Chapter 2 - The Anarchism Implied in Jesus’ Other Teachings and Example

Christian anarchists develop their critique of the state primarily from their interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount, in particular the verses counselling non-resistance, but they see the rest of the New Testament as further confirming this anarchist position. Not only in the Sermon did Jesus preach non-resistance, writes Tolstoy, “but throughout his life and in his death he practised as he preached.”[1] Christian anarchists point to several New Testament passages to prove this. Some even read segments of the Old Testament as validating their perspective: for a contributor to A Pinch of Salt, the whole Bible thus “puts continually in question all coercive exercise of human authority.”[2]

The aim of this Chapter is to summarise Christian anarchists’ interpretations of Bible passages other than the Sermon on the Mount. However, only those passages which enough Christian anarchists make substantial comments on can be included here - this will anyway cover the overwhelming majority of Christian anarchist commentaries on Bible passages. Limited space again also makes it impossible to contrast their exegeses to more conventional ones. By and large, they ignore traditional commentaries anyway - the next Chapter explains why. Note also that two Gospel passages are deliberately left aside until Chapter 4: the “render unto Caesar” saying and the related temple tax episode.

The first section below reviews some Christian anarchist comments on the Old Testament, especially the Book of Samuel. The Chapter then unfolds chronologically through Jesus’ life, first highlighting the very political nature of the expectations surrounding Jesus’ ministry, then discussing Jesus’ third temptation in the wilderness, then the Christian anarchist view on exorcisms and other miracles performed by Jesus. This is followed by an outline of Jesus’ repeated teaching on forgiving, not judging, and being a servant to one another. His allegedly violent cleansing of the temple comes next, followed by his arrest, trial, crucifixion and resurrection. Due to the interesting comments offered on it by Christian anarchists, a short section also reports their take on the Book of Revelation, and explains why other part of the New Testament are left aside for now. The Chapter then concludes by summarising Christian anarchists’ thoughts on the Gospel passages where Jesus is sometimes alleged to have legitimised violence.

2.1 - The Old Testament

Few Christian anarchists comment a great deal on the Old Testament, perhaps because they are often not sure what to make of much of it. Yoder remarks that “the picture of the God of the ancient Israelites as a God of war has been an occasion for caricature and embarrassment for Christians.”[3] This God of war is particularly awkward for Christian anarchists given their insistence on non-resistance to evil.

Tolstoy is predictably the least ambiguous about his dislike for the Old Testament. Aylmer Maude explains that “he regarded it as religious literature of varying quality, containing much that is excellent and some of the best literary art the world has produced, but much also that is crude, primitive, and immoral.”[4] Yoder therefore classes Tolstoy in the category of Christians who deal with the Old Testament by setting it aside “on the grounds of a ‘new dispensation’ after the model of Jesus’ repeated ‘but I say to you’ in Matthew 5” (as Chapter 1 explains).[5]

That categorisation applies to most Christian anarchists: their typical stance with respect to the Old Testament is to emphasise that it was imperfect, that God’s revelation is anyway fulfilled in the teachings of Jesus, and that therefore a Christian ought to derive practical guidance for life first and foremost (if not solely) from the New Testament. Nevertheless, Christian anarchists do offer a few scattered comments on the Old Testament. By far the most elaborate commentaries focus on the first book of Samuel.

2.1.1 - 1 Samuel 8

Christian anarchists claim that up until Samuel, the Israelites had no king, no central government, but what Andrews calls a “decentralized federation of tribes.”[6] Ellul explains that “When an important decision had to be made, with ritual sacrifices and prayers for divine inspiration, a popular assembly was held and this had the last word.”[7] Ultimately, however, God alone was Israel’s king and lawmaker, “Israel’s head.”[8] This ultimately theocratic form of government was precisely “one of the most significant differences from [the Israelites’] pagan neighbours,” comments Michael Tennant.[9] According to Chelčický, the Israelites thus “lived safely under the protection of God and His laws.”[10] The Law dictated by God to Moses was seen as “good and trustworthy,” remarks Stephen Carson, and since it left out prisons, taxes, and - crucially - executive and legislative bodies, this Mosaic political system was basically a form of anarchy.[11] Tennant for his part concedes that the Mosaic structure can be seen as “a form of government, but,” he insists, “it was not an independent institution which claims a monopoly on violence,”[12] and it was “highly decentralized.”[13]

If Israel was struck by disasters like successive military defeats, famine or idolatry, and especially plunder by foreign raiders, then a judge would exceptionally be appointed to restore order. “A judge,” Heppenstall however maintains, “was someone who offered advice, who took on a priest ly role during ritual sacrifices, who had a charismatic leaning, and was moved by the Spirit to act or speak in a certain way, felt to be the will of God, but who never accepted the title of king, because all power is God’s.”[14] Judges were considered to have a special relationship with God and were therefore expected to interpret God’s will for the community. Moreover, Ellul notes that “Apparently, when the ‘judges’ had played their part they effaced themselves and rejoined the people.”[15] Judges therefore possessed only a limited form of authority.[16]

The Israelites, however, flirted with the idolatrous idea of appointing a human king. The first but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to be ruled by a king took place after Gideon was judge, but only Tennant articulates a nonetheless convincing anarchist commentary on it.[17] The more important attempt, in that it successfully established Israel’s dynasty of kings, took place under Samuel’s spell as judge. The Bible says that Samuel was old and had been a judge for many years when the elders of Israel approached him and asked him for a king in order “to be like other nations”[18] - which as Tennant remarks, “was, of course, precisely what God did not want them to be.”[19] Ellul writes that in the context of their continuing war with the Philistines, the Israelites “also thought that a king would be a better military leader.”[20] Scripture however tells of Samuel being displeased at this demand and praying to the Lord, who then says to Samuel: “they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.”[21]

That passage is very revealing to Christian anarchists. For a start, Carson remarks that “Given our contemporary faith in the State, you would think that G-d [...] would praise the Israelites for realizing they needed a ruler.”[22] Instead, however, his answer through Samuel “is a sobering reminder of how deeply heretical our modern faith in the State is.”[23] As Eller explains, God’s answer makes it clear that “the people’s demand for worldly government amounts to a rejection of God and his government.”[24] Chelčický agrees: “In asking for a temporal ruler, the Jews scorned God and His law.”[25] They thus “committed a grievous sin,” says Carson, through this “tremendous lack of faith in G-d.”[26]

Thus Israel’s monarchy, for Craig, was established as a result of “a desire to be like the demonic States around Israel, a rejection of the Lord’s priestly calling to be a holy nation, and a rejection of God’s Law as given to the Patriarchs.”[27] The more general conclusion from this passage, according to Craig, is that “The movement towards centralization of power under political mediators is a rejection of God.”[28] Hence for Chelčický and indeed all Christian anarchists, “The state has its origin in man’s pride and rebellion against God.”[29]

Andrews reckons that Israel had been a society based on trust in God’s guidance, “But when it came to the crunch, they abandoned the ‘politics of trust’ in God and embraced the ‘politics of security’ in a king, an army, and a military-industrial complex.”[30] Ellul agrees that “political power rests on distrust [...] of God.”[31] The Israelites’ demand for a king exposes their loss of trust in God. God’s reply to Samuel indeed indicates that the Israelites’ request is a form of idolatry, of serving other gods (more on this below).[32]

God then asks Samuel to warn them of the consequences: the king will take their sons as soldiers, their daughters as cooks, their servants as slaves, their land and sheep as treasures, and they will regret their decision to have a king - but it will be too late. For Christian anarchists, God is clearly warning the Israelites of the likely abuses of power which would result from their decision to opt for human government. Ellul even reads God’s warning to imply that “political power is always dictatorial, excessive, and unjust.”[33] Carson does not make exactly the same generalisation, but still notes that “the Bible makes it absolutely clear that the change from Mosaic anarchy to what by today’s standards would be ‘limited government’ will have terrible consequences.”[34]

Nonetheless, God is also willing to grant the Israelites their wish. According to Alexis-Manners, this “provides a clue to the character of God and God’s leadership.”[35] God always allows the Israelites to “act on their desire” even though he disagrees.[36] God even selects Israel’s first two kings to show that “He will try to work with us through the system we choose,” says Carson.[37] Still, Carson adds, “that does not constitute a ringing endorsement of the State as the best system of government.”[38] For Eller, even though God does not approve of human government, he accepts or tolerates it.[39] This confirms what is said in the Introduction about God not being an absolute Master. For Andrews, God is thus “committed to democracy - as opposed to autocracy.”[40]

Despite Samuel’s warning, however, the Israelites insist they want a king, and Saul becomes king. “Thus did Israel destroy its unique character,” comments Tennant, “by preferring an idol, in the form of a king, to the one true God who had heretofore ruled over them.”[41] Elliott observes that “From this point on, the quest for political aggrandisement becomes an integral part of the new national consciousness.”[42] Moreover, for Christian anarchists, God’s warning about the consequences of this decision is exemplified by the kings who follow, including David and Solomon: to quote Myers, “The Davidic tradition of kingship [...] resulted only in the realization of Samuel’s worst fears: militarism, economic control, and slavery.”[43]

Heppenstall furthermore notes that “as the story goes, it is not the fault of [the king] that kingship [is] a disaster,” but “the fault of the people, in their gross lack of faith in God in the first place.”[44] The establishment of political power and all its resulting abuses is a result of the people’s forsaking of God and desire to conform to and imitate what is done among pagan nations. The story of 1 Samuel 8 therefore shows that monarchy “was founded in Israel [...] in direct opposition to the will of God,” and out of idolatry.[45] For Christian anarchists, the obvious conclusion is that “rejection of the state [...] is a necessary part of declaring allegiance to God,” a theme that is returned to throughout this book.[46]

2.1.2 - Other Old Testament passages

Apart from a few brief and passing comments, Christian anarchists have comparatively very little to say about the political implications of other passages from the Old Testament - with two notable exceptions. One such exception is Ellul. He claims that the passages from the Old Testament that “tell how God opposed his people’s use of ‘normal’ means of settling conflicts [...] and bade them put their trust in” him are “innumerable.”[47] Moreover, Ellul devoted entire books to demonstrate the implications of specific sections of the Old Testament for political questions. However, these studies are not directly relevant to this book in that they do not contribute much to Ellul’s Christian anarchism, which he develops fully almost only in Anarchy and Christianity.

The other - less significant - exception is Craig, whose “Ninety-Five Theses” do make plenty of references to Old Testament texts to validate his anarchist stance; but the “theses” themselves are very short and seem to assume that their obviousness is automatically confirmed by the cited passages. For example, Craig simply asserts that there were no states in the Garden of Eden.[48] Likewise, he notes that Nimrod, who “left the Godly Family to form a ‘State,’” has a name that means “let us rebel” - which confirms the Christian anarchist take on Samuel.[49] Craig cites plenty of passages in that manner, but he does not really engage with them in any real depth.

Other Christian anarchists have even less to say on the Old Testament before Samuel and the kings. One example of a cursory remark is Chelčický’s observation that civil authority “began with Cain’s lust for power when he built the first city,” an episode which Ellul elaborates in some detail.[50] Jason Barr offers a few interesting reflections on Genesis and Ecclesiastes.[51] On the Exodus, a theme so important to liberation theology, Christian anarchists note only very briefly that, in the story, God sets his people free by throwing off the king and calling them towards a new and much more anarchist type of community - they do not echo liberation theologians in elaborating the metaphor as a paradigm of humanity’s current condition.[52] Heppenstall also make a couple of passing comments on Leviticus, as Mumford does on Deuteronomy - but again, they do not develop any comprehensive exegesis.[53] Similarly, Carson’s helpful contribution is limited to his comments on Mosaic Law, Samuel and Israel’s kings.[54]

The only Old Testament theme which several Christian anarchists consider in a little more depth and from an anarchist perspective ties into the preceding interpretation of Samuel, and concerns the prophets: they argue that “the prophetic tradition was born from the oppression resulting from monarchical rule.”[55] In Ellul’s words, “for every king there was a prophet [who] was most often a severe critic of royal acts.”[56] For Christian anarchists, the many famous prophets of the Old Testament - as well as some of the psalms - were voicing God’s rebuke to the kings for their abuses of political power and for their failure to care for Israel’s needy, thus reminding the people not to trust these human leaders. The prophets each express God’s disapproval of a society which has rejected him.

David Mumford also notes that through “the last of the major prophets,” Ezekiel, God’s response to the behaviour of Israel’s ruling class was “not to try to replace one ruling class with another but to announce that a time will come when His divine kingship will be resumed.”[57] For Christians, of course, this divine kingship is resumed through Jesus Christ - a point which is further discussed later in this Chapter, as well as in the Conclusion.

Ellul makes a few more observations on Israel’s “good” and “bad” kings,[58] on the Bible’s depiction of government of a foreign people,[59] and on the end of the Jewish monarchy.[60] Heppenstall also offers passing observations on monarchy after the exile,[61] and Yoder reads Chronicles in a way that resonates with the Christian anarchist perspective.[62]

All in all, therefore, Christian anarchists’ interpretation of the Old Testament is dominated by their understanding of 1 Samuel 8 and its implications for the rest of Jewish history up to Jesus. In the end, Ellul concludes that according to the Old Testament, “Political power never has any value in itself. On the contrary, Scripture radically repudiates, challenges, and condemns it whenever it claims to exist as political power rather than as a sign. [...] We can therefore conclude that the Old Testament never in any way validates any political power.”[63] In any case and having said that, it is almost only on the New Testament that Christian anarchists ground their understanding of the anarchist consequences of Jesus’ message.

2.2 - Expectations of a political messiah

When it comes to the New Testament, Christian anarchists point out that even before he began to preach, Jesus was expected to be a very political kind of messiah. For a start, according to Yoder, John the Baptist’s ministry - which prepares the way for Jesus’ - “had a pronounced political character.”[64] John was imprisoned by Herod Antipas because of the fear that he might trigger a political insurrection. That is to say, it was precisely the politically revolutionary character of John’s proclamations that led to him being silenced.

Christian anarchists also cite Mary’s Magnificat as further evidence of political expectations.[65] In it, Yoder argues, “we are being told that the one whose birth is now being announced is to be an agent of radical social change.”[66] Jesus, he continues, is expected to “break the bondage of his people.”[67] Charley Earp reads it as the expectation of a new Exodus, this time from Rome.[68] José Porfirio Miranda adds that the liberation is not just from historical Rome, but from “every class of rulers.”[69] Heppenstall also notes that “Mary’s words do not talk about a restoration of the monarchy,” which some factions expected the coming messiah to be about, but “they talk about the bringing down of the mighty and the proud wherever they are.”[70] There is already a hint that the kingdom which Jesus will proclaim will not take the familiar hierarchic form of a state.

Further evidence of the politically revolutionary character of Jesus’ expected ministry comes from the events around his birth. Both Alexis-Baker and Redford point out that for Herod Antipas to slaughter all the children aged two and younger in the hope of killing Jesus, he must have considered him a threat to the political structure.[71]

Jesus himself further confirms these messianic expectations when he proclaims the beginning of his ministry in the Nazareth synagogue.[72] For Andrews, the passage which Jesus quotes from Isaiah, about releasing the captives and setting the oppressed free, is a “heartfelt, anarchistic manifesto” which Jesus thereby adopts as “his mission in life.”[73] Yoder agrees that Isaiah’s language is political, that the messianic expectations are deliberately expressed in social and political terms, and that Jesus’ proclamation that this is “fulfilled” announces the immediate implementation of a new social and political restructuring of relations.[74]

Hence for Christian anarchists, the messianic expectations surrounding the coming of Jesus have strong political overtones. The messiah is expected to take on Roman and Jewish state authorities and present a new model of social and political relations to replace them. Political subversion is expected, as is a radically different form of political constitution.

2.3 - Jesus’ third temptation in the wilderness

Just before he announces the beginning of his ministry, Jesus spends forty days in the wilderness, where he is tempted three times by Satan.[75] Although Elliott and Yoder stress the political significance of all three of these temptations,[76] most Christian anarchists focus on the third (in Matthew, that is, which corresponds to the second temptation in Luke). This third temptation consist in this: Satan shows Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them,” and offers to give them to him, provided he will “fall down and worship” him.[77]

Christian anarchists begin by noting that Satan’s offer of the “kingdoms of the world” must be valid for the episode to qualify as a bona fide temptation - which is what the text describes it to be. Some commentators have suggested that Satan must be lying about his authority over the world’s kingdoms (authority which Satan implies in Matthew but claims explicitly in Luke), but Christian anarchists disagree. Jesus, they note, does not dispute Satan’s claim: he does not call him a liar or call his bluff, so he seems to accept that Satan does indeed control the kingdoms of the world. Satan is not lying; his offer is genuine.

Hence for Christian anarchists, in Ellul’s words, “according to these texts all powers, all the power and glory of the kingdoms, all that has to do with politics and political authority, belongs to the devil.”[78] As Redford remarks, if all the kingdoms of the world have indeed been “delivered unto” Satan for him to give “to whomever he wishes,” then “All Earthly, mortal potentates have quite literally made a pact with Satan!”[79] The state derives its power and authority from Satan.

The devil offers all the power of the state to Jesus, but for this, Jesus must “fall down and worship” him. Jesus of course refuses Satan’s offer, because, he says, “it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”[80] Ellul therefore deduces that “a person can exercise political power only if he worships the power of evil.”[81] Ultimately, Alexis-Baker explains, the temptation is “a question of allegiance.”[82] One can follow either Christianity and its implied anarchism, or the state and its implied betrayal of God. “If one chooses the path of God,” she continues, “then the choice must be a complete one. There is no room for allegiance to the state and its claim to legitimacy, demand for obedience, rights to violence and desire for loyalty from its citizens.”[83]

Moreover, what the story also implies is that Jesus was tempted (by Satan) to transform society from above. Damico comments that he “could have chosen the way of domination to lead the people out of their oppressive situation but instead he chose the way of service.”[84] Jesus, she says, “recognizes the evil of an option to command and rule.”[85] Thus Jesus is implicitly distancing himself from the Zealots and their method, a contemporary group of Jewish rebels who wanted to overthrow Roman rule in Palestine by taking power. Jesus rejects this temptation, and is thereby indicating that “Political power is incompatible with God’s earthly promise and it must be rejected.”[86]

This absolutely fundamental question of how to change society is discussed in Chapters 4 and 5. The point to note here is that Christian anarchists read the third temptation of Jesus as a renunciation by Jesus of what Crosby calls “all the ordinary means of improvement.”[87] For Elliott, all three temptations are “the account of a person analysing methodologies for mission and action;”[88] and in the third, Jesus rejects the “strategy” and “role” of “world leader.”[89] Jesus thus refuses “the authoritarian role of king,” says a contributor to A Pinch of Salt.[90] Kingship and human government, Ballou writes, are animated by “the old serpent of violence” which “he who would rule must first worship;” but instead of this, Jesus “[chooses] the pain and shame of the cross, in preference to the fame and glory of universal empire on such a condition.”[91] Moreover, later in the Gospel, “when he perceived the determination of the people to proclaim him a king, he promptly placed himself beyond their reach.”[92] Jesus consistently refuses the role of king or political leader as it is commonly understood.

Jesus is also thereby clarifying what his status of messiah is all about. His contemporaries expected the messiah to overthrow political oppressors and restore the Jewish monarchy. In this story, Jesus faces this temptation and rejects it, “perhaps in order to warn [his disciples] about a similar temptation,” says Joachim Jeremias.[93] Andrew Lawrence remarks that “this rejection is echoed later in Jesus’ ministry” when the “real meaning of messianic ‘kingship’” is revealed.[94] That is, shortly before his arrest,

Jesus turns his gaze towards Jerusalem in the expectation, not of triumph as the world understands it, but of rejection and ignominious execution at the hand of the powers. That his lord - that THE Lord - should fail to “lord it over” those who fall under his dominion is more than Peter can bear to hear. It does not compute. Yet his suggestion that “no such thing should ever happen” meets with a rebuke until then reserved for the very Prince of the devils: “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” (Matt. 16:23)

Having slammed the door shut on Peter’s (that is, our) way of thinking, Jesus immediately throws open a window on a new world, a non-violent order of things in which the logic of earthly triumph does not hold: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny him or herself, take up their cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake shall find it.” (Matt. 16:24-25).[95]

These latter passages are further explained later in this Chapter. What is significant to note here is the important implication of the third temptation: that Jesus rejects the type of political leadership which people were expecting from the messiah. Later, he reinterprets his messianic role in a very different light; but here, Jesus rejects the top-down method of political leadership, and as Eller notes, the identification of political power “as a temptation places him distinctly in ‘anarchy’” over against those who believe some form of human government to be “elected and sponsored by God.”[96]

For Christian anarchists, therefore, Jesus’ third temptation in the wilderness is another example of his rejection of the state, which derives its power and authority from Satan.

2.4 - Exorcisms and miracle healings

Moving on to Jesus’ ministry itself, it is worth noting, in passing, that Christian anarchists (as defined in the Introduction) make almost no comment at all on the various exorcisms and miracle healings which Jesus performs throughout his ministry. The only exceptions are Tolstoy, Pentecost and Myers - and the latter is not even strictly speaking a Christian anarchist, although a radical exegete whose views resonate very strongly with the Christian anarchist position. The only apparent explanation for the general omission of the miracles from Christian anarchist interpretations is that their political significance seems minimal. Yet as Tolstoy but especially Myers show, when interpreted allegorically, they do carry political - albeit not necessarily strictly anarchist - connotations.

Pentecost and especially Tolstoy, however, thoroughly dislike the irrational element of these miracle stories. No reader educated in physics, chemistry and other such sciences, Tolstoy argues, can possibly believe any of the many supernatural miracles of either the Old or New Testament.[97] He thinks that Christ’s miracles were only added later “to confirm men’s faith,” but that today they undermine true faith because they are unnecessary and divert attention from the important moral guidelines of Jesus’ teaching.[98]

Nonetheless, Tolstoy does include some of Jesus’ miracles in his version of the Gospel, but he writes them in a way that makes the Tolstoyan moral interpretation more transparent - blindness, for instance, now only means a lack of understanding - and he still deliberately excludes those miracles for which no such rational interpretation can be formulated. As Maude explains, therefore, “In treating of the Gospel miracles, Tolstóy was interested only in what moral they convey;” he was more interested in the truth they told rather than their physical event.[99] In any case, even if he includes the miracles in his Gospel, he does not really spend any time discussing them or elaborating their anarchist implications.

By contrast, Myers meticulously and convincingly explains the allegorical and political meaning of all the exorcisms and miracle healings of Mark’s Gospel by hearing them in the social and textual context in which they were written. Gospel miracles, he argues, function to subvert the dominant social, political and religious order.[100] For instance, in Capernaum, Jesus exorcises a demon who is pleading on behalf of scribal authorities.[101] He then begins his healing ministry “to restore the social wholeness denied to the sick/impure by this symbolic order.”[102] His healings of a leper and a paralytic are attacks on the purity code and the debt system respectively.[103] The exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac, with all its military imagery alluding to foreign occupation, allegorically amounts to a very political repudiation, a challenge to the powers.[104] In that manner and in considerable detail, Myers emphasises the political significance of these and other Gospel miracles.

Therefore, although this side of Jesus’ ministry is hardly commented upon by Christian anarchists, its subversive political implications can be demonstrated. Jesus’ exorcisms and miracle healings may not contribute directly to Christian anarchist thought, but they do indirectly shore it up when read following Myers’ exegetical approach.

2.5 - Forgive seventy-seven times

Having discussed the messianic expectations around Jesus’ ministry, his temptations in the wilderness and some of the miracles he performs, the time has come to explore some of the famous sayings uttered by Jesus in the course of his ministry. The next three sections consider, in turn, Jesus’ pronouncements on forgiveness, non-judgement, and service.

Jesus repeatedly preaches forgiveness.[105] When his disciples ask him whether forgiving “seven” times is enough, he pointedly answers that it is not, that they should forgive “seventy-seven” times - as if to say they should never give up forgiving.[106] Why strive so much to forgive again and again? Because for Christian anarchists, only thus can humanity break out of the cycle of violence which was examined in Chapter 1.

Moreover, Andrews writes, “What Jesus says is so important about forgiveness is not that we preach is, but that we practice it.”[107] But that is not what we do, bemoans Hennacy, since “We make retroactive laws and hang our defeated enemies,” since we use the state to avenge and punish.[108] Yet to forgive seventy-seven times, says Hennacy, “means no Caesar at all with his courts, prisons, and war.”[109] Forgiveness means not punishing wrongdoers, but striving to love them, bless them, and, to quote Ballou again, “referring [one’s] cause always unto Him who hath said, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay.’”[110] Hence the forgiveness preached by Jesus undermines the state’s instruments of coercion. Ballou thus considers the Gospel’s repeated passages on forgiveness to be further proof of his radical and strict interpretation of turning the other cheek.

Moreover, he remarks that “Jesus is not speaking of mere envious grudges” when he asks us to forgive, but he “presupposes a real injury done, which, according to the common law, [...] might rightfully be punished.”[111] What are to be forgiven are not trivial faults or torts, but very real and painful injuries. Paul Gonya, one of the Christian preachers whose speeches in the days that followed the horrific terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 are reported by Laurie Johnston, seems to confirm this view. He says: “Let’s face it: Either these spiritual truths we claim to believe work all the time, or they don’t work at all. When Jesus said, ‘Forgive your enemies,’ these are the kind of people he was talking about, not just some guy who cut you off in traffic.”[112] Later on, he writes that it “isn’t about who we blame; it’s about how we heal” - even if the blame is justifiable.[113] Jesus is calling for his followers to forgive precisely those whose offence would justify legitimate retaliation.

Jesus also explains that his disciples should forgive if they want to be forgiven themselves. For Ballou, he “reminds us that we have all sinned against our Father, and are justly punishable at his hands,” and that if we are hoping for God’s grace and mercy, we should exercise it ourselves.[114] “Yet,” he notes, “millions of professing Christians authorize, aid, and abet war, capital punishment, and the whole catalogue of penal injuries. Still they daily pray God to forgive their trespasses as they forgive!”[115] In the Lord’s Prayer, Christians ask to be forgiven as they themselves forgive, yet foolishly they continue to perpetrate punishments and retaliation through the state. If they really sought God’s forgiveness, they would strive to forgive even the worst offences, and they would disentangle themselves from the state’s instruments of retaliation. Pushed to its ultimate logical implications, Jesus’ counsel to forgive further confirms that what follows from Christianity is anarchism.

2.6 - Not judging one another

Further evidence of Jesus’ implied critique of the state comes from his pronouncements on not judging one another, especially the famous passage where he refuses to condemn the adulteress.[116] That story evolves thus: scribes and Pharisees bring to Jesus a woman caught in adultery, claim that according to the Law of Moses she should be stoned, and ask for Jesus’ opinion. Initially, Jesus stoops down and writes on the ground, but when he is again asked for an answer, he says “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her,” and he stoops down and writes on the ground again.[117] Embarrassed by their own sin, the people all walk away, and Jesus addresses the woman and says that as no-one has condemned her, neither does he.

In Hennacy’s definition, Christian anarchism is based precisely upon that answer of Jesus to the Pharisees - as well as upon the Sermon on the Mount.[118] Indeed, the two are connected: “Jesus gave us the method of overcoming evil when he said to the woman caught in sin, ‘He without sin among you first cast a stone at her.’”[119] Yet, he notes, “if you vote for anyone who makes a law [...], or if you vote for the governor or president who appoints the hangman or the jailer - then these men are your servants; they are your arm to throw the stone and you deny Christ.”[120] Christians who are not sinless condemn and stone one another through the long arm of the state. They do the opposite of what Jesus teaches in this passage.

It should be noted that Andrews interprets Jesus’ teaching on judgement, including this passage, in a different way than other Christian anarchists. Unlike them, he claims that “Christ doesn’t actually prohibit making judgements.”[121] For Andrews, Jesus says: “Judge for yourself what is right.”[122] But he warns (in the Sermon passage discussed in Chapter 1): “Do not judge unless you are prepared to be judged. If you judge you’ll be judged by the very same standards that you apply to others.”[123] According to Andrews, Jesus thus “wanted people to accept responsibility for their own problems and accept the responsibility of making their own judgements,” and he therefore explained that “they shouldn’t project the responsibility onto anyone else either - particularly the experts.”[124] Hence for Andrews, in the episode with the adulteress, Jesus “refused to assume the role of judge for them.”[125] He wanted people to “judge for themselves.”[126]

Andrews, however, is rather unique among Christian anarchists in holding this position. As Chapter 1 explains, most Christian anarchists believe Jesus to have instructed Christians not to judge at all. Either way, although they reach this same conclusion from a different exegetical route, both Andrews and these other Christian anarchists interpret Jesus’ instructions to mean that the state’s courts of justice are unchristian institutions - be it simply because they judge, or, for Andrews, because they judge on others’ behalf.

For Christian anarchists, this implied rejection of human courts of justice is clear from the Sermon on the Mount, but it is also further confirmed in other Gospel passages. Tolstoy’s following quote illustrates this:

Jesus says, “Resist not evil”: the object of the courts is to resist evil. Jesus says, “Return good for evil”: the courts render evil for evil. Jesus says, “Do not classify men as good or bad”: the courts are occupied only in making this distinction. Jesus says, “Forgive all men; forgive not once, not seven times, but without end; love your enemies, do good to those that hate you”: the courts do not forgive, but punish; they render not good but evil to those whom they call the enemies of society.[127]

A few lines down, Tolstoy also notes that Jesus “directly denies the justice of the sentence against the adulteress, on the ground that man has no right to judge because he is himself guilty.”[128] He also repeats that he whose eye has a beam in it should not behold the mote in the eye of another, that the blind should not lead the blind lest both fall into the ditch.[129] And again, in the commandment not to resist, Jesus says that if someone wants to sue you in the courts for your coat, you should give him your cloak also. For Tolstoy, therefore, Jesus “forbids every one to go to law,” and since he repeatedly enjoins forgiveness, “a Christian cannot be a punishing judge.”[130]

Furthermore, Tolstoy continues, Jesus’ disciples clearly understood this. The Epistle of James and the Epistle of Paul to the Romans both warn Christians against judging one another.[131] According to Tolstoy, both authors recognise that the only way to oppose the tribunals that persecuted Christians was by denying the principle on which they rested, just as Jesus told them to do. In fact, Tolstoy observes that the earliest teachers of the Church “invariably distinguished their teaching from all others” precisely by “never ad mitting in it either compulsion or judgement.”[132] Not judging one another and not resisting evil, according to Tolstoy, were the defining principles of the early Christian community.

For Christian anarchists, therefore, Jesus’ explicit and implicit teaching on judgement clearly condemns the state’s juridical system. Christians should not judge one another (or for Andrews they should at least not call upon third parties to do so), and therefore when the state’s institutions judge and condemn, they behave in direct contradiction to Jesus’ instructions.

2.7 - Being servants

Another passage which Christian anarchists refer to in order to consolidate their position is where Jesus teaches about service, in reply to James and John’s demand to sit on his right and left hand in his kingdom.[133] Jesus tells them that they do not know what they are asking, and he then says that even though the Gentiles have rulers who exercise lordship and authority over them, it shall not be so among his disciples, that to be the greatest among his disciples, they need to be like servants.

Craig points out that the original Greek word for the “authority” which is exercised by Gentiles and which Jesus rejects is archein, the same word which an-archism defines itself as a negation of.[134] Jesus is counselling against “archism” - that is, he is counselling “anarchism.” As to the word used for how Gentile rulers “exercise lordship,” Lawrence explains that it means “‘to compact,’ and by implication ‘to hoard.’”[135] Hence Jesus is telling his disciples that “a favored position in the new order of things is one of suffering servanthood” in contrast to the Gentiles’ “‘hoarding’ of power and privilege.”[136] Ellul also notes that Jesus makes no distinction between different Gentile rulers: they all “lord it over their subjects,” which to Ellul suggests that “There can be no political power without tyranny.”[137] All pagan government is equally authoritarian.

Jesus, however, “does not advocate revolt” against such tyrannical power, but instead tells his disciples: “do not be so concerned about fighting kings. Let them be. Set up a marginal society which will not be interested in such things, in which there will be no power, authority, or hierarchy.”[138] Jesus is telling his disciples not to emulate social hierarchies. At the end of the passage, Jesus further clarifies the nature of his own leadership: he has come not to be served, but to serve.[139] And elsewhere in the Gospel, he confirms that the same is expected from his disciples: “he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.”[140] Jesus is therefore consistently appealing for an anarchist community of mutual service instead of one of lordship and authority.

Christian anarchists understand that Jesus is thus clearly denouncing the more common notions and expectations of leadership. For Redford, Jesus “rebukes the supposed ‘authority’ of the Earthly ‘rulers;’”[141] for Andrews, “All oppressive forms of politics [are] denounced;”[142] and for Mumford, “Jesus sets his face firmly against any leader/led division.”[143] Among Christians, says Ballou, “There must be no political strife for the highest place; no patronizing lordship; no Gentile love of dominion; but they that really occupy the highest place, must prove themselves worthy of it, by an entire willingness to take the lowest.”[144]

Crucially, Jesus does not challenge James’ and John’s regarding of him as an authority or as a leader, but he challenges them on their apparent understanding of the way in which such authority or leadership is to be exercised. As Myers puts it, “Jesus here does not repudiate the vocation of leadership, but rather insists that it is not transferred executively. Leadership belongs only to those who learn and follow the way of nonviolence - who are ‘prepared’ not to dominate but to serve and to suffer at Jesus’ side.”[145] Jesus is calling for Christians to be leaders only by virtue of them being great exemplars of non-resistance, vying, as Ballou says, “not for the prerogative of inflicting physical suffering for righteousness’ sake, but for the privilege of enduring it.”[146] As explained later in this Chapter, the consequence of this vocation of “servant leadership” is the suffering of the cross, which true followers of Jesus are expected to embrace willingly and wholeheartedly.[147]

Finally, Yoder remarks that Jesus does not reprimand James and John “for expecting him to establish some new social order,” but, again, he “reprimands them for having misunderstood the character of that new social order which he does intend to set up.”[148] Jesus does intend to challenge political and religious authorities and to propose an alternative form of community, but this is to be achieved through leadership by suffering servanthood, not through the lordship and authority practiced by Gentiles. Jesus rejects leadership by coercion and favours leadership by example. It is precisely this alternative form of leadership which makes Jesus’ teaching an anarchist alternative to the established order of things.

2.8 - The temple cleansing

The next passage for which the Christian anarchist perspective needs to be explained is Jesus’ famous cleansing of the Jerusalem temple, where he overturns tables, brandishes a whip, casts out the moneychangers, and proclaims: “It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves.”[149]

Christian anarchists emphasise that the temple was an important religious, political and economic symbol. For Elliott, therefore, what Jesus attacks in nothing less than “the most powerful ideological symbol of all.”[150] Elliott furthermore rejects the “conservative reading” which explains Jesus’ actions “in terms of his ‘righteous anger’ over the sullying of a religious shrine with commercial activities.” For him, the temple was not just a religious institution, but it also “functioned as the political and economic apparatus of the state.” It was “the final arbiter in all criminal, political and religious matters;” it exercised a policing role; and, “to all intents and purposes,” it also acted as “the state treasury.” It therefore “represented an immense concentration of power” - not unlike our modern state. Hence Elliott considers Jesus’ actions as going much deeper than “an argument for the separation of commercial and religious activities,” but as actually embodying “the frustrations and the aspirations of all the world’s oppressed.” Jesus’ actions are a clear protest against the temple state’s immense power, and it is precisely for this reason that the authorities redouble their efforts to “destroy him.”[151]

Myers argues along similar lines, but more closely highlights the economic interests behind the temple’s sacrificial system. He says that for the author of the Gospel of Mark, “the temple state and its political economy represented the heart of what was wrong with the dominant system.”[152] Moreover, Myers contends that “commercial activity was an entirely normal aspect of any cult in antiquity;” that the temple “was fundamentally an economic institution;” and that it is “the ruling-class interests in control of the commercial enterprises in the temple market” that Jesus is therefore attacking.[153] Hence, by citing the “den of thieves” passage from scripture, Jesus is criticising “the sacrificial system as robbery.”[154] According to Myers, this episode is the key to understanding Jesus’ whole apocalyptic struggle against the political, economic and religious order.[155] For him, it epitomises Jesus’ stance against his contemporary authorities, and it illustrates how the “practice of forgiveness becomes the replacement of the redemptive/symbolic system of debt represented in the temple.”[156] Jesus’ teaching of forgiveness subverts the temple state’s economic power.

Other Christian anarchists make similar points but in a less elaborate way. Redford shares Myers’ view that Jesus’ protest is directed at the fraudulent idea, on which the commercial activities he attacks is based, that sins can be atoned through animal sacrifices.[157] Andrews contends that the moneychangers were exploiting the vulnerability of worshippers, and that Jesus became angry at such “exploitation of the worst kind.”[158] For Hennacy, what aroused Jesus’ anger was “hypocrisy in the Synagogue.”[159] Note, however, that as mentioned in Chapter 1, the word “anger” does not actually appear in the text. Jesus must have been upset to act as he did, and for Christian anarchists, he was upset at more than just the commercial activities in the temple, but the view that Jesus was angry is informed more from popular representations of Jesus’ actions than from scripture itself.

Nonetheless, Christian anarchists see Jesus’ overturning of the tables and driving out of traders and their animals as dramatic and symbolic “direct action,” a form of “propaganda by the deed” against what the temple symbolises. Myers even talks of “some kind of barricade or ‘guerilla ban’ on all further activities for that day.”[160] For some Christian anarchists, true Christians should follow Jesus’ example and engage in similar direct action against the state. For them, “Love is confrontational.”[161]

Other Christian anarchists are uneasy with the aggressiveness of such confrontations. Day, for instance, after confirming that the “justification for a Christ who urges militant action” is indeed this story of the temple cleansing, writes: “I can only answer in these other words of His: ‘Let him who is without sin among you, cast the first stone.’”[162] Thus not all Christian anarchists are comfortable with the idea put forward by some that Christians should engage in militant direct action. Those that think so, however, usually cite the temple cleansing to make their point. Either way, this whole debate is examined in more detail in Chapter 4.

Another important debate around this passage centres on the extent to which Jesus uses violence in cleansing the temple. Wink for instance believes that it was “a fairly violent act, even if it caused no casualties.”[163] For Elliott as well, Jesus’ expulsion of the traders is carried out “with a certain degree of violence.”[164] Most Christian anarchists, however, argue that any violence is extremely limited, and that it is never directed at people.

Crosby, for example, points out that only John mentions a whip, that “he alone mentions also the sheep and oxen,” and that it is therefore obvious that “the whip was merely used as the ordinary method of driving the cattle.”[165] In a letter to Crosby, Tolstoy writes that “It is an old but unfounded libel upon Christ to suppose that the expulsion of the cattle from the temple indicates that Jesus beat people with a whip.”[166] Yet as Yoder regrets, the whip is often used as a precedent for Christians’ use of violence.[167] For him, however, the better translation of Jesus’ action - which more recent translations of the Bible have adopted - is that he “cast out” or “drove out” the animals from the temple. According to Yoder, “‘cast out’ (exebalen) posits no violence; elsewhere in the New Testament is means simply ‘send away.’”[168] Penner remarks that this word is most often used by Jesus for the casting out of demons, and agrees that there is no evidence of any force or violent coercion in this passage.[169] Andy Baker makes the same points: to “drive out” does not imply violence but simply to “send away,” hence Jesus “did not hit anyone,” and the animals were not beaten but whipped only enough for them “to start moving away.”[170]

To those who suppose that Jesus must have been more violent than the text describes, Ballou replies: “as I have an equally good right to imagine how Jesus acted on the occasion, I shall presume that he did nothing unworthy of the principle, the character, and spirit that uniformly distinguished him.”[171] Although there can be no definitive proof either way, given Jesus’ main teaching, the absence of violence is more probable than its presence. In any case, in Myers’ view, “too much attention has been given to the futile pursuit of trying to reconstruct a historical event, which serves as a pretext for debates about whether such an action should be considered violent or not.”[172] For Myers, the symbolic and ideological aspect of Jesus’ action is what is more important.

Either way, says Baker, “Jesus’ action in no way can be seen to legitimate Christian violence.”[173] (Besides, according to Hennacy, even if Jesus did use his whip on the moneychangers, “He did not try to exterminate their families or imprison and kill them,” and therefore his actions are no Christian justification for war.[174]) Jesus’ cleansing of the temple, although symbolically and politically potent, does not legitimise Christian violence. What it does confirm, however, is his opposition to such concentration and abuse of religious, political and economic power.

More to the point, Maurin remarks, “today nobody dares to drive the money lenders out of the Temple.”[175] Christians argue about whether Jesus used violence instead of cleansing their own temple. Yet for Hennacy, “if He came back here He sure would upset some of the plush around here.”[176] Tolstoy agrees: if Jesus came now and saw “what is done in his name in church,” Tolstoy says, he would “surely” be even more upset than he was then.[177] Moreover, if he were to act as he did then, “he’d be charged with criminal damage” and arrest ed, as Newell notes.[178] A true follower of Jesus, then, should not get distracted by attempts to reconstruct the exact historical event of the temple cleansing, but should boldly expose the contrast between true Christianity and the state, especially when the latter claims for itself some religious or Christian aura.

2.9 - Jesus’ arrest

Having shown how Christian anarchists read some of Jesus’ teachings and some of the incidents of his life, the time has come to turn to their commentaries on his arrest, trial and crucifixion.

The story of Jesus’ arrest varies slightly from one Evangelist to the other.[179] Their differences are interesting, but they have little impact on the anarchist implications of the New Testament, and only those details of Jesus’ arrest which have anarchist implications are discussed here.[180] The most immediately relevant of these is Jesus’ reply (in Matthew) to the disciple (identified as Peter in John) who has just drawn a sword and slashed the ear of one of the priests’ servants. Jesus rebukes him by saying: “Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”[181]

For most Christian anarchists, this text further corroborates Jesus’ teaching on non-resistance. In Tolstoy’s version of the Gospel, Jesus’ rebuke indeed begins with him repeating the words: “You must not resist evil.”[182] When Jesus says that they who take the sword shall perish by the sword, for Christian anarchists, he is simply reiterating the point made in the Sermon on the Mount. That is, “Violence can only give rise to further violence,”[183] and therefore those who resort to violence shall face violence themselves.[184] Thus Jesus is again raising the question of means and ends, says Elliott, “particularly questioning whether a peaceful and just society can be established through violent and unjust tactics.”[185] Those who want peace should keep away from the sword and adopt peaceful means, because “those who seek peace, who act in a friendly manner, inoffensively, who forget and forgive offences, for the most part enjoy peace,” writes Ballou.[186]

The anarchist implications are similar to those of the Sermon on the Mount. According to Chelčický, “Christ in disarming Peter unbelted every soldier” - Jesus disarmed the most potent source of state power.[187] Yet as Hennacy laments, even in peacetime, “we draft our boys and prepare for more terrible wars.”[188] States take the sword and use it, and “as centuries of history have shown,” Ellul notes, they in turn get destroyed by it.[189] In that sense, according to Ellul, Jesus’ words amount to a reflection on the rise and fall of states through history. But Ellul also adds that “we might also view the saying as a command to Christians. Do not fight the state with the sword, for if you do, you will be killed by the sword.”[190] How Christians should respond to the state is discussed in detail in Chapter 4; what matters here is to note that for Christian anarchists, in this saying just as in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is both reflecting upon the cycle of violence and counselling against it.

Before moving on to Jesus’ trial, there is another element in the story of Jesus’ arrest which needs to be looked at. It precedes Jesus’ arrest in Luke’s Gospel, and it is a tricky passage for Christian anarchists as it seems to contradict the above saying: Jesus tells his disciples that even though in the past, he has sent them without purse, scrip and shoes and yet they lacked “nothing,” now, they need to buy a sword because, he says, “this that is written must yet be accomplished in me.”[191] They then show him two swords, and he answers that “It is enough.”[192]

Different Christian anarchists understand this passage differently: for Tolstoy and Hennacy, Jesus was tired and slightly hesitant; for Ellul, Ballou and others, two swords could not have been enough for defence, so the swords must have had a different purpose than violent defence.

In Tolstoy’s version of the Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples that now that he is considered “an outlaw,” they need to “get knives” in order to “procure supplies” so that they do not “perish uselessly.”[193] Moreover, in his later summary of the same episode, Tolstoy puts this saying in the context of Peter claiming that he will not let Jesus be killed but he will protect him, to which Jesus replies: “If that is so, then prepare for defence, get weapons to defend yourselves and collect your provisions.”[194] But, Tolstoy continues, “When Jesus heard the mention of the knives, anguish came over him. And going to a lonely spot he began to pray.”[195] For Tolstoy, Jesus “strove with temptation” but eventually concluded that he must not resist evil: “I shall not fight, but shall give myself up.”[196] For Tolstoy, then, it seems that the “two swords” episode reveals a slight but understandable hesitancy on the part of Jesus, followed by an eventual and final decision against any use of swords.

Hennacy makes a similar point: Jesus was tired and full of agony when he told Peter to buy a sword, but his later rebuttal of Peter when the sword was used conclusively overturns this brief hesitation and reasserts the need for pure non-resistance.[197]

Ellul, however, is among the Christian anarchists who understand this in a different way. He notes the surprising statement from Jesus that two swords are “enough,” and writes:

The further comment of Jesus explains in part the surprising statement, for he says: “It is necessary that the prophecy be fulfilled according to which I would be put in the ranks of criminals” (Luke 22:36-37). The idea of fighting with just two swords is ridiculous. The swords are enough, however, to justify the accusation that Jesus is the head of a band of brigands. We have to note here again that Jesus is consciously fulfilling prophecy. If he were not, the saying would make no sense.[198]

Two swords could not possibly have been “enough” to defend Jesus from his pending arrest, trial and execution, so their sole purpose must have been the fulfilment of prophecy. That is how not just Ellul but also Yoder and Penner understand this intriguing passage.[199]

Penner adds a further dimension to this. Peter, he notes, had been in charge of preparing the Passover, and the said swords have a dual use: as weapons, but also as knifes to cut animals and prepare meat. “This,” he concludes, “would suggest that the two knives were present because they had been used in preparing the Supper.”[200] He admits that this suggestion is only a probability, but it adds credence to the view that “the purpose of Jesus in asking for swords had no connection with violence, self-defense, or bloodshed. His purpose was to fulfil the Scriptures.”[201]

Besides, as Penner admits, using the swords for defence would have been contrary to Jesus’ teaching and example, and for Penner, that very contradiction suggests that their purpose could not have been defence.[202] His disciples’ use of swords “would involve them in the vicious circle of cause and effect of violence and hatred.”[203] Jesus’ rebuke to Peter, however, demonstrates that for Jesus, the sword should be used neither in offence nor defence, for both would equally feed into the circle of violence which Jesus’ teaching seeks to overcome. Thus according to Ballou, the actual “sequel” of the narrative “[proves] that he caused the swords to be provided, for that occasion, (two only being enough) for the sole purpose of emphatically, finally, and everlastingly prohibiting the use of the instrument, even by the innocent in self-defense. [...] The moment one of these was wielded in defense of betrayed innocence, it was peremptorily stayed” and Jesus proclaimed the famous saying.[204] That later rebuke, for Crosby, annuls the earlier advice to buy a sword.[205]

For Christian anarchists, therefore, despite the intriguing request to buy a sword, Jesus’ words upon his arrest further confirm than violence should never be used by his followers, be that either in offence or in even innocent defence. If the state cannot but take the sword, then it cannot but contradict Jesus’ teaching. If it is fundamental to the state that it takes the sword, then Jesus’ teaching counsels anarchism.

2.10 - Jesus’ trial

Following his arrest, Jesus is tried before the Sanhedrin, Pilate and Herod.[206] Christian anarchists comment on Jesus’ attitude and responses during these trials, but first, they emphasise that the various charges that are brought against him are all either directly or indirectly political charges.

Jesus is arrested because he is “turning the world upside down,” says a contributor to A Pinch of Salt.[207] Tolstoy writes that he is crucified because he says he will destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, and because “he is reproached with destroying the law of God.”[208] Admittedly, today these charges may sound more religious than political, but these two spheres were not seen as clearly separate in Jesus’ times. Moreover, as Penner contends, although “The guilt of Jesus, as conceived by the Jews, was in the realm of the religious [...], their charge is shifted to a political one as they confront Pilate with Jesus. The charge of blasphemy becomes the political charge of treason.”[209]

To both the Jews and the Romans, Jesus is a real political threat, a dangerous “social agitator,” as Pentecost calls him.[210] His non-violent teachings and tactics clearly make the political and religious authorities feel quite jittery.[211] Caiaphas, the chief rabbi, famously proclaims that it is better for one man rather than the whole nation to perish: Jesus is a threat, and the national interest dictates that he should be silenced.[212] Myers notes that Jesus is imprisoned alongside Barabbas, who represents a different but equally political, revolutionary threat.[213] For Christian anarchists, therefore, Jesus is charged with “sedition”[214] and “subversion.”[215] Jesus’ trials “hinge on the charge that he was setting himself up, or being set up as a king, and the description ‘King of the Jews’ is nailed to his gallows,” says Elliott.[216]

Moreover, as Myers recalls, “The ‘cross’ had only one connotation in the Roman empire: upon it dissidents were executed.”[217] Myers complains about the “longstanding conspiracy” which insists on “spiritualizing the cross.”[218] As Myers clarifies, when Jesus was crucified, the cross was “not a religious icon, but the ultimate deterrent to those who would challenge the sovereignty of Rome [...], an intolerably cruel form of capital punishment.”[219] Furthermore, that Jesus is crucified between two bandits confirms that “Jesus is perceived by the authorities in terms equal to that of social bandits.”[220] Religious and political authorities consider Jesus as an important threat, and that is why they move to silence him. Jesus’ anarchist subversion is too compelling for the state to put up with.

When it comes to the actual trials, Ellul argues against the theologians who believe that just because Jesus “showed respect for the authorities, and did not revolt against the verdict, this proves that he regarded the jurisdiction as legitimate, and we thus have a basis for the power of the state.”[221] To the contrary, he says, despite the fact that Roman law is so developed and intricate so as to represent an ideal model of justice (and Ellul, who studied Roman law, means this seriously, with no irony at all), this law provides no protection to an innocent man. Despite Roman law, Pilate yields to the mob and condemns him to death “for no valid reason (as Pilate himself recognized!). This, then, is what we can expect from an excellent legal system!”[222] Jesus’ submission to the trial is no acceptance of its legitimacy, but “it is an unveiling of the basic injustice of what purports to be justice,” concludes Ellul (the fundamental imperfection of the state’s administration of justice is discussed again in the Conclusion).[223]

For Ellul, Jesus’ silent refusal “to debate,” to “excuse himself,” or “to recognize that these authorities have any real power,” an attitude which is consistent throughout the Gospels but particularly perilous when being tried, is an “attitude [...] of total rejection and scorn for all religious or political authority.”[224] Ellul even sees some of Jesus’ answers to the high priest and to Pilate as amounting to “a kind of underlying mockery, a defiance or provocation of authority.”[225] Moreover, Ellul understands Jesus to be sometimes accusing the authorities of being cunning and evil, for instance when Jesus remarks that they could have arrested him in broad daylight in the temple but instead chose the cover of darkness to do so. Along the same lines, Ellul maintains that Jesus’ proclamation that Pilate’s power has come “from above” is an accusation that Pilate’s power has come “from the spirit of evil,” not from God as some theologians have it (because this would make no sense of the second part of Jesus’ saying).[226]

Finally, there is another sentence which Jesus pronounces during his trial before Pilate which Christian anarchists comment on, and it is the famous: “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews.”[227] For Ellul, Jesus hereby “states explicitly that [he] does not choose to exercise political power,” which “in no way suggests that Jesus recognizes the validity of such power - on the contrary.”[228] Jesus concedes that he is king, but explains that this kingship is very different to earthly ones which are defended by fighting.[229] Moreover, Eller’s paraphrase has Jesus say that “the one, real, true kingdom isn’t even of this world,” which for Eller shows that “Jesus will grant not one bit of weight to Pilate and his Empire.”[230] Jesus’ kingdom, for Ballou, “is not an outward, temporal kingdom, like those of this world.”[231] It is an alternative to earthly kingdoms, but it is radically different to them. The coercive kingdoms of this world are empowered by the prince of this world, Satan, whereas Jesus’ kingdom is one of love, forgiveness and non-resistance.

Caesar, Jesus therefore tells Pilate, should not consider him to be a violent revolutionary bent on claiming his throne, for his servants, by definition, would not use force or coercion.[232] “His Kingdom is not of this world,” writes Ballou, “and therefore excludes all military and warlike defenses. His ministers are sent forth unarmed, like sheep in the midst of wolves.”[233] As further explained in Chapter 4, Jesus therefore submits to Caesar’s punishment here on earth. He holds his peace when taunted, ruffled and insulted by the guards.[234] As Ballou writes, “never a word of threatening, reviling, cursing or bitterness escaped him. With a meek and sorrowful dignity he bore all; and at the moment when he could have summoned legions of angels to his rescue, and to the destruction of his foes, lo, he uttered that last victorious prayer: ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.’”[235]

Jesus is tried on political charges and punished like a political subversive. He forgivingly accepts this mortal outcome and yet explains that his kingship is misconstrued if it is taken to involve the sort of fighting conducted on behalf of earthly kings. He is a threat to religious and political authorities, to the state, but not in the way that this is commonly understood. Paradoxically, by his very crucifixion, Jesus illustrates and exemplifies the way in which his teaching unmasks and overcomes power of the state.

2.11 - Jesus’ crucifixion

Jesus’ crucifixion raises the apocalyptic notions of “powers” and “messiah,” themes which need to be explained before the political meaning of the cross can be explored.

2.11.1 - Paul’s “powers”

In their commentaries on Jesus’ crucifixion, Christian anarchists often refer to Paul’s notion of “principalities” and “powers” (usually archai and exoysiai in the Greek).[236] Yoder defines these “powers” as “some sort of superterrestrial beings” - which he admits might sound rather “out-of-date” today.[237] Hendrik Berkhof, whose study of Paul’s powers is praised by Yoder, explains that the term is borrowed (but modified) from Jewish apocalyptic writings, where it refers to “classes of angels [...] holding authority over forces of nature.”[238] Their “role is one of domination,”[239] he explains, and they rule over “human history.”[240] When Paul borrows the term, the powers are angels who have authority over natural forces.

Berkhof notes that Paul always refers to them in connection with stoicheia, which he translates as “definite religious and ethical rules” or “solid” social “structures.”[241] For Paul, the powers are the “guardians and trustees” which preserve men “from chaos;” they are the “demands” of “state and society,” of “tradition and morality.”[242] Hence Paul modifies the apocalyptic sense of heavenly angels of nature and sees the powers more as “structures of earthy existence,” as the soul of social structures such as the state.[243] The powers, in Paul, are the spirits that animate social institutions. Thus, every state is moved by one such spirit or power.[244]

Moreover, according to Berkhof’s reading of Paul, these powers are instruments of God’s dominion in a fallen world, and, in themselves, they are not necessarily tyrannical - yet they can become so, especially when they become gods and act as ultimate values which demand our absolute loyalty.[245] What this notion of the powers “leads us to suppose,” says Ellul, is “that earthly political and military authorities really have their basis in an alliance with spiritual powers, which I will not call celestial, since they might equally well be evil and demonic.”[246] The state, writes Ellul, “may fall prey to demons, if the power that it represents refuses to recognise the supremacy of God.”[247] As mentioned already in the discussion of the Book of Samuel and as further discussed in the Conclusion, the state becomes unchristian when it elevates itself to the status of a god.

Paul writes that Christians “wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world.”[248] For Christian anarchists, therefore, Christians should “gird up their loins, not against the world of flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness.”[249] They should be “engaging with the powers that lie behind all social institutions.”[250] Here, Christian anarchists cite the work of Wink, who writes that Christians are contending “against the spirituality of institutions, against the ideologies and metaphors and legitimations that prop them up.”[251] Indeed, Andrews interprets “an-archy” to mean precisely “‘against the powers,’ as in ‘the principalities and powers.’”[252] In that sense, and following Paul, any true Christian must be an anarchist.

It is also through this language of the powers that Ellul understands all the passages of the Bible that “speak of strife, contention, violence.”[253] For him, they are all part of the battle against the powers: “we must be clear that this is not contention against flesh and blood, but against the powers,” insists Ellul.[254] This battle involves no physical violence; it is a “spiritual battle against what constitutes the ‘soul’ of these material phenomena.”[255] Ellul admits that this type of battle is “less visible, less exalting” and “brings you no glory.”[256] However, quoting Rimbaud, Ellul maintains that “spiritual warfare is just as brutal as human warfare.”[257] Indeed, he adds: “We know what price Jesus paid for waging his battle spiritually.”[258] That is, for contending against the soul of the Jewish and Roman authorities, Jesus was executed as a political subversive. The fight against the powers therefore demands important sacrifices.[259]

2.11.2 - The defeat of the powers

Nevertheless, Paul says that by his crucifixion, Jesus “disarmed” these powers, “made a public example” of them, and “triumphed” over them.[260] Similarly, Craig writes that through Jesus’ execution, Satan was judged and bound.[261] “In Christian thinking,” explains Ellul, “the crucifixion of Christ is his true victory over all powers.”[262] How can such a paradoxical conclusion be reached? Because as Chelčický understands, “the passion of Jesus reveals the true character of political powers: they are demonic, violent, and out of control.”[263]

Wink writes that “They stripped him naked and crucified him in humiliation, all unaware that this very act had stripped them of the last covering that disguised the towering wrongness of the whole way of living that their violence defended. [...] The Law by which he was judged is itself judged, set aside, and nailed to the cross.”[264] By the very violence with which the powers execute Jesus, their character is exposed for what it truly is. Myers therefore speaks of the crucified Jesus representing “at once both defendant and prosecutor - depending on which court, ‘earthly’ or ‘heavenly,’ is being considered [...]; what appears to be his defeat and the triumph of both Rome and the Sanhedrin (narrated in his trial and execution) [is] really his vindication and their judgement.”[265] What looks like “an apparent political failure,” confirms Bartley, is in fact “a political statement” which is “part of a larger strategy of success.”[266] Hence what the powers conceive of as their victory is in reality their judgement and defeat.

Therefore as Berkhof puts it, the principalities and powers “are unmasked as false gods by their encounter with very God; they are made a public spectacle.”[267] In their “encounter with Christ,” religious and political institutions “reveal their tyrannical character.”[268] Moreover, their “unmasking is actually already their defeat.”[269] Jesus “disarms” the powers because their weapon “was the power of illusion, their ability to convince men that they were the divine regents of the world,” and this weapon is “struck out of their hands” by Jesus’ refusal to assign them this importance.[270] Yoder argues that although Jesus submitted to the powers, “morally he broke their rules by refusing to support them in their self-glorification” - the violent expression of which is exposed in the crucifixion.[271]

So, while to some, Jesus’ crucifixion is the meting out of a deserved punishment to a dangerous subversive, and to others, it represents the “end of the road” for the naïve hopes of a utopian community, to Christian anarchists (and to most Christians), however paradoxical and counterintuitive, “the crucified [Jesus] is the fulfilment, rather than negation, of the vocation of messianic kingship.”[272] On the cross, Jesus’ alternative kingdom is not conclusively crushed but triumphantly exemplified and vindicated. His very crucifixion is his victory over the powers and his inauguration of the kingdom of God.[273]

Indeed, this is what Yoder understands the story of the two disheartened followers of Jesus walking back from his crucifixion to be about: “Jesus’ rebuke to the unseeing pair on the road to Emmaus was not that they had been looking for a kingdom, and should not have been,” but that “they were failing to see that the suffering of the Messiah is the inauguration of the kingdom.”[274] For Christian anarchists, then, the “way of the cross” is both “the via negativa of resistance to political oppression” and “the positive experimentation of a genuinely new way of social organization” - and these themes are further explored in Chapters 4 and 5.[275]

2.11.3 - The crucified “messiah”

As an aside, it is worth noting that Jesus himself, and not just Paul, borrows from and refers his own actions to Jewish apocalyptic writings. This apocalyptic literature, as Elliott notes, “tries to restore national confidence” in a “background of profound political disillusionment.”[276] It is therefore “resistance literature at its best” because it promises “a new dawn,” a “messianic deliverance” through divine intervention.[277] That messianic expectations were attributed to Jesus and that Jesus deliberately reinterprets these in a radical way has already been mentioned above. Yet as noted by Elliott and Yoder, Jesus himself deliberately plays into these political hopes and symbols when he rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, in clear reference to an apocalyptic prophecy of the messianic king’s glorious entry into Jerusalem.[278] Therefore Jesus deliberately sets himself up as the messianic king, as if to consciously reawaken in his entourage the expectation that he is the long-awaited political messiah.

However, just when Jesus seems to approach the climax of this messianic ministry, the ideal moment to stir up the masses, overthrow the corrupt Roman and Jewish authorities and install himself as the new king - when he rides into Jerusalem on a donkey and engages in direct action in the temple - he is arrested, tried and executed. To those who were expecting a messianic revolution, all apocalyptic hopes seem crushed, nailed with their leader to the cross.

Yet for most Christian anarchists, Jesus is the saviour precisely because he accepted the cross - that is the revolution. He is the messiah because he consistently responds to injustice with unwavering love, forgiveness and non-resistance. He does not seek to lead yet another revolutionary government, but instead points to the true kingdom beyond the state. Therefore the crucifixion is indeed the glorious climax of Jesus’ messianic ministry. As further discussed in the Conclusion, it reveals the true character of the messiah and the true nature of his kingdom. Jesus’ messianic teaching is indeed exalted, not crushed, on the cross.

2.11.4 - The crux of Jesus’ political teaching

According to Myers, Jesus knows that his suffering on the cross is a “political inevitability,”[279] the “concrete consequence” of his teaching and practice.[280] Jesus teaches love, non-resistance and forgiveness, and the question of how far love can really go inevitably demands an answer. With his crucifixion, Jesus answers that love must go to the very end. A martyr of Christian love must be prepared for his own execution.[281]

Andrews explains that there cannot be love and forgiveness without sacrifice, indeed that forgiveness can even be measured by the degree of sacrifice involved.[282] Furthermore, he quotes the words of Gale Webbe, who says that “the only way to conquer evil is to let it be smothered within a willing, living, human being. When it is absorbed there, like a spear into one’s heart, it loses its power and goes no further.”[283] On the cross, Jesus “absorbed our evil,” argues Andrews, and “The cycle of violence stopped there and then.”[284] Jesus could have saved himself, but he chose not to, because “He was more concerned about saving the people ridiculing him, than he was about saving himself.”[285] Jesus, says Wink, “preferred to suffer injustice and violence rather than be their cause.”[286] Jesus’ crucifixion is therefore his most powerful illustration of the Sermon on the Mount.

Thus the cross, meant by the authorities to be an exemplary punishment of political subversives, actually “signifies the love of Jesus,” writes a contributor to A Pinch of Salt.[287] Through it, “Jesus conquered the violence and hatred of this world, not by using that very violence, but by a greater power - the power of love.”[288] Jesus’ martyrdom on the cross is “a supreme exhibition of love,”[289] and as such, for Andrews, it “lights a beacon for compassion.”[290] In Wogaman’s words, the cross is therefore both “a maximal expression of human evil - the killing of one who embodied the goodness of God - and [...] a maximal expression of that goodness itself.”[291] It is a contrast between love and violence, between goodness and evil, an “appeal to humanity” for it to reject “the use of political methods that are violent and coercive,” by embracing love and forgiveness instead, and to the very end.[292]

2.11.5 - Taking up the cross

However, even though Jesus unmasks, disarms and triumphs over the powers, “the battle continues until the triumph will have been made effective on all fronts and visible to all.”[293] The powers may be defeated and condemned on the cross, but they live on, “seemingly victorious.”[294] For the principalities and powers to be finally and fully defeated, Christians have to follow Jesus in disarming, making a public spectacle of and thereby triumphing over their contemporary manifestations.

Every person therefore faces a difficult choice between Jesus and the powers. Jesus warns of the difficulty of following him when he repeatedly says: “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”[295] This “turn of phrase,” according to Myers, “could have no other meaning except as an invitation to share the consequences” of daring to challenge political authorities.[296] Yoder insists that it is one of the popular misuses of scripture to interpret “bearing one’s cross” as facing the private suffering of “illness and accidents, loneliness and defeat,” because Jesus’ cross “was the political, legally-to-be-expected result of a moral clash with the powers.”[297] Hence Jesus’ call for his followers to take up their cross is a call for them to follow his example of love, non-resistance and political subversion to the ultimate sacrifice.

As discussed later in Chapters 4 and 5 discuss, for Christian anarchists, this is the vocation of the church, of the community of Christians. Inevitably, Berkhof notes, contending against the powers will lead to “oppression and persecution. But in this very act of desperation [...] their unmasking is repeated and confirmed. They can no longer exist without being forced to uncover their true nature and thereby to abandon their role as gods and saviors.”[298] It is a mission of the church to expose the true nature of the principalities and powers, and to thus unmask and triumph over the violence, the self-aggrandisement and the deception of the powers.[299] Yet his can only be done by fighting “nakedly and weakly,” by “surrendering” oneself “even unto death.”[300]

In this way, explains Myers, “the suffering of the just is somehow in itself efficacious in bringing down the old order and creating the new.”[301] Myers asserts that “The threat to punish by death is the bottom line of the power of the state; fear of this keeps the dominant order intact. By resisting this fear and pursuing kingdom practice even at the cost of death, the disciple contributes to the shattering of the powers’ reign of death in history.”[302] In other words, by “redefining the cross as the way to liberation rather than symbol of defeat and shame,” the authority of the powers is subverted, because “the power of death, by which the powers rule, is broken.”[303] Accepting and surrendering to death out of love and forgiveness disarms the state, and does so without “increasing the sum of evil in the world.”[304] Jesus sets the example with his crucifixion, and he expects his followers to be willing to follow him all the way to the cross.

In short, the cross is the symbol of Christian anarchism’s stance against the state. It represents a willing acceptance of the costliest consequence of contending against the state. It epitomises both the violent injustice of the state and the love, the forgiveness and the non-resistance with which Jesus is responding to it. The cross condemns the violence of the state but also embodies the method to overcome it.

2.12 - Jesus’ resurrection

The traditional Christian view is that the single most important factor in explaining the spread of Christianity, and indeed in instilling hope among Jesus’ dejected disciples after his crucifixion, is his resurrection from the dead. That, however, is not the typical Christian anarchist view. At the same time, Christian anarchists have very little to say on the resurrection. As Chapter 3 makes clear, they view the traditional emphasis placed upon it with deep suspicion, but aside from these suspicions, one struggles to find any mention of the resurrection in Christian anarchist writings.[305]

Tolstoy is the only writer who discusses New Testament passages on the resurrection from a Christian anarchist perspective, and he does so only to disprove the traditional understanding of them. He comments that “Strange as it may seem” - especially in light of the importance ascribed to the event by Christian theologians - Jesus himself “never once said a single word in affirmation of personal resurrection or of the immortality of the individual beyond the grave.”[306] Indeed, Tolstoy writes that Jesus denied that belief every time he met it, “and replaced it by his own teaching of Eternal Life in God.”[307] This teaching, as Tolstoy understands it, is about “the restoration of life by the transference of man’s personal life to that of God” - which feeds into Tolstoy’s interesting if idiosyncratic, rationalistic and deistic understanding of Christianity.[308]

The details of Tolstoy’s peculiar approach to Christianity cannot be discussed here, but what should be noted is that he questions the traditional interpretation of the resurrection. Tolstoy reviews “the only two passages which are quoted by theologians as witnessing to that teaching” to demonstrate both their mistake and his correctness.[309] He also exposes what he sees as the interpretative errors concerning the fourteen passages where Jesus is alleged to prophesise his own resurrection.[310] Tolstoy’s alternative translation of these various passages can be deduced from his own version of the Gospel - which of course ends with Jesus’ last breath on the cross, not with any resurrection.[311] For Tolstoy, then, it is a naïve mistake to believe in future personal life; what Jesus teaches instead is that life as a whole is eternal; and in fact belief in personal resurrection distracts from the more important ethical teaching articulated by Jesus.[312] Tolstoy clearly does not believe in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

Myers is a little bit more guarded in his treatment of the subject. In part, that is because his book is an exegesis of Mark’s Gospel only, the ending of which is disputed. The consensus today is that the original text ends with three women fleeing the empty tomb, and thus with no narrative of the risen Christ. According to Myers, this confirms that the advent of the Son of man has already happened on the cross, and Mark’s abrupt ending is therefore a final call for Jesus’ disciples to follow him to the cross.[313]

Nonetheless, Myers does not reject the resurrection altogether: he says he agrees “with those who contend that nothing else can explain the genesis of the Christian movement.”[314] For him, however, “We do not entirely understand what ‘resurrection’ means,” and therefore “we should be ‘holding fast’ to what we do know: that Jesus still goes before us, summoning us to the way of the cross.”[315] Mark, he says, “means to leave us to wrestle” with the “‘dilemma’ of the ending,” and it is a betrayal of the gospel to rewrite it as the added endings of Mark have attempted to do.[316] For Myers, it is essential not to separate Jesus into “earthly Jesus and risen Christ,” because there is “only one Jesus, and he is still on the road calling us to discipleship.”[317]

Myers, then, is happy to accept the mystery of the resurrection as long as Jesus’ revolutionary teaching is not brushed aside. The only other Christian anarchist to explicitly acknowledge his belief in the resurrection of the dead in his Christian anarchist writings is Chelčický - though he still only mentions it in passing.[318] Other Christian anarchists seem to avoid the mysterious subject altogether. Then again, indirect comments and reflections at times seem to imply belief in the resurrection, but little is offered in exegesis or discussion of the event. The devout Dorothy Day, for instance, appears to believe in it. Ellul’s theology also appears to be informed by it, as does Eller’s interpretation of history. Yet on the whole, Christian anarchists - certainly in their dedicated Christian anarchist writings - offer very few direct commentaries on the resurrection, preferring instead to focus on the many passages of the New Testament which justify their political interpretation of Christianity. Even those who do discuss it, either with respect (Chelčický, Myers) or with suspicion (Tolstoy), ascribe it almost no significance compared to that of the narratives of Jesus’ teaching and examples which precede it.

2.13 - Revelation

Before bringing this Chapter to a close, it is worth noting a few brief points a bout the Book of Revelation. The other Books of New Testament (all between the four Gospels, discussed above, and Revelation) are left out of this Chapter for three reasons: first, they do not report much about Jesus’ life and teaching but instead consist largely of commentaries on these; second, and probably for that same reason, Christian anarchists have very little to say on them, except on Paul’s (and Peter’s) counsel to submit to authorities; and third, those Christian anarchist commentaries on Paul (and Peter) are discussed in detail in Chapter 4, because they concern the question of how Christians should respond to state authorities.

On Revelation, however, Christian anarchists have several short reflections to offer, because as Ellul says, “Throughout the book there is a radical opposition between the majesty of God and the powers and dominions of earth,” which, to him, “shows how mistaken are those who find continuity between the divine power and earthly powers, or who argue, as under a monarchy, that a single earthly power ought to correspond to the one almighty God who reigns in heaven.”[319] Christian anarchists like Ellul therefore bring out the political nature of the symbolism which abounds in Revelation.

Ellul, for example, reflects on the symbolism of the two beasts.[320] Many exegetes have identified the first beast, which rises from the sea, with Rome, but Ellul insists that this “must be universalised” to what Rome represents.[321] Hence he identifies it with the state or political power:

It has a throne that is given to it by the dragon (chs. 12-13). The dragon, anti-God, has given all authority to the beast. People worship it. They ask who can fight against it. It is given ‘all authority and power over every tribe, every people, every tongue, and every nation’ (13:7). All who dwell on it worship it. Political power could hardly, I think, be more expressly described, for it is this power which has authority, which controls military force, and which compels adoration (i.e., absolute obedience).[322]

To Ellul, this also further confirms the connection between the state and the devil noted when discussing Jesus’ third temptation. The beast from the sea thus represents state sovereignty. As to the second beast, which rises from the earth, Ellul identifies it with political propaganda, and cites the verses that describe it as almost self-evident descriptions of “propaganda in association with the police.”[323] Taken together, Ellul therefore explains, the two beasts which defy God thus represent two aspects of political power.

Other symbols of political power which Ellul points to include the red horseman with the sword, “whose only function is making war, exercising power, and causing human beings to perish,” and of course Babylon, “the focus of political power.”[324] Babylon, he repeats, does not only represent Rome (as is often presumed), because “it is clear in the text that Rome is equated with supreme political power.”[325] Hence with the fall of Babylon, writes Ellul, “What is promised is the pure and simple destruction of political government: Rome, to be sure, yet not Rome alone, but power and domination in every form. These things are specifically stated as enemies of God. God judges political power, calling it the great harlot.”[326] For Ellul, therefore, Revelation is loaded with political meaning and confirms the incommensurability of the state and true Christianity.

Moreover, several Christian anarchists and pacifists (namely Yoder, Wink, Penner, Ellul and Elliott) note that the Book also reiterates a difficult message to Christians, who are “portrayed as those who disobey the dictates of the state when its commands abrogate the commandments of God even though their lives are endangered by this disobedience.”[327] The Book warns these “true believers” that the powers will persecute them as a result;[328] it warns that their loyalty will be tested “by their willingness to perform the ritual of the state religion;”[329] and it warns that the great harlot will be “drunk with the blood of saints and with the blood of witnesses to Jesus.”[330] Yet the true believers - the saints - “are pictured as resting their case with God, [...] patiently waiting for the vengeance and righteous wrath of God.”[331] That is, the “horrible, yet I am afraid, absolutely accurate vision,” as Wink puts it, is that of the persecuted saints, who are pleading with God and asking how much longer they must endure this terrible persecution, being encouraged in response to patiently wait a little longer, to continue to endure and forgive, to patiently put up with the cross a little longer.[332]

According to Elliott, therefore, Revelation “was composed [...] as a resource manual for persecuted Christians” and “calls God’s judgement down upon those who co-operate with the civil authority.”[333] For Redford, it is also a warning that the Antichrist “will come to strengthen and empower government during the last days,” and a reminder that “the coming of God’s true Christ [...] is to be the exact opposite,” that Jesus Christ will return “to abolish and utterly annihilate all the governments of the world.”[334] In the end, according to Revelation, Jesus will destroy the “kings of the earth.”[335] To Redford, therefore, The Book of Revelation only further confirms that “There can be no honest doubt: Jesus is an anarchist!”[336]

2.14 - Allegedly violent passages

In this Chapter, are reported only the commentaries on Bible passages other than the Sermon on the Mount which are made by Christian anarchists. The four Gospels - not to speak of the New Testament or even the whole Bible - are rich enough to include many other episodes which arguably have a bearing upon the political implications of Christianity. Those on which Christian anarchists have commented and which have not been discussed yet are addressed further down, as for instance the tax questions in Chapter 4. The rest, however, must be left aside here due to the limited purpose of this book - to weave together the loose threads of Christian anarchist thought.

Having said that, since Jesus’ rejection of violence is so central to Christian anarchism, it might worth briefly mentioning the passing comments made by Christian anarchists on those Gospel passages which seem to imply the contrary. The task, however, is made relatively brief by the small number of these Gospel passages alleged to betray a violent Jesus.

The most typical example claimed to provide a justification of violence has already been discussed above: the temple cleansing, for Christian anarchists, is less an example of violence than one of righteous condemnation of an abuse of religious and political power. Besides, any violence used has as sole purpose the casting out of animals, and is anyway never directed at human beings.

The Christian anarchist view of the intriguing instruction to buy a sword, given by Jesus to his disciples just before his arrest, has also been discussed already. The two swords which Jesus says are “enough,” to Christian anarchists, could never have been “enough” for violent defence, and must thus have had an altogether different use than violence - perhaps the cutting of meat in preparation for Passover or the deliberate fulfilment of scripture. Moreover, Jesus’ famous saying about swords upon his arrest would seem to cancel out any violent implications of the preceding request to buy one.

Jesus also says, in Matthew: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword;” and in Luke: “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division.”[337] In both cases, the speech continues with Jesus warning that households will be divided about him, and in Matthew, he repeats that to be “worthy” of him, his followers must take up their cross. Ellul is the only Christian anarchist to comment on this passage, and just as all the other violent passages in the Bible, he considers it to be once again about “contention” not “against flesh and blood, but against the powers.”[338] For Ellul, it does not legitimise physical violence.

Moreover, even though he never comments on it directly, Tolstoy does relay a revealing version of the two passages in his harmonised translation of the Gospel:

Not everyone will believe in my teaching. And those who do not believe will hate it because it deprives them of what they love. So dissentions will come from my teaching. It will kindle the world like a fire, and from it strife must arise. There will be dissentions in every house, father against son, mother against daughter. Families will hate those members who understand my teaching, and will kill them. For to him who understands my teaching there will be no meaning in “father,” or “mother,” or “wife,” or “children.”[339]

What Tolstoy is thereby suggesting is that Jesus is warning about the division which his teaching will cause among men and women, and about the difficulty of following him to the cross because of the rejection by society and by family members which will result. Jesus is not legitimising or advocating violence, but predicting it, warning that his teaching will stir passions. The passage therefore does not contradict the Christian anarchist reading, but simply forewarns that Jesus’ teaching is bound to cause contention and disagreements. Christianity’s anarchism will agitate society.

Another passage where Jesus’ is said to display violence is when he curses the fig tree for not bearing fruit even though it is not the right season.[340] Myers’ exegesis of this passage, which borrows heavily from William Telford, is interesting and convincing, and more importantly corroborates the Christian anarchist perspective. He explains that the barren fig tree “would have been recognized as a metaphor for the temple-based nation and its cultus.”[341] He shows how established such a metaphor for the fig tree is, and relates the whole episode to the cleansing of the temple which is actually adjoined to the cursing of the tree. Thus the consequent drying up of the tree’s roots is, for Myers, God’s judgement of the temple state. Jesus’ cursing is a condemnation of this state, but not a condemnation which warrants violence against fellow human beings. The same logic applies to Jesus’ frequent and strong denunciation of scribes and Pharisees.

The most famous and debated passages claimed to betray a violent Jesus have thus been looked at from a Christian anarchist perspective. Those believing Jesus to advocate violence usually cite further and relatively less famous passages to validate their views, but these cannot be discussed here because of both lack of space and lack of comment on them by Christian anarchists.[342] On the whole, though, the arguments are based on the view that Jesus himself was sometimes violent, not that he explicitly instructed his followers to be violent - yet according to Craig, even though God is indeed perhaps violent and vengeful, the same God still orders him to nevertheless be loving and non-violent.[343]

On balance, however, the vast majority of Christian anarchists believe Jesus to be strictly against any use of violence: that is what his most explicit and direct instructions are about, and proponents of a violent Jesus find themselves relying on relatively minor, indirect and allegorical passages to justify their view. The vast majority of Christian anarchists also disagree that Jesus himself was ever violent, and point to his non-violent acceptance of his arrest, trial and crucifixion as the most powerful exemplification of this. For Christian anarchists, Jesus clearly teaches and embodies love, non-violence and non-resistance, and the state is unchristian precisely because it directly contravenes this teaching.

2.15 - Jesus’ anarchist teaching and example

Christian anarchists therefore understand Jesus’ teaching, and his exemplification of it in his life and death, to amount to both a critique of the state and a vision of a stateless society. They ground their perspective not just in the Sermon on the Mount, but also in numerous other passages in the four Gospels. They even believe that the Old Testament further confirms their view - especially the Book of Samuel. They highlight the political expectations which were inseparable from the long-awaited messiah, and they explain the way in which Jesus’ actions force a radical and subversive reinterpretation of the mission of this political liberator. They cite all the passages in which Jesus teaches about forgiveness, service and non-judgement, and they contrast these to state theory and practice. They bring out every instance of Jesus’ constant struggle against Satan and the powers, and expose the anarchist significance of Jesus’ arrest, trial and crucifixion. In short, as demonstrated in detail in Chapters 1 and 2, they derive their anarchist interpretation from countless instructions explicitly formulated by Jesus, as well as from the way in which he himself exemplified his anarchist teaching in his life and (not least) in his death.

Chapters 1 and 2 thus articulate one of the two major strands of the Christian anarchist critique of the state. The other strand is not so much grounded in scripture. It emerges from Christian anarchism’s understanding of the evolution of state and church since Jesus, and its consequent criticism of state and church today. As it amounts to another line of criticism of the state, it needs to be discussed in this Part of the book. Yet whereas the criticism of the state which is outlined in Chapter 1 and 2 begins with scripture and then contrasts it to the state, this different criticism begins by analysing state and church practice in order to then contrast it to the Christian society envisioned by Jesus. This different line of argument is examined in the next Chapter.

1 Tolstoy, What I Believe, 43.

2 Mumford, “The Bible and Anarchy,” 8.

3 Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 86.

4 Maude, The Life of Tolstóy, 39.

5 Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 87.

6 Andrews, Subversive Spirituality, Ecclesial and Civil Disobedience, 2.

7 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 46.

8 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 46.

9 Michael Tennant, Government as Idolatry (Strike the Root), available from http://www.strike-the-root.com/3/tennant/tennant1.html (accessed 21 November 2007), para. 4.

10 Molnár, A Study of Peter Chelčický’s Life, 93 (quoting Chelčický).

11 Stephen W. Carson, Biblical Anarchism, available from http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/carson2.html (accessed 8 November 2007), para. 3-6.

12 Tennant, Christianarchy?, para. 6. Elsewhere, he writes that in Israel, “there was to be no human king - and, in fact, no central government of any kind. God chose specific leaders - Moses, and later, Joshua - to communicate his decrees to the people and to guide them into the promised land. God established the laws - laws which applied equally to the leaders and to the population at large (see Lev. 4, for example) - and the punishments to be meted out to those who failed to obey. Moses, acting on advice from his godly father-in-law, selected ‘capable men from all the people - men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain’ and appointed them ‘as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens’ (Ex. 18:21). Thus, government was highly decentralized, with only the ‘difficult cases ... brought to Moses’ (Ex. 18:26). [...] Of course, in cases of extreme disobedience, the Lord reserved the right to inflict punishment himself.” Tennant, Government as Idolatry, para. 5.

13 Tennant, Government as Idolatry, para. 5.

14 Annie Heppenstall, “Anarchy and the Old Testament,” paper presented at God Save the Queen: Anarchism and Christianity Today, All Hallows Church, Leeds, 2-4 June 2006, available from http://uk.jesusradicals.com/otanarchy.pdf (accessed 4 June 2006), 5.

15 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 47.

16 Tennant writes that “They had little to no power over the people; and again, they were held to the same standards.” Tennant, Government as Idolatry, para. 6.

17 Tennant, Government as Idolatry, para. 6-9.

18 1 Samuel 8:5, 20.

19 Tennant, Christianarchy?, para. 7 (Tennant’s emphasis).

20 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 48.

21 1 Samuel 8:7.

22 Carson, Biblical Anarchism, para. 7.

23 Carson, Biblical Anarchism, para. 8.

24 Eller, Christian Anarchy, 199 (Eller’s emphasis).

25 Molnár, A Study of Peter Chelčický’s Life, 93 (paraphrasing Chelčický).

26 Carson, Biblical Anarchism, para. 11.

27 [Anonymous], Ninety-Five Theses in Defense of Patriarchy (Vine and Fig Tree), available from http://members.aol.com/VF95Theses/thesis.htm (accessed 20 April 2007), thesis 38.

28 [Anonymous], Ninety-Five Theses in Defense of Patriarchy, thesis 37.

29 Molnár, A Study of Peter Chelčický’s Life, 30.

30 Andrews, “Heaven on Earth,” 44 (emphasis removed).

31 Ellul, “Anarchism and Christianity,” 165.

32 Nekeisha Alexis-Manners, Deconstructing Romans 13: Verse 1-2, available from http://www.jesusradicals.com/essays/theology/Romans13.htm (accessed 28 October 2005), 2; Tennant, Government as Idolatry, para. 12-17. (1 Samuel 8:8.)

33 Ellul, “Anarchism and Christianity,” 165.

34 Carson, Biblical Anarchism, para. 11.

35 Alexis-Baker, “Embracing God and Rejecting Masters,” 4.

36 Alexis-Baker, “Embracing God and Rejecting Masters,” 5.

37 Carson, Biblical Anarchism, para. 15.

38 Carson, Biblical Anarchism, para. 15.

39 Eller, Christian Anarchy, 199-200.

40 Andrews, Subversive Spirituality, Ecclesial and Civil Disobedience, 4. “Democracy” here is clearly meant as the opposite of “autocracy.” This seems to imply a type of fully consensual and participatory democracy - a form of anarchism - rather than the liberal, representative democracy that comes to mind when referring to “democracy” today.

41 Tennant, Government as Idolatry, para. 14.

42 Elliott, Freedom, Justice and Christian Counter-Culture, 74.

43 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 446.

44 Heppenstall, “Anarchy and the Old Testament,” 6.

45 Linda H. Damico, The Anarchist Dimension of Liberation Theology (New York: Peter Lang, 1987), 2.

46 Alexis-Baker, “Embracing God, Rejecting Masters.”

47 Ellul, Violence, 168.

48 [Anonymous], Ninety-Five Theses in Defense of Patriarchy, thesis 2.

49 [Anonymous], Ninety-Five Theses in Defense of Patriarchy, thesis 15.

50 Molnár, A Study of Peter Chelčický’s Life, 112 (quoting Chelčický). For Ellul’s interpretation of Cain’s founding of the first city, see Jacques Ellul, The Meaning of the City, trans. Dennis Pardee ([Grand Rapids?]: William B. Eerdmans, 1993).

51 Jason Barr, Radical Hope: Anarchy, Christianity, and the Prophetic Imagination, available from http://propheticheretic.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/radical-hope-anarchy-christianity-and-the-prophetic-imagination.pdf (accessed 11 March 2008), 4-5 (on Ecclesiastes), 10-11 (on Genesis).

52 Andrews, “Heaven on Earth,” 37-42; Charley Earp, “Christianity and Anarchism” (audio file on compact disc, rec. 5-6 August 2005).

53 Heppenstall, “Anarchy and the Old Testament,” 3-4; Mumford, “The Bible and Anarchy,” 8.

54 Carson, Biblical Anarchism.

55 The original sentence is here inverted. Damico, The Anarchist Dimension of Liberation Theology, 3.

56 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 51.

57 Mumford, “The Bible and Anarchy,” 8.

58 Ellul, “Anarchism and Christianity,” 165-166 (for the quote); Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 50-51.

59 Ellul, “Anarchism and Christianity,” 163-164.

60 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 53-55.

61 Heppenstall, “Anarchy and the Old Testament,” 8-9.

62 Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 79-82.

63 Ellul, “Anarchism and Christianity,” 166.

64 Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 23. (See Matthew 3, 11:1-19, 14:1-12; Mark 1:1-15, 6:14-29; Luke 1:57-66, 3:1-22, 7:18-35; John 1:19-34.)

65 Luke 1:46-55. One example of Christian anarchists just quoting the Magnificat without any explanation, as if self-evident, can be found in [Anonymous], “He Has Scattered the Proud...” A Pinch of Salt, issue 5, December 1986, 2. Walter, a non-Christian anarchist, agrees that the Magnificat resonates with anarchism: Walter, “Anarchism and Religion,” 4.

66 Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 22.

67 Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 22.

68 Earp, “Christianity and Anarchism”.

69 José Porfirio Miranda, quoted in Damico, The Anarchist Dimension of Liberation Theology, 90.

70 Heppenstall, “Anarchy and the Old Testament,” 9.

71 Alexis-Baker, “Embracing God and Rejecting Masters,” 6; Redford, Jesus Is an Anarchist, 3-5. (Matthew 2.)

72 Luke 4:14-30.

73 Andrews, Christi-Anarchy, 109.

74 Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 28-33.

75 Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13.

76 Elliott, Freedom, Justice and Christian Counter-Culture, 157-158; Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 24-27.

77 Matthew 4:8-9.

78 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 58.

79 Redford, Jesus Is an Anarchist, 23. (Luke 4:6.)

80 Matthew 4:10.

81 Ellul, “Anarchism and Christianity,” 168.

82 Alexis-Baker, “Embracing God, Rejecting Masters,” 2.

83 Alexis-Baker, “Embracing God, Rejecting Masters,” 2.

84 Damico, The Anarchist Dimension of Liberation Theology, 78-79.

85 Damico, The Anarchist Dimension of Liberation Theology, 79.

86 Damico, The Anarchist Dimension of Liberation Theology, 89.

87 Crosby, Tolstoy and His Message, para. 32.

88 Elliott, Freedom, Justice and Christian Counter-Culture, 157.

89 Elliott, Freedom, Justice and Christian Counter-Culture, 158.

90 Meggitt [?], “Anarchism and the New Testament,” 11.

91 Ballou, Christian Non-Resistance, para. 81.

92 Ballou, Christian Non-Resistance, para. 82.

93 Joachim Jeremias, quoted in Eller, Christian Anarchy, 10.

94 Andrew Lawrence, “Power Politics and Love,” A Pinch of Salt, issue 12, March 1989, 8.

95 Lawrence, “Power Politics and Love,” 8 (Lawrence’s emphasis).

96 Eller, Christian Anarchy, 10.

97 Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief,” 120; Tolstoy, “The Kingdom of God Is within You,” 88-89.

98 Leo Tolstoy, “Introduction to an Examination of the Gospels,” in A Confession and the Gospel in Brief, trans. Aylmer Maude (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), 106.

99 Maude, The Life of Tolstóy, 41.

100 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, especially chap. 2 and 4.

101 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 141-143. (Mark 1:21-28.)

102 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 146 (Myers’ emphasis). (Mark 1:30-39.)

103 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 152-155. (Mark 1:40-2:15.)

104 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 190-194. (Mark 5:1-21.)

105 For instance, Matthew 6:9, 14-15, 18:21-22; Mark 11:25-26; Luke 6:37.

106 Andrews, The Crux of the Struggle, 39. (Matthew 18:21-22.)

107 Andrews, “Heaven on Earth,” 146 (Andrews’ emphasis).

108 Hennacy, The Book of Ammon, 125.

109 Hennacy, The Book of Ammon, 432.

110 Adin Ballou, “Non-Resistance: A Basis for Christian Anarchism,” in Patterns of Anarchy: A Collection of Writings on the Anarchist Tradition, ed. Leonard I. Krimerman and Lewis Perry (Garden City: Anchor, 1966), 145.

111 Ballou, Christian Non-Resistance, chap. 2, para. 49.

112 Paul Gonya, quoted in Johnston, “Love Your Enemies - Even in the Age of Terrorism?,” 102 (Gonya’s emphasis).

113 Gonya, quoted in Johnston, “Love Your Enemies - Even in the Age of Terrorism?,” 103.

114 Ballou, Christian Non-Resistance, chap. 2, para. 50.

115 Ballou, Christian Non-Resistance, chap. 2, para. 51 (Ballou’s emphasis).

116 John 8: 1-11.

117 John 8:7.

118 Hennacy, The Book of Ammon, xix.

119 Hennacy, The Book of Ammon, 339.

120 Hennacy, The Book of Ammon, 365.

121 Andrews, A Spiritual Framework for Ethical Reflection, 2.

122 Andrews, A Spiritual Framework for Ethical Reflection, 2. (Luke 12:57.)

123 Andrews, A Spiritual Framework for Ethical Reflection, 2. (Matthew 7:1-2.)

124 Andrews, A Spiritual Framework for Ethical Reflection, 2 (Andrews’ emphasis). See also Andrews, Plan Be, 40-41.

125 Andrews, A Spiritual Framework for Ethical Reflection, 3 (Andrews’ emphasis).

126 Andrews, A Spiritual Framework for Ethical Reflection, 2 (emphasis removed).

127 Tolstoy, What I Believe, 30.

128 Tolstoy, What I Believe, 30.

129 Tolstoy, What I Believe, 30. (Luke 6:37-42.)

130 Tolstoy, What I Believe, 31.

131 Tolstoy, What I Believe, 32-35. (James 4:11-12; Romans 2:1-4.)

132 Tolstoy, What I Believe, 36.

133 Matthew 20:20-28; Mark 10:35-45.

134 [Anonymous], The Christmas Conspiracy.

135 Lawrence, “Power Politics and Love,” 8.

136 Lawrence, “Power Politics and Love,” 8.

137 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 61.

138 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 62.

139 Andrews, Not Religion, but Love, 93; Andrews, Subversive Spirituality, Ecclesial and Civil Disobedience, 4. (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45.)

140 Matthew 23:11.

141 Redford, Jesus Is an Anarchist, 26.

142 Andrews, “Heaven on Earth,” 53

143 Mumford, “The Bible and Anarchy,” 8.

144 Ballou, Christian Non-Resistance, chap. 2, para. 62.

145 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 278.

146 Ballou, Non-Resistance in Relation to Human Governments, 9-10.

147 The expression “servant leadership” is borrowed from Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 260 and passim.

148 Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 38.

149 Matthew 21:12-16; Mark 11:15-18; Luke 19:45-48; John 2:13-17.

150 Elliott, Freedom, Justice and Christian Counter-Culture, 166.

151 All the quotes between the previous and this footnote are from Elliott, Freedom, Justice and Christian Counter-Culture, 180-181. See Mark 11:17 and Luke 19:47 for the words quoted by Elliott in this last sentence.

152 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 80 (Myers’ emphasis).

153 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 300 (Myers’ emphases).

154 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 302 (Myers’ emphasis).

155 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 299-306.

156 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 306.

157 Redford, the Christian anarcho-capitalist, believes that it is a mistake to interpret this episode “as being some sort of revolt by Jesus on the bad aesthetics of commerce being conducted inside God’s temple.” For him, commercial activities are perfectly acceptable as long as they are conducted in good faith. But here, “what [Jesus] was saying was that the people who bought these animals to be sacrificed to atone for their sins were being ripped-off - i.e., that the animal sacrifices weren’t doing anything for their sins.” Therefore, says Redford, “having determined that the priests were defrauding their patrons He took appropriate libertarian action (per Rothbardian theory in particular) by using retaliatory force against these thieves” (Rothbard is one of the main thinkers of anarcho-capitalism). Hence, for Redford, Jesus is not really protesting about the concentration of power, but about the commercial sham involved in that situation. Redford, Jesus Is an Anarchist, 34-35.

158 Andrews, Not Religion, but Love, 65-66.

159 Hennacy, The Book of Ammon, 433.

160 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 302.

161 [Anonymous], “Cleansing of the Temple,” A Pinch of Salt, issue 1, September 1985, 12.

162 Dorothy Day, Selected Writings: By Little and by Little, ed. Robert Ellsberg (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2005), 344-345.

163 Wink, Jesus’ Third Way, 36.

164 Elliott, Freedom, Justice and Christian Counter-Culture, 80.

165 Crosby, Tolstoy and His Message, chap. 5, para. 11.

166 Leo Tolstoy, “Letter to Ernest Howard Crosby,” in Tolstoy’s Writings on Civil Disobedience and Non-Violence, trans. Aylmer Maude (New York: Bergman, 1967), 181.

167 Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 42.

168 Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 43.

169 Penner, The New Testament, the Christian, and the State, 68-69.

170 Andy Baker, Nonviolent Action in the Temple, available from http://www.jesusradicals.com/essays/theology/temple.html (accessed 16 May 2006).

171 Ballou, Christian Non-Resistance in All Its Important Bearings, 30.

172 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 299.

173 Baker, Nonviolent Action in the Temple.

174 Hennacy, The Book of Ammon, 432.

175 Maurin, Easy Essays (2003), 3.

176 Hennacy, The Book of Ammon, 381.

177 Leo Tolstoy, “A Reply to the Synod’s Edict of Excommunication, and to Letters Received by Me Concerning It,” in On Life and Essays on Religion, trans. Aylmer Maude (London: Oxford University Press, 1934), 223.

178 Martin Newell, quoted in Greg Watts, “Following Jesus in Love and Anarchy,” The Times, 29 February 2008, available from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3461731.ece (accessed 29 February 2008), para. 16.

179 Matthew 26:47-56; Mark 14:43-52; Luke 22:35-53; John 18:1-11. Tolstoy’s version suggests a connection between Peter’s use of the sword and his later sorrow at having denied Jesus because, for Tolstoy, he “had fallen into temptation [...] when he tried to defend Jesus.” Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief,” 255-256.

180 All four Evangelists recount a servant of Jesus using a sword to cut a servant of the high priest’s ear, but only John names Jesus’ servant as Peter. Jesus’ rebuke varies: in Matthew, he says “Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword ;” in Luke: “Suffer ye thus far;” and in John: “Put up thy sword into the sheath;” but there is no rebuke in Mark. Only Luke tells of Jesus healing the wounded soldier. Jesus’ comment that those who are arresting him have come like thieves in the middle of the night is mentioned by Matthew, Mark and Luke, but not John. Finally, Jesus’ proclamation that this arrest and what is to follow must come for him to “drink the cup” and for scripture to be fulfilled appears in Matthew, Mark and John, but not Luke.

181 Matthew 26:52.

182 Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief,” 254.

183 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 65.

184 Garrison, “Declaration of Sentiments Adopted by the Peace Convention,” 8.

185 Elliott, Freedom, Justice and Christian Counter-Culture, 117.

186 Ballou, “A Catechism of Non-Resistance,” 19.

187 Molnár, A Study of Peter Chelčický’s Life, 15 (quoting Chelčický).

188 Hennacy, The Book of Ammon, 125.

189 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 65.

190 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 65.

191 Luke 22:35-37.

192 Luke 22:38.

193 Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief,” 244.

194 Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief,” 295.

195 Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief,” 295.

196 Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief,” 295.

197 Hennacy, The Book of Ammon, 194, 432-433.

198 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 64.

199 Penner, The New Testament, the Christian, and the State, 52-54; Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 45, footnote 44.

200 Penner, The New Testament, the Christian, and the State, 54.

201 Penner, The New Testament, the Christian, and the State, 54.

202 Penner, The New Testament, the Christian, and the State, 53.

203 Penner, The New Testament, the Christian, and the State, 55.

204 Ballou, Christian Non-Resistance in All Its Important Bearings, 31.

205 Crosby, Tolstoy and His Message, chap. 5, para. 7.

206 Matthew 26-26; Mark 14-15; Luke 22-23; John 18-19.

207 [Anonymous], “The World Turned Upside Down,” A Pinch of Salt, issue 3, Pentecost 1986, 10.

208 Tolstoy, What I Believe, 45, 65 (respectively).

209 Penner, The New Testament, the Christian, and the State, 61.

210 Hugh O. Pentecost, Murder by Law, available from http://www.deadanarchists.org/Pentecost/murder.html (accessed 22 November 2007), para. 22.

211 Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 49.

212 John 18:14. George Tarleton, Birth of a Christian Anarchist (Pennington: Pendragon, 1993), 63-67; Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief,” 291; Tolstoy, “The Kingdom of God Is within You,” 403.

213 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 380; Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 48-49.

214 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 372.

215 “Other aspects of the argument,” writes Justin [Meggitt?], “include the fact that one of his disciples is a zealot (a political revolutionary), that his disciples were armed at the time of his arrest, that he drove the money lenders from the temple, that he declared the people to be exempt from paying the temple tax and so on.” Meggitt [?], “Anarchism and the New Testament,” 11.

216 Elliott, Freedom, Justice and Christian Counter-Culture, 180. Yoder and Mumford also remark that the title on the Cross testifies to the political threat Jesus is seen to pose. Mumford, “The Bible and Anarchy,” 8; Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 50.

217 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 245.

218 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 256.

219 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 383.

220 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 387 (Myers’ emphasis). By “social bandits,” Myers means subversives struggling for social justice and inciting revolt. Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 58-60.

221 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 65.

222 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 66.

223 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 66.

224 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 67-68.

225 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 71 (69-71 for the general argument).

226 In the King James Version of the Bible, the text reads: “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin” (John 19:11). Ellul concedes that some interpret “from above” to indicate that “Pilate has his power from God.” But, he continues, “in this case I defy anyone to explain what is meant by the second part of his reply. How can the one who has delivered up Jesus be guilty if he has been delivered up to the authority which is from God?” A better interpretation, for Ellul, is that “Jesus is telling Pilate that his power is from the spirit of evil. This is in keeping with what we said about the temptations, namely, that all powers and kingdoms in this world depend on the devil. It is also in keeping with the reply of Jesus to the chief priest that we quoted above, namely, that the power of darkness is at work in his trial.” Ellul therefore explains the second part of the saying thus: “Jesus is telling Pilate that he has his power from the spirit of evil but that the one who has delivered him up to Pilate, and therefore to that spirit, is more guilty than Pilate himself. Obviously so!” Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 68-69.

227 John 18:36.

228 Ellul, “Anarchism and Christianity,” 168.

229 Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief,” 258.

230 Eller, Christian Anarchy, 10 (Eller’s emphasis).

231 Ballou, Non-Resistance in Relation to Human Governments, 9.

232 Penner, The New Testament, the Christian, and the State, 62.

233 Ballou, Christian Non-Resistance, chap. 2, para. 62.

234 Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief,” 257.

235 Ballou, Christian Non-Resistance, chap. 2, para. 82 (emphasis removed).

236 Romans 8:38; 1 Corinthians 2:8, 15:24; Ephesians 1:21, 2:2, 3:10, 6:12; Colossians 1:16, 2:15.

237 John Howard Yoder, “Translator’s Preface,” in Christ and the Powers, by Hendrik Berkhof, trans. John Howard Yoder (Scottdale: Herald, 1977), 5.

238 Hendrik Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, trans. John Howard Yoder (Scottdale: Herald, 1977), 16.

239 Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, 18.

240 Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, 19.

241 Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, 21.

242 Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, 22.

243 Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, 23.

244 Wink, Jesus’ Third Way, 84.

245 Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, 27-35. This theme is revisited in Chapter 4.

246 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 83.

247 Ellul, quoted in Goddard, Living the Word, Resisting the World, 281.

248 Ephesians 6:12.

249 Murray L. Wagner, Petr Chelčický: A Radical Separatist in Hussite Bohemia (Scottdale: Herald, 1983), 88.

250 Bartley, Faith and Politics after Christendom, 193.

251 Walter Wink, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 140.

252 Andrews, Christi-Anarchy, 215. As mentioned above, the word usually translated as “principalities” is indeed archai in the Greek, the same word “an-archism” defines itself as a negation of.

253 Ellul, Violence, 161.

254 Ellul, Violence, 161.

255 Ellul gives the following phenomena as examples: the state, money, sexuality, and law. Ellul, Violence, 163.

256 Ellul, Violence, 162. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that because for Ellul “the powers are incarnated in very concrete forms, and their power is expressed in institutions or organizations,” he argues that the material battle must be fought, and therefore he sees “a kind of division of labour” whereby “People generally join the material struggle out of their own volition, spontaneously,” but “the other war can be waged only by Christians” because only they “can contend against the powers that are at the root of the problem.” Ellul, Violence, 163-164 (Ellul’s emphasis). This distinction between Christians and the rest is addressed again in Chapters 4 and 5.

257 Arthur Rimbaud, quoted in Ellul, Violence, 164.

258 Ellul, Violence, 164.

259 Ellul, Violence, 165.

260 Colossians 2:15 (these words are from the New Revised Standard Version).

261 [Anonymous], Ninety-Five Theses in Defense of Patriarchy, thesis 55.

262 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 84.

263 Wagner, Petr Chelčický, 51.

264 Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 139-140.

265 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 249 (Myers’ emphasis).

266 Bartley, Faith and Politics after Christendom, 222.

267 Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, 38.

268 Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, 34.

269 Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, 38.

270 Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, 39.

271 Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 145.

272 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 405 (Myers’ emphasis).

273 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 383-384.

274 Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 51 (Yoder’s emphasis). (Luke 24:13-34.)

275 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 257.

276 Elliott, Freedom, Justice and Christian Counter-Culture, 160.

277 Elliott, Freedom, Justice and Christian Counter-Culture, 160.

278 Elliott, Freedom, Justice and Christian Counter-Culture, 179-180; Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 39-40. (Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:28-40; John 12:12-19.)

279 That is what he understands the dialogue between Peter and Jesus on the nature of Jesus’ status as Messiah to be about. He writes: “Jesus drops Peter’s Messiah title and replaces it with ‘Human One’ [which is how Myers translates what is usually translated as ‘Son of Man’]. Mark has already established within his own story that the Human One is someone who challenges the authority of the scribes and Pharisees. [...] According to the understanding of Peter, ‘Messiah’ necessarily means royal triumph and the restoration of Israel’s collective honour. Against this, Jesus argues that ‘Human One’ necessarily means suffering.” Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 243-244 (Myers’ emphasis). (Mark 8:27-38.)

280 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 383.

281 As noted elsewhere, “A ‘martyr’, etymologically, is he who makes himself a witness to his faith. And it is the ultimate testimony to one’s faith to be ready to put it to practice even when one’s very life is threatened. But the life to be sacrificed, it should be noted, is not the enemy’s life, but the martyr’s own life.” Alexandre J. M. E. Christoyannopoulos, “Turning the Other Cheek to Terrorism: Reflections on the Contemporary Significance of Leo Tolstoy’s Exegesis of the Sermon on the Mount,” Politics and Religion 1/1 (2008), 41.

282 Andrews, The Crux of the Struggle, 29 (Andrews’ emphasis).

283 Gale Webbe, quoted in Andrews, The Crux of the Struggle, 30.

284 Andrews, The Crux of the Struggle, 30.

285 Andrews, The Crux of the Struggle, 41.

286 Wink, Jesus’ Third Way, 69.

287 Charlie, “The Love of Jesus,” A Pinch of Salt, issue 5, December 1986, 5.

288 Charlie, “The Love of Jesus,” 5.

289 Abelard, quoted in Andrews, The Crux of the Struggle, 26.

290 Andrews, Christi-Anarchy, 155; Andrews, The Crux of the Struggle, 30.

291 J. Philip Wogaman, Christian Perspectives on Politics, Revised and expanded ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000), 168 (Wogaman’s emphasis).

292 Wogaman, Christian Perspectives on Politics, 168.

293 Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, 40.

294 Goddard, Living the Word, Resisting the World, 101.

295 These are the exact words of Mark 8:34, but the same saying can also be found in Matthew 16:24 and Luke 9:23.

296 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 246.

297 Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 129.

298 Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, 44.

299 Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, 47-64.

300 Ellul, Violence, 165-166.

301 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 103 (see also 287). (This notion of efficacy is discussed and critiqued in the Conclusion.)

302 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 247.

303 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 428.

304 Ellul, Violence, 174.

305 One significant exception to this, from both Eller and Ellul, is discussed in the Conclusion.

306 Tolstoy, What I Believe, 126-127 (also 137).

307 Tolstoy, What I Believe, 127.

308 Tolstoy, What I Believe, 128.

309 Tolstoy, What I Believe, 128.

310 Tolstoy, What I Believe, 130-131.

311 Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief,” 231-233, 239-240, 247-248, 263, 284-286, 289, 293-296, 302.

312 Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief,” 120-121; Leo Tolstoy, “On Life,” in On Life and Essays on Religion, trans. Aylmer Maude (London: Oxford University Press, 1934), 71-72, 129-139; Tolstoy, What I Believe, 131-141. Besides, says Tolstoy, even if you believe in the resurrection, in hell, paradise and other miracles, “nothing of all this need hinder you at the same time from doing those things which Jesus has ordained for you to your good.” Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief,” 204-205.

313 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 398-401.

314 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 447.

315 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 401 (Myers’ emphasis).

316 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 401 (Myers’ emphasis), and 401-404.

317 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 406.

318 Molnár, A Study of Peter Chelčický’s Life, 54.

319 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 71.

320 Ellul, “Anarchism and Christianity,” 169; Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 71-73. (Revelation 13.)

321 Goddard, Living the Word, Resisting the World, 283.

322 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 72.

323 He writes: “It is described as follows. ‘It makes all the inhabitants of the earth worship the first beast. ... It seduces the inhabitants of the earth. It tells them to make an image of the first beast. ... It animates the image of the beast and speaks in its name. ... It causes all, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, so that no one can buy or sell without having the mark of the beast’ (13:12-17). For my part, I find here an exact description of propaganda in association with the police. The beast makes speeches which induce people to obey the state, to worship it. It gives them the mark that enables them to live in society. Finally, those that will not obey the first beast are put to death.” Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 72-73.

324 Ellul, “Anarchism and Christianity,” 169. (Revelation 6:3-4, 17-18.)

325 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 73 (see also 74).

326 Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 74.

327 Penner, The New Testament, the Christian, and the State, 116. (Revelation 13:17, 14:9-12.)

328 Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 196.

329 W. M. Ramsay, quoted in Penner, The New Testament, the Christian, and the State, 115. (Revelation 2:12-17.)

330 Ellul is here quoting Revelation 17:6 (and 18:24). Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, 74.

331 Penner, The New Testament, the Christian, and the State, 116. (Revelation 6:10-11.)

332 Wink, Jesus’ Third Way, 70. (Revelation 6:10-11.)

333 Elliott, Freedom, Justice and Christian Counter-Culture, 78.

334 Redford, Jesus Is an Anarchist, 53. (Revelation 16:14; 17:2, 9-18; 18:3, 9; 19:19; 20:4.)

335 Redford, Jesus Is an Anarchist, 56.

336 Redford, Jesus Is an Anarchist, 56.

337 Matthew 10:34-39; Luke 12:49-53.

338 Ellul, Violence, 161.

339 Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief,” 184.

340 Mark 11:11-26 (where it frames the Temple cleansing); Matthew 21:17-22 (where it follows it).

341 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 297.

342 The “parable of the great feast” (Luke 14:15-24), for instance, is said to show that violence can be used to coerce people to join the church; but a Christian anarchist exegesis would probably emphasise that this remains only a parable and thus presumably carries less weight the direct instructions such as in the Sermon on the Mount. Supporters of a violent Jesus also mention Jesus’ support for the amputation of limbs that offend God (Matthew 5:29-30); though the violence is only to be used upon oneself, not others. Others point to the harsh punishments at the Last Judgement which Jesus repeatedly warns about (for instance, Matthew 8:10-12, 10:12-15, 11:20-24); but these punishments are meted by God, not humans, and such harsh language is typical in prophetic warnings (see for example the Book of Revelation). Again, though, Christian anarchists never really discuss interpretations of these passages.

343 [Anonymous], Why I Worship a Violent, Vengeful God.