Template:Beloved Anarchist

The Beloved Anarchist

Jesus told his apostles to not be like the "archist" governments of the gentiles who exercise authority but call themselves benefactors. They were to provide government benefits by freewill offerings through charity not force like the unrighteous people do.

When I first heard of Christian Anarchism, I thought it was an oxymoron. Can you be a Christian and an anarchist?

The problem with this combination of ideas is that most people do not understand what “anarchism”, as a word describing an idea, is really all about.

Another problem is that most people do not know what being a Christian meant in the fist centuries or should mean to us today.

The early Church was doing things much differently than the Modern Christians. They would not pray to the State Benefactors who exercised authority one over the other nor pray to the Fathers of the earth for their daily bread or any of the Benefits offered by that world.

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David Friedman: A Consequentialist Theory of Anarcho-Capitalism ~ 1 hr 47 min

The Modern Christians also do not fully understand the original definition of that word Religion and therefore Pure Religion. Nor do the understand the Christian conflict with governments like Rome. They were not to be a part of that world. The truth is, the early Christian was accused of being an anarchist and even an atheist, because Jesus was their Beloved Anarchist.

Jesus' comments and directives about not exercising authority one over the other, and not being like the Benefactors of the world who were rulers, made Him an anarchist.

Since He was in agreement with Moses and Elias who sought to set men free from the bondage of Egypt and the rule of oppressive kings, they were all some sort of anarchist. Also their positions on treasuries and central banks were another clue to their anarchist policies. The prophecies and protocols were evidence that they were to return every man to his family and possessions as a matter of policy and the parable about the talents suggests that that they were Capitalists as well.

If Moses and Elias and Jesus were all anarchists then what were the early Christians and the early Church really doing according to the directives of Christ and His truth which was supposed to set men free?

Certainly there are anarchists who want chaos. And they may wish to do evil. But the same is true of some so-called democracies and other forms of government.

According to Wikipedia, “Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society.”

While that might be a legitimate definition, it is misleading. All the power of the state originates in the people. All the potestas and imperium exercised by the State was originally with the individual in the state of nature before any social compact.

With that in mind, many choose to not depend upon the corporate State as an institution. They do not want to depend upon its power to provide, because that power is based on taking choice away from their neighbors. To take the benefits of the State is to consent to the power of the State to rule over their neighbors and even themselves.

This is usually excused because people covet benefits that are provided at the expense of their neighbor. These benefits are called the wages of unrighteousness. That is not loving your neighbor as yourself. Anarchists seek to to be in a natural state of liberty and to live as if the State does not exist.

They can only do that if they take back their personal responsibility and voluntarily do what many people ask the corporate State to do. They have to voluntarily form a Living Network of free assemblies that provides the services of the State without force.

Ancient Anarchists

Zeno taught that in the Utopian anarchy "only the virtuous can be regarded as true citizens".

Anthropologists agree that for the most part human society was without a separate class of established authority or formal political institutions throughout history. This was not because the idea of rulers in society had not evolved to a higher state of collective governance as much as they had not devolved to a greater state of sin.

Most of what we see as government today is the evolution of Cain who ruled over his brother with brute force. Nimrod, Pharaoh and Caesar may have leaned on the institution of a social compact through the application for benefits like free bread and social welfare but ultimately their authority relies on force.

It was not only Christ and John the Baptist who preached against praying to these fathers of the earth and benefactors who exercised authority but others throughout history tried to teach the people how to live without rulers.

Lao Zi (Lao Tzu) took an "anti-polity" position with a philosophy of "non-rule". Many Taoists took similar positions which we see in the Zhuang Zhou and Tao Te Ching promoting an anarchist lifestyle. Taoism, which developed in Ancient China, has been embraced by some anarchists as a source of anarchistic attitudes.

Before 400 AD, Pao Ching-yen argued that there should be neither lords nor subjects. But the words "anarchia" and "anarchos", both meaning "without ruler", originated with the Ancient Greece.

The term can be traced back to Homer's Iliad which is believed to originate as a story late 8th or early 7th century B.C. and Herodotus's Histories from the fifth century B.C.. As a political term it appears in Aeschylus play Seven Against Thebes which was written in 467 B.C..

The Cynics Diogenes of Sinope was born in 404 B.C. and Crates of Thebes born in 365 B.C. were both advocates anarchism. But it was Zeno of Citium (333 – 264 BC), the Stoic, and Aristippus, who said that "the wise should not give up their liberty to the state" who write of the anarchial utopian society and "repudiated the omnipotence of the state, its intervention and regimentation, and proclaimed the sovereignty of the moral law of the individual".

Zeno's Republic was opposed to the state-Utopia of Plato's Republic. Zeno as a stoic argued that his Republic could only exist among those who would be faithful to the natural moral law of the individual and "only the virtuous can be regarded as true citizens".

Leaders without Rulers

To suggest that the Greek word for anarchy (anarchía) literally means “lack of a leader” is misleading.

The word leader is defined as a “person or thing that leads”; “a guiding or directing head.” A leader does not necessarily have the power to order people to do anything. They merely take the lead. They step out first and everyone else must choose to follow or not follow. We may and should, as we see in the above definition, distinguish between a leader as a guide and rulers as a directing head.

The Greek word archon in the Bible is commonly translated "ruler" with a completely different Greek word translated leader and guide.

A leader may only be a guide - who is typically passionate for their cause and has experience - with whom one identifies and follows through voluntary participation or association. So an anarchy is not absent of leaders, but absent of rulers.

A ruler (archon) is clearly one who forcibly commands others and/or is at or near the top of a bureaucracy or hierarchical system that controls society with an exercising authority.

The Bible translates the Greek word hodegos as leader or guide. This Greek word is related to the idea of a journey. The leader leads on a journey, and he follows the way which seems right. What if the leader journeys on a path leading to folly?

If men can use you like Merchandise, it is usually because you asked them to rule someone else for your benefit. Then in taking that benefit, you yourself became snared or trapped under their authority.

When you make application to men who exercise authority one over the other thinking they are your Benefactor, you give them power that will come back to bite you. That is because, by doing so, you have chosen to take a bite out of one another for personal gain as if you all had One purse - as if Socialism is benevolent in its nature. Now, this is the way followed by leaders (hodegos) of a world (kosmos), who, like Nimrod, offer something else instead of the way leading to heaven (ouranos).

They lead you on a socialist journey to become merchandise under leadership of rulers (archos) who exercise authority one over the other.

The Greek word archon is translated ruler 22 times, prince 11, chief twice and magistrate and chief ruler once each. It means “a ruler, commander, chief.” The ancient Greek anarchia (ἀναρχία) does not mean the "absence of a leader", but it means the absence of “a ruler, commander, chief.” In an anarchy, there may be many leaders but no “rulers, commanders, and chiefs.”

Is that not the kind of government described by Jesus to his faithful disciples at their appointment to His government?

Was Christ actually setting His people free in spirit and in truth?

The Asylum State

Can there be a State which is also an anarchy?

There are at least two definitions of the word state.

The first is the particular condition that someone or something is in at a specific time.

And the second is a nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government.

The phrase "organized political community under one government" can mean many different things depending on which form of government you are talking about since there are many forms of government.

To suggest that a “stateless society” means there is no government, would not do the history of man justice. To promote a stateless society might simply mean there is no desire for a centralized corporate state ruling over the people by coercive means.

But the term stateless society would not mean there are no leaders among the people.

It is possible that the term stateless is a misnomer. It may mean the nature or status of those leaders differs from a ruler or lawmaker state. If the leaders are truly titular as they are in a pure republic then those that perform the duties of government have no actual power to exercise authority over the people. In truth they are to only serve, not rule over the people.

There are a number of characteristics that might be attributed to such a State in the sense of a political community, which can be defined as one whose members have a real stake in political institutions and, for that reason, subject themselves to the decisions of those institutions.[1]

By that definition no one can "subject themselves to the decisions of those institutions" and be free. By that definition someone would be exercising authority one over the other. The people could not be free under such a state. The only way to have both a political community and a truly free people is that the State is separate from the people.