with and often encompassed by a proclamation of love and of

pardon, an exhortation to reconciliation, and an affirmation that this

power of God works in our favor, never against us. It is as false to

present the biblical God as the All-Powerful One as it is to paint God

as an old bearded gentleman sitting on clouds. Yet when I say this I

refuse to go through the same shennanigans of the death-of-God

theologians, who annul ninety-nine percent of the biblical text which,

cultural or not, does not cease speaking primarily of God. It is God’s

life, not our experience, which is the center of the Biblical message. I

restrict myself here to rehabilitating the Biblical text from a classic

theological distortion.

I shall not spend much time on a second point: the confusion between

religion and revelation, or between religion and Christian faith. All

that is becoming known well enough. It is quite true that the anarchist

critics of religion (“opium of the people,” etc .... Marx’s formula,

which was much more strongly presented by the anarchists) are accurate

about religion. But they fail to touch the essentials of the Christian

faith.

Thirdly, it is accurate to say that in Christianity, ‘in its historical

expression of religion the All-Powerful God-became the support of

established order. Here again we encounter an extreme deviation, due in

part to the institutionalization of the Church, which ceases to be the

assembly of the faithful, of people united by the sole tie of love and

becomes instead’ ‘organization” and consequently “power.” This deviation

is also due in pan to dogma becoming dogmatism. It is a problem at

hardening on both sides. Truth possessed (which thereby ceases to be

truth) leads to judgment and condemnation. Love institutionalized

produces authority and hierarchy. And although the Church was no doubt

once a happy and joyous consequence for people who-assured of their

salvation-united to manifest God’s love, it became a structure

possessing authority and truth and claims to represent God’s power on

earth. “No salvation outside the Church” means, first, that all those

who acknowledge being saved by Jesus Christ assemble to return thanks

(that is, outside of Him there are no people who live their faith!).

This then comes to mean that all those who are outside the structure of

the Church are damned! A grave inversion.

Finally it is quite true that the Church became the support of the

establishment, of political powers and of social organizations. We all

know those points when the Church turns coat time and again to

accomodate the reigning authority and to become the strongest ally of

any government-provided that that government has become legitimate in

the judgment of the world. While this was not always true, it is true

more often than. not. One also knows the monstrous uses made of

Christianity by the bourgeoisie to maintain the social order and to keep

the workers subjugated.

All these errors, deformations, heresies (oh yes! heresies!) and

deviations bordering on anti-Christianity have always existed as ways to

interpret biblical revelation. They were accentuated after the

Reformation, and became dominant in the eighteenth century. In other

words, the dominant event is the bourgeoisie’s transformation of

theology, Church and Church-society relationship. The anarchists’

attacks on God, the Church and religion are strictly correct, on

condition that the God in question was the God remodeled by this very

particular theology of Church-became-Power. and by the peculiar and

capricious association of Church and social and political power

following the sixteenth century. This theology to support this

Church-State relationship is in no way an expression of biblical

Christianity: indeed it is a contradiction. The roots are, rather, time

after time in the theological heresy of a God conceived exclusively as

the All-Powerful. The error of the anarchists and of Marx was to believe

that they were face to face with Christianity itself, whereas they

encountered merely its bourgeois metamorphosis. By adhering to this

judgment they have overvalued those very features-be they in the early

Church or during the Middle Ages-which confirm their point of view,

instead of considering them only one among many other possibilities. For

example, the death of Ananias and Sapphira are evidence that the

apostles were terrible dictators. The 10quisition became the symbol for

the medieval church. The construction of cathedrals was seen as the

symbol for the enslavement of poor people crushed by the clergy.

Everything that was real regarding love and joy and Christian freedom

the anarchists overlooked, joyfully. In other words, the

anarchists-justly fighting against the Christian totalitarianism and

authoritarianism of the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries-had a

totally false view of the fundamental reality of Christianity and the

God of Jesus Christ. Our task now is to rectify this anarchist error.

The absence of God, atheism, is in no way an essential condition of

anarchism. The presence of the God of Jesus Christ is the essential

condition for the deliverance of humanity. Negating and banishing the

God of Jesus Christ is the failure of all of our so-called liberating

revolutions, which each time ends with greater enslavement. When left to

ourselves and not given a manifestation of freedom, an experience of

freedom, and a point of departure for freedom which radically transcends

us, we inevitably produce our own slavery. Freedom conquered by humanity

becoming absolute is the ineluctable establishment of dictatorship. Only

when we are related-that is, relative, not claiming equality to the

Transcendent, are we truly human. Only then are we bestowed the gift of

freedom which relatives all our pretentions and therefore our efforts to

dominate each other. But being relative, that is, human, cannot occur

unless we meet the Eternal not on our terms but on the terms of the

Eternal. We can never, in other words, make ourselves’ ‘relative” to the

Transcendent so long as we insist on the absolute proclamation of Our

Kingdom. We receive our humanity from the Transcendent, freeing love of

the God of Jesus Christ. We shall return to this point in our final

section.

The deviation from Christianity gave the anarchists an opportunity for

an accurate and telling critique. But they never understood that their

attack was against a deviation, not the reality (even though sometimes a

lived reality!) or the truth of the biblical revelation. Rather, they

challenged a socio-theological formulation of God and not the God of the

Bible and of Jesus Christ. I maintain that there is the God of the Bible

and of Jesus Christ.

II

We must now examine the other side. We begin with the biblical data.

What does the Old Testament teach about political power?

On the one hand, political power per se is always contested referring to

Nations. The regular theme is: these kings, they are gods, idols. They

will be destroyed as testimony to their weakness. At the time of the

Babylonian captivity, for example, when the prophets say that the people

of Israel should work for the good of the society in which they now find

themselves, there was no question of supporting the king of Babylon. The

kings of Assyria and Egypt are considered instruments manifesting God’s

wrath; they themselves have no legitimacy whatsoever. Elisha is sent to

anoint the new king of Syria; this means only that this king will be

God’s scourge to chastise Israel. This king in no way profits from any

alliance with or support from Elisha. (Cf. my Politics of God, Politics

of Man.) Never does the government of a foreign people appear legitimate

or salutary. At best the government is a necessity. There is no

alternative. The only relation to political authorities is that of

conflict. Nothing but persecution, war, devastation, famine and evil can

be expected from these kings. Joseph and Daniel are the only two

examples of collaboration between a representative of Israel and these

foreign kings. But one should not forget that Joseph, who draws his

brothers into Egypt, has by his success produced only the slavery of the

whole of Israel! (It doesn’t matter if the facts are accurate! We are

studying here only the way Israel depicts political authority in

Scripture. The complete evolution must be considered: it is only after

receiving a “favor” or after a temporary “alliance” that Israel is

inevitably led into slavery, domination and ruin).

The second example is Daniel. (The same observation obtains: it doesn’t

matter if Daniel never existed and that the story is pure fiction:

indeed that would make the narrative even more illustrative!) Daniel,

great visionary and interpreter of dreams is in favor of Nebuchadnezzar,

but the hazards of such favor are known: because he-does not bow before

the king on the subject of faith, he is thrown into the fiery furnace

(authority must make itself adored!).

[Excursus: It must also be noted that Joseph, as well as Daniel, has

been called into the presence of authority for very ambiguous reasons:

both are the king’s diviners. The authority considers them to have a

relation to a mysterious power (and not at all to the truth) and so

considers them to be capable of enlightening political authority through

magic and sorcery. In other words, God’s gift is monopolized and

transformed into its opposite. Political authority cannot recognize the

true God for what He is. [t can only use Him accidentally for its own

reinforcement. What a strange spotlight on the alliance between Church

and State in the modern era.]

Darius throws him into the lion’s pit: authority is indeed dangerous and

devouring. To participate in political action and reflection on the

governmental level is an enterprise which necessarily endangers true

faith, and otherwise can lead only to the proclamation of the end of

political authority, to its destruction. One must not forget that Daniel

prophesied nothing but misfortune to the various kings he served. To

each he announced the end of the reign, the destruction of the kingdom,

the death of the king, etc. Consequently, Daniel is the negator of

authority even while serving that authority temporarily.

One could say that all this can be explained by the fact that the people

in question are “Nations” -enemies of Israel, peoples not elected by

God, pagans and idolaters-and that Israel’s wholly negative judgment on

these authorities was an obvious one.

So we must now examine the monarchy in Israel. I have written about the

significance of the monarchy (Cf. particularly, “La conception du

pouvoir en Israel,” in Melanges en l’honneur de M. Brethes de la

Gressaye (1968).) Not to repeat this study, I shall indicate the main

outlines and conclusions.

The principal text is certainly the institution of the monarchy in I

Samuel 8. Prior to these events Israel was a people without political

organization, “governed directly by God.” Whenever necessary, God sent a

“judge” as a temporary, charismatic, occasional chief. But Israel

demanded organization, a political authority, a king in order to become

more efficient, to be more like other peoples who had kings. Samuel

fights longtime to prevent this treason against God. But God ends up

giving in to His people’s disobedience, declaring, “By giving themselves

a king they have rejected me.” The recital is very detailed and complex,

but it can be broken down into three component pans: political authority

rests on defiance; it is a rejection of God; it can only be dictatorial,

abusive and unjust (Cf. II Samuel 8:10–18).

Political authority is established in Israel in conformity with and

imitation of the surrounding environment. The first king is Saul, the

mad, the delirious king. God, by His grace and as an exception, chooses

David to succeed Saul, and makes David His representative. But this is a

single ray of light attesting to the fact that God can draw miraculous

good from human evil, for Solomon, admirably suited for exercising

power, ends by being radically corrupted by power. His accumulation of

riches and women, his construction of independent political power, his

creation of cities, etc.. are considered the normal components of

political authority. But they are also elements of Solomon’s alienation

from God and they finally produce his rejection, with clear indications

that it was the exercise of political power that corrupted this man who

was originally so wise, good and humble.

Finally, two distinctive features must be mentioned. The Chronicles’

account of the succession of the kings of Israel and Judea give a very

strange evaluation of authority. All those kings who, according to

objective history, were “great” kings are systematically (and I insist

on this systematically: it is indeed the sense of the evaluation of

political authority, even more significant if it does not correspond to

the facts!) presented in the Biblical account as bad kings: idolatrous,

unjust, tyrannical, murderous. These were the kings who set up better

organization, made conquests and enriched the people. In other words,

they exercised their power normally. The judgment of’ ‘good” kings is

reserved for those who, historically, were weak, lost their wars, were

bad administrators, lost their wealth” .This could signify either that

the only authority one can in the end accept is the weakest authority.

or that if a statesman is faithful to God he is necessarily a bad

statesman and vice versa. The consistency of these biblical judgments is

too great to be anything but extraordinary, indeed unique. No nation in

the world has produced a single chronicle or historiography expressing

this orientation. Rather, it is always the successful king who is

everywhere rated great and legitimate.

A final brief comment: detailed analysis of the corona;‘ion procedures

and of the names used to designate the kings demonstrates that the king

is never anything but the acting. temporary and accidental sign for the

One who is to come. He is defined by this “co come”. The king in

coronation festivities has no importance. He is merely a surveying

stake, a stone placed in a waiting position. God delivers political

authority to the degree that it is the preliminary image of the ultimate

perfection of the Messiah and of the kingdom. Political authority never

has any value in and of itself. On the contrary, it is even denied,

challenged and condemned on each occasion it claims to exist either as

political authority or anything else other than a sign of the One to

come. Political authority, in other words, has no other value than that

which it draws from what is to come (an event that will come!) and what

it signifies (which is unknown!) There is no validation of political

power whatsoever in the Old Testament. On the contrary, it is forever

contested.

In the New Testament, two lines of thought can be seen: one favorable to

authority (represented by the famous text from Paul: “there is no

authority except from God”: Romans 13:1), and the other, much larger

one, hostile to authority and represented by the Gospels and Revelation.

It is very strange that, since Constantine, the Church has, in an almost

redundant fashion, based its “theology of the state” on Romans thirteen

and the parallel texts from the Perrine Epistles.

Jesus’ attitude towards political authority in the Gospels is a

radically negative one. He himself refuses to exercise <juridical type

of authority. He counsels his disciples not to imitate the kings of

nations (“kings and governors have dominion over men; let there be none

like that among you ... “). He refuses to become king or to participate

in the political conflicts of history. It is very significant, in this

regard, that there were both Roman “collaborators” (Matthew) and

Zealots, the violent anti-Roman patriots (Judas, Simon) among his

disciples. He knew quite well the resistance party and refused to join

it. He held political authority up to derision. Consider the famous and

interesting affair of the two coins found in the mouth of a fish, an

occasion to talk about tax. This is the sale and unique miracle of this

type, bordering on the exorbitant, done precisely to demonstrate that

the duty of paying taxes is simply ridiculous I He submits himself to

Caesar’s jurisdiction, giving not one hint of recognition to Caesar’s

legitimacy. Caesar’s is the jurisdiction of power, nothing more.

Two points need to be refined: the famous saying, “Render to Caesar... “

in no way divides the exercise of authority into two realms. It is

incredible to draw from these words the notion that heaven, the

spiritual, the emotions, are God’s realm, but that Caesar is wholly

qualified to exercise authority over people and things in this world.

Jesus’ words mean no such thing. They were said in response to another

matter: the payment of taxes, and the coin. The mark on the coin is that

of Caesar; it is the mark of his property. Therefore give Caesar this

money; it is his. It is not a question of legitimizing taxes! It means

that Caesar, having created money, is its master. That’s all. (Let us

not forget that money for Jesus is the domain of Mammon, a satanic

domain!) As for” ...that which is God’s... “: how could a pious Jew in

Jesus’ time possibly understand “that which is God’s” in any way but

everything? God is the Creator, the master of life and death, the one on

whom everything depends. The phrase means: Caesar is legitimate master

of nothing but what he fabricates for himself, and that is the province

of demons!

As for the other formulation, . ‘My kingdom is not of this world”: this

says explicitly that Jesus will not exercise political authority. But in

no way does it suggest that Jesus recognizes the validity of political

authority. On the contrary. There is the kingdom of God, and all

authority exercised outside of that is wicked and must be denied.

Nevertheless, Jesus does not represent apoliticism or spiritualism. His

is a fundamental attack on political authority. It is not indifference

concerning what politics can be or can do. It is a refusal of politics.

Jesus is not a tender dreamer gliding in the sky “above politics.” He

challenges every attempt to validate the political realm, and rejects

its authority because it does not conform to the will of God. Indeed,

this is given precise confirmation by the account of the Temptations.

The third temptation in Matthew’s account is the one in which the devil

shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and tells him, “I will give

you all these things if you prostrate yourself and adore me.” Jesus

responds with a refusal to adore him.

[Excursus: I am in complete disagreement with the exegetes who wish to

reduce this text to the problem of adoration: that is, what Jesus

rejects is not political power but adoration of Satan....The text is

clear: Jesus does not shatter the rapport between authority and

adoration. He implicitly admits that if he would adore Satan, Satan

would give him all the kingdoms of the earth. Consequently he does not

challenge the satanic character of authority. ]

He does not refute what Satan says. He does not tell him that these

kingdoms and political authorities are not Satan’s. No. On the contrary,

he is in implicit agreement. Satan can give political authority but the

condition for exercising political authority is adoration of the power

of evil. That is the consistent and unique teaching of the Gospels.

This point is carried to its ultimate conclusion in the book of

Revelation. [Cf. my commentary Apocalypse (The Seabuty Press: 1977).]

Here political authority (temporarily represented by Rome, although

Revelation envisions not only the Roman Empire) is the monster that

rises from the sea and perfectly symbolizes political propaganda. But

political authority is also represented at the beginning of Revelation,

with the red knight who holds the sword (his sole function is to wage

war, exercise power and kill) and, at the end of the book, with Babylon,

which at one and the same time concentrates political and financial

power and the administration of the city. We encounter here a consistent

line in the Scriptures of the negation of political authority and

testimony to the fact that it has neither validity ‘nor legitimacy.

[Excursus: I want to emphasize the fact that the lesson given in this

collection of texts is not a situational one. The first Christians did

not express their anti-politics, their anarchism, because they were

persecuted by or opposed by political authorities. Theirs was a

fundamental stance. Everything is from the beginning centered on the

fact that two political authorities combined to crucify Jesus. How

better express the radicalism of their opposition! If, however, One

maintains that these stances are simply the responses of the first

century Christians to their’ ‘situation in the Roman Empire” -and

nothing more than that-then everything in the Gospels and in the life of

Jesus must be considered situational! For example, his teaching On the

Law, or the Parables On the Kingdom, etc., is strictly speaking

situation all And the New Testament-indeed the whole of Scripture-is

reduced to a guidebook of ideology and political propaganda, not the

Herald of Good News (the Gospel) for everyone, Christ and Caesar alike.]

In opposition to this, we have the texts of Paul’s letter to the

Christians in Rome and parallel texts in the New Testament. But among

the latter, we must distinguish between those texts which speak only of

praying for authorities (a service to render to them, perhaps linked to

the problem of exousiai, to prevent them from falling into the hands of

demons) and the authorities which demand obedience and submission. At

any event, the only text which seems to offer an over-all basis for

submission to authorities is precisely Paul’s letter to the Christians

in Rome, specifically the early verses of Chapter Thirteen. These

passages, like so many of his writings, seem to me to be Paul’s answer

to a particular circumstance faced by the congregation of Christians in

Rome. (We are reminded of the circumstances confronting Paul with the

congregation in Corinth: eating meat sacrificed to idols, virginity,

etc.) Of course, these texts from Paul, even though they are occasional,

must be seen as bearers of a word of God. But not in a literal way,

certainly not as Paul writes to the Christians in Rome in Chapter 13.

It seems to me that these verses should be placed in the milieu which I

have already described. Specifically: what is the common attitude of the

Christians of the first generation. To reject political authority (not

merely the’ ‘worship” demanded of Caesar) immediately leads to the

refusal, for example, of military service. Paul’s verses seem to me a

reaction against the extremist of the anti-political position, against

an-arché. Paul says “Don’t exaggerate, don’t take refusal to extremes.

For authority ultimately comes from God who has reduced the magistrate

to the role of servant, even if the magistrate continues the claim as

master.”

The good in society. Paul is saying. is certainly not God’s word. All

the same, it is not negligible.... and it is guaranteed by the Judge.

Consequently, these words from Paul do lot seem’ to me to offer a basis

for’ ‘a universal theology of political power” granted them in the

history of the Church. Rather, these texts seem to be warning against

the excesses of Christian freedom concerning political power. The

Christian, Paul is saying, does not seek the suppression of all power in

all societies-granted the Christian is free, independent and critical of

political power. The Christian must always proclaim the limited duty of

political power-never accepting it as a divine institution, but also

never judging it, as was done in Paul’s lime, as solely the work of the

devil! Granted that his words are in the context of a specific situation

(Christians in Rome in the first century), Paul gives us an orientation

about the ethics of freedom which remains valid, but not as a

theological foundation of political power. Specifically, we know there

was in the Christian congregations rejection of military or any service

to the Empire. It seems to me important that Paul does not mention this

opposition in these texts to the Christians in Rome when he writes about

political authority. Instead, he grants that Caesar (the magistrate)

holds the sword. But he refuses to say that Christians must or as

Christians are able to hold the sword. To me, this means that the

obedience Paul recommends to political authorities does not go so far as

bearing the sword of the magistrate. That is, Paul accepts the general

opinion of the Church.

Moreover, to this interpretation of Paul in Romans Thirteen. we must add

the reminders which K. Barth and F.J. Leenhardt have offered. The

notorious verses of Romans 13 must be read in the context of the letter

of Paul to the Christians in Rome. That is, in chapter twelve, Paul

speaks of love, and gives in succession a number of applications. He

closes the chapter speaking of love for one’s enemies (if your enemy is

hungry, feed him, etc.,,) and immediately after the seven verses on

authorities that open chapter thirteen, Paul returns again to the theme

of love, showing how love contains all the commandments. Then he

digresses about the end of time (13: 11–14) and returns to love in

chapter fourteen when he speaks of tolerance of the weak. That is, the

verses on authorities are included in his teaching on love. I would go

so far as to summarize them this way: “Love your enemies. Naturally, we

all believe that the authorities are our enemies, however, we must also

love them.” But as in each case that he studies (the Church, joy,

enemies. the law, the weak in faith, etc.) he gives a specific reason

for this love of the other, he does the same thing for the authorities

and it is in this perspective that he writes the famous’ ‘there is no

authority except from God.” Incidentally, Paul’s negative formulation

should be stressed, and not the formulation which has later been given:

omnis potestas a Deo (all power comes from God) which seems to express a

principle I Paul is not expressing a principle. Therefore, this text, in

my opinion, should be reduced to what it is. that is, not the last word

on the question of political authority. but an attempt to apply love in

a Christian setting in which the authorities were hated.

III

Thus what one can draw from both the New and the Old Testaments is a

fundamental challenge wall political authority. There is no legitimate

political authority’ as such. Political authority and organization are

necessities of social life but nothing more than necessities. They are

constantly tempted to take the place of God, for the magistrate or king

infallibly regards themselves as authority per se. This power must be

contested, denied and constantly challenged. It becomes acceptable only

when it stays within its humble status, when it is weak, when it serves

the good (which is extremely rare’) and truly transforms itself into the

servant of humanity (since it is already the servant of God!). But the

customary judgment that .the State is legitimate only when it is not

tyrannical, unjust, violent, etc. is thereby reversed. In reality the

State is illegitimate and must be destroyed unless it is the servant of

all-and truly so, not just as a rhetorical image! — and effectively

protect the good of all.

In this brief essay, I cannot run through the evidence that documents

the complete reversal of the biblical testimony by the Church in

history. Anyway, that’s wellknown. That aside, the fact is that the

characteristic biblical teaching has never disappeared in the Church,

and this can be documented. res. the Church, transformed into a Power,

taught the contrary. But throughout the history of the Church movements

have appeared that we ought to realize as anarchistic because, beginning

with the anchorites and up to Tolstoy and Berdyaev, they have reaffirmed

the impossibility of the State in a variety of ways. No doubt these

movements seemed bizarre and were considered so especially by the

Church. But they all witnessed to a profound truth about Christianity

(sometimes by heresies exacerbated by the Church’s opposition): as

anarchists they were not the capricious protestors against this and that

specific authority or this and that particular political corruption.

Rather, they were the representatives of the reaching and even of the

word of God.

Berdyaev seems to have been the last (On The Slavery and the Freedom of

Man, 1938; The Realm of the Spirit and the Realm of Caesar, 1946) to

show the incompatibility between the Gospel and the Scale. He

demonstrates the opposition between the ethics of the Gospel and the

ethics of the State’s power: when it is a choice between serving the

State or refusing it, then the State proclaims an ethics that is clearly

contrary to the Gospel. Berdyaev shows the opposition between

responsibility (the center of the Christian life in the world) and

power. He underlines the corruption provoked by political power. He

accepts the wel1known formula: “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts

absolutely.” The State’s salvation and prosperity does not represent the

collective and stil1 less humanity’s salvation and prosperity-such an

identification is an abominable falsehood. Instead, the State’s

prosperity always implies the death of innocents. “The law of the State

is that in “order to save the State even the innocent must be

sacrificed....The death of a single man from among the least of men is

an event more important and more tragic than the death of a State or an

Empire. It is unlikely that God notices the death of the greatest

kingdoms, but the death of one man does not escape him.... “ So

Berdyaev.

The connections between Church and State are one form of the relation of

Christ’s spirit to Caesar. But Jesus Christ has put us against the wall

and we must choose, not try co be reasonable, or conciliate! The Church

time and again has committed treason in relation to the State. Becoming

partner to the State it has turned the State into another Church.

Christianity’s sin in history is to have recognized and accepted the

State, no matter what form that State took and no matter who the

incumbent authority. “Recognition of the divine authority of the king is

transformed into recognition of the divine authority of the people,

later into the authority of the proletariat. Sovereignty and the divine

character of power exist in equality!” “It is the sovereignty of the

State that must be denied.” So Berdyaev.

I have written more than once that there is no fixed Christian position

on political power. In reality, the sale political Christian position

conforms to Revelation: the negation of power, the total, radical

refusal to accept its existence, and the fundamental contesting of

whatever form it takes. And I do not say this because of an orientation

towards a kind of Spiritualism, or an ignorance of politics, an

apoliticism. Certainly notion the contrary. As a Christian one must

participate in the world of politics and of action. But one must do so

to reject it, to confront it with the conscientious and well-founded

refusal that alone can put into question, or even prevent, the unchecked

growth of power. Thus Christians cannot help but be only on the side of

anarchists.

But then, do Christian~bring something peculiar to this partnership?

Something specific? Are Christians like the others, or do they-like the

anarchists-have a particular service to render? In effect, it seems to

me that Christians have an important role to play here, on three

different levels. First of all, anarchists live in illusion because they

think it is possible to effectively abolish authority and to eliminate

successfully all the sources of power. They fight to win, to prevail.

Christians should be more realistic. We live in a world which has always

been subjugated by power in one way or another. I know quite well that

this is not a sufficient argument. One can always begin a new epoch, it

is not necessary to believe that what has always been will always be.

Right. But it is a leap into the unknown. We can no longer believe today

the absolute article of the anarchist creed of the past: the

inevitability of progress. There is no necessary movement from an

inferior to a superior form of society. Nowhere is anarchism, the

society of the free, guaranteed. There is every chance that it will

never be established. But then the anarchist, when told this, Stops in

discouragement and says, “Well, then what’s the use?” This is the point

the Christian should intervene. When measured against the grace of God,

all human action is strictly relative. Nevertheless, humans must act-not

for absolute success (which can only occur in the Kingdom of God) but

because love expresses itself in the relative. “If you have been

faithful in the small things, I shall give you the large ones. “ That is

the promise given to us.

Bur one must also understand that the love of man and woman, for example

does not reside in the grand, spectacular, ceremonial declarations. or

in the magnificent gestures, or in the erotic paroxysms, but rather in

the thousands of humble signs of concern for the other that

quintessentially express the truth that thou counts for more than I.

Therefore, we must not be discouraged if our anarchist affirmations do

not lead to the anarchist society, do not upset society, do not destroy

all structures. And that too would be a manifestation of power which

could only lead to a very specific restructuring of the authority of

power.

What does all this mean? Simply this: political authority in its essence

tends to grow indefinitely. It has no reason at all to limit itself. No

constitution, no ethics, can prevent political power from becoming

totalitarian. It must encounter, outside itself, a radical negation

based on the opposition of those intending neither to conquer authority

(and so undertake political activity) nor to exercise it for the good of

others (and so be politics). It must be those representing an

intransigent moral conscience and an effective force of opposition. The

permanent struggle of this group-which is not a class, not organized in

advance, not a sociological entity-is itself the Struggle for the

freedom of others. There is freedom only with the winning of freedom. No

authority can grant freedom to us. Challenging power is the only means

to bring about the realization of freedom. Freedom exists only to the

extent that this rejection of power is strong enough, and to the extent

one does not allow oneself to be seduced by the idea that surely freedom

will come tomorrow if... No. There is No Tomorrow. Freedom exists Today

or never. It exists when we shake an edifice, produce a fissure, a gap

in the structure where for one moment we can find our always menaced

freedom. But to obtain even a small amount of free play in the interior

of the system one must manifest total and radical rejection. Every

concession to power permits the totality of power to rush in. That is

why the anarchistic position is conceivable. It maintains this free play

which permits freedom. Bur we cannot delude ourselves with the vain hope

of completely destroying this power and of reconstructing an ideal and

fraternal society .... the day after tomorrow!

I already know the anarchist’s disillusioned words, “So that’s all it

is! Only that.” Yes! “That’s all.” That is to say that, today, by our

refusal, we will not permit the crack to be totally refilled so that we

can still breathe free air. It is the passage from the anarchists

disdainful “only that” to the “that’s all” full of hope which the

Christian should allow the anarchist to realize.

There is a second role Christians can play at the anarchists’ side. For

most anarchists, people are by nature good and are corrupted only by

society or rather by power. If (here be criminals, it is the State’s

fault. It would seem necessary to believe in this original goodness of

humanity in order to have hopes of installing an anarchist society. We

must spontaneously act for the good of all, we must not seek to encroach

on the territory or freedom of our neighbor, we must discipline our

passions and our fury, we must be willing to work voluntarily for the

collective, we must not disturb the peace ... otherwise anarchy would be

what it is accused of being: simply a disorder, a frightful war of

individuals. As far as I know, Bakunin is the only anarchist who had the

courage to pose the hypothesis that we are evil, and he drew from it

consequences that are critical to his plan for the organization of

society.

But one must take a further step. One must admit that not only can there

be people occasionally who are nor able to live in anarchy, but, on the

contrary, that we are normally unable to do so. One must stare from this

reality, and here Christians should be the most realistic. It is not

power that leads the subject to wickedness. It is ourselves who want to

be slaves and thus rid ourselves of the difficulty of living and turn to

authority. In so doing we encounter the appetite for power in the other.

The desire to abandon oneself and the will to power are exact

corollaries. It is in this setting of reality that anarchism should be

proclaimed. Again it is their word of hope: “nevertheless, in spite of”

“In spite of this reality about people, we want to destroy power.” Here

is the Christian hope in politics.

Assuredly this is not sufficient. That is, when face to face with the

evil which is in us-not the moral transgressions of disobeying current

morality, but the evil which is a sickness Unto death and which leads us

to be slave and tyrant-there are only two options. Either one organizes

a repressive system which puts everyone in place, which establishes

patterns and norms of behavior, which punishes anyone who oversteps the

boundary of the small amount of freedom doled out. (That is, the

justification for the power of the State.) Or, one works to transform

humanity-the Christian would say conversion-in such a way that renders

us able to live with others and serve others as an expression of

freedom. That is the expression of Christian love, of the love of God

for us manifested in Jesus Christ.

Anarchists have clearly seen the necessity for such a transformation.

They hoped to achieve it through education, through pedagogy, but that

is clearly not enough. The anarcho-syndcalists hoped to achieve it

through battle: the human qualities of virtue, courage, solidarity and

loyalty are forged in combat against authority-a battle to be waged with

the weapons of truth, justice, authenticity (and I would easily add

non-violence). Without these weapons one perverts the fighter and fails

to prepare him to enter the anarchist fraternity.

Yes. But there is need for a more profound motivation. These two

pedagological methods need to root themselves in a more fundamental

truth. A more essential conversion is needed, from which all the rest

becomes possible, and which permits us to be courageous despite all the

setbacks.

This is precisely where the work of the Gospel is found for the

anarchists: the Gospel’s witness that there is a possibility for

freedom-just where the most amorphous, servile of us, or the most

tyrannical, victorious of us-seem to be immune to any change of any

kind. For we too, slave and tyrant, are loved by God in Jesus Christ and

are not outside the possibility of living in the truth God -discloses

before us. I believe that this contribution of the Christian faith is

essential to anarchism, for it reveals a unity in practice along with a

conformation in theory.