Re: Still Not the Anarchists Cookbook

• John Vandivier

This article will respond to another article titled, "Still Not the Anarchists [sic] Cookbook," which is an article advocating that Christianity and anarchism may be incompatible.

The article is <a href="http://michaelalford.blogspot.com/2014/01/still-not-anarchists-cookbook.html?showComment=1391394807483#c1531530949292487930">located here. From it may be drawn one argument from Christianity against anarchism, which is that God wants us to have government. Scripture used in support of this idea includes the following:

  1. Eph 6:2-9, \"2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— 3 “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

    5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. 6 Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. 7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, 8 because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.

    9 And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him."

  2. Titus 3:1, "Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work"

There are also others, but basically the scripture references come in these 3 general flavors which are demonstrated above:
  1. Children should obey parents.
  2. Slaves should obey masters.
  3. People should submit to the law where they live.
I actually agree with all three of those points. I am not the type of anarchist who advocates for rebellion or illegal activity as a way to achieve anarchy, but I think you will find that there are ways to achieve anarchy legally and without any sort of rebellion. This \"nice guy anarchism\" is kind of my ideal goal. Seasteading and legal exemption zones are two ways that this has been and can be done.

Furthermore, I would say that those 3 examples of scripture which indicate that certain governments are valid can all be outweighed by counterpart scripture which indicates that a direct, personal relationship with God is the ultimate form of government. If that is the case, and I think it is, then anarchism is the only way to go. This also resolves the fact that we fundamentally have to interpret scripture for ourselves as well. Here are some scriptures which I think show superiority of the God-only government over the 3 earlier flavors:

  1. Matthew 23:9-10, \"And do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. 10 Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ.\"
  2. 1 Corinthians 7:22, \"For the one who was a slave when called to faith in the Lord is the Lord's freed person; similarly, the one who was free when called is Christ's slave.\"
  3. Actually, here are two scriptures and some commentary to show that God is the best governor in the legal/political sense:
    1. John 18:36, \"Jesus answered, 'My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.'\"
    2. Phillipians 3:20, \"But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ\"
In conclusion, I am in support of anarchy in the sense of a lack of human government. God's natural law is good and inescapable, but it would seem to encourage anarchy rather than discourage it. If we consider economic law and the reality of the necessity of personal interpretation as examples of natural law, that is.