There
is no need for an exhaustive theological exploration of anarchist
themes in the New Testament. Unlike the Hebrew Scriptures, there is
much written on the subject. Instead, a brief illumination and
critique of some key ideas is offered.
Messiah
Mark
and Luke's gospels begin with a frenzy of political imagery
referencing the Hebrew Scriptures. Descended from David, Jesus is
born displaced from his homeland because of an imperial census.
Mary's Magnificat
comes with Maccabean overtones. Herod
slaughters the male children for fear of a political rival. Jesus'
family hide in Egypt. Matthew 1: 17 states: Thus
there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David,
fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the
exile to the Messiah.1
The message is clear – these events are fundamentally connected.
Yoder agrees that Jesus“was a political figure from the
beginning”2.
The
expectation of Jesus as a Davidic messiah could give problems to the
Christian Anarchist reading. If this reading wants to reject the
monarchy altogether as a failure, the casting of the messiah in this
light is unfavourable. However, in any Christian reading it is clear
that Jesus surpasses David. He fully inhabits the role that David
only grasped at. Perhaps it could be compared to the 'Second Adam'
image of 1 Corinthians. Jesus is the 'second David'. Both figures are
respected as fathers of the people, yet both institute terrible
curses, and are symbolic of rebellious ways. In both cases Jesus
reverses their failure, and fulfils their intended roles.
If
our expectation is for Jesus to be revealed as a politically
authoritative messiah, the story of the temptations surprises us.
Jesus is tempted with political authority which, Luke includes, is
the realm of Satan.3
The exorcism of a 'Legion' of demons from the Gerasene man is also
politically significant.4
Richard A. Horsley claims that, above and beyond the legion, a number
of military images are used including Jesus 'dismissing' the demons
into a 'troop' of swine, ending with the charging into the sea
reminiscent of Pharaoh's armies being drowned.5
The
cleansing of the temple is one of the most significant texts for
understanding Jesus as an anarchist messiah. John Dominic Crossan
calls it: “A
permenantly valid protest demonstration against any capital city’s
collusion between conservative religion and imperial violence at any
time and in any place.”6
Jesus
deliberately fulfils prophecy and restores and reclaims a sacred
space from the political and economic forces of empire.
Teaching
Jesus’
announcement of the kingdom in Mark 1:157
and his fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy in Luke 4 have
overtones of Jubilee. The good news that Jesus preaches is not simply
about an other-worldly spiritual reality. Jubilee is a political
concept- a physical and economic restoration. As Jesus teaches his
followers the way to embody Jubilee, it is not an exercise in ethical
thought, he expects them to put this new way of life into practice.8
The
Sermon on the Mount is the key text in all Christian Anarchism. As
the source text for Christian pacifism, it has received a lot of
attention. Gandhi said of it:‘Everyone
in the world knows that Jesus and His teaching is non-violent, except
Christians’”9.
The standard interpretation of Matthew 5:38-42 for Christian
Anarchist thinkers is Walter Wink's 'third way': To ‘turn the other
cheek’ is to force your oppressor to strike you as they would an
equal, rather than with the back of the hand. To ‘give your
undergarment also’ is to draw attention to the injustice of
mistreating debtors. To go the extra mile is to seemingly submit to
the request of occupation troops but to continue further than the
legal limit and risk their court-martial.10
This 'creative resistance' informs
non-violent methods among activist groups like the Catholic Worker
movement and Ploughshares.
Crucifixion
The
political imagery of the gospels increases as they progress to the
crucifixion narratives. The triumphal entry is a many-layered satire.
It recalls the triumphal entry of Judas Maccabeus, and fulfils the
prophecy of Zechariah which, in turn, parodied the triumph of
Alexander of Macedon11.
Thomas
Schmidt’s Jesus’
Triumphal March to Crucifixion: The Sacred Way as Roman Procession12
presents
Mark’s passion narrative as a parallel to Caesar’s coronation13.
The
cross itself is seen as the ultimate act of political rebellion – a
radical submission to the worst the empire can offer.14
Nigel Goring Wright explains: “The cross was not an instrument of
propitiation but a political alternative to both insurrection and
quietism.”15
In his Resurrection, Christ overcomes the old order and begins the
restoration of creation.
Revelation
Revelation
is the most openly anarchist book in the bible. Following the imagery
of Daniel's apocalypse, political powers are represented as beasts,
powerful, self-aggrandising, deceiving all the world with their
propaganda. The whore – Babylon, the oppressive empire of humanity
is juxtaposed with the bride – free, redeemed, ready to be made one
with Christ. It is Babel and Canaan, Egypt and Sinai, Babylon and
Jerusalem, separation and atonement, empire and God.
In
the vision of the new heaven and new earth, John draws together the
threads of the Hebrew scripture. It represents creation made perfect.
Even Jerusalem, the failed human experiment, is there – God has
perfected human
effort and it is included in the new creation, with some makor
updates. Firstly, the temple is absent - the symbol of centralised
political power. God dwells among the people as he did in Eden, in
the tabernacle, and in the incarnation imagery of the first chapter
John's gospel. Secondly, there has been what Ched Myers calls “ a
radical 'greening' of the city: “Gates always open and river
running down Main Street on whose banks grow Eden’s Trees of
Life.”16
The
final chapter heralds the arrival of God's chosen - David's heir, the
true king. Like Egypt and like Babylon, the book ends with both
composer and hearers yearning for release from the oppression of an
empire and the beginning of the rule of God.
One
Story
The
story of scripture is the constant cycle of God freeing humankind
from the political and spiritual powers that they subject themselves
to. It is the story of the
failure of global systems, rulers and governments - a continual
liberation from all kinds of oppression. We are constantly reminded
that humankind are intended to be free of all rulers – to be in
relationship with God, walking together in the garden.
1(NIV)
3Luke
4:5
4Matthew
8, Mark 5, Luke8.
5Horsley,
Richard A. Jesus
and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder.
Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003. Pg. 100
6John
Dominic Crossan. God
and Empire: Jesus against Rome, Then and Now.
New York: Harper Collins, 2007. pg. 132.
7“The
message of the New Testament has been
summarised in Mark 1:15”
George W. Forell. Christian
Social Teachings.
Minneapolis: Ausburg Publishing House, 1966. pg 13.
8Matthew
7:24-28
9Wink,
Walter. “The Third Way”. Chicago
Sunday Evening Club. http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/Wink_3707.htm
(accessed 9/4/10).
10
Walter Wink The Powers That
Be. Cited in Shane Claiborne
and Chris Haw. Jesus for
President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals. Grand
Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2008. pg. 92.
11John
Dominic Crossan. God and
Empire: Jesus against Rome, Then and Now.
New York: Harper Collins, 2007. pg. 132.
12Cited
in Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw. Jesus
for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals. Grand
Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2008. pg 126.
13Claiborne
and Haw
summarise 8 points of
parallel: Soldiers muster; Crown, scepter and robe; Annunciation;
Procession; The Hill; The offer of wine; Colleagues to the left and
right; sign of divine approval.
14Claiborne
and Chris Haw. Jesus for
President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals. Grand
Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2008. pg 137
16Ched
Myers. “Anarcho-primitivism and the Bible”. Originally published
in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. Continuum,
2005.
http://www.chedmyers.org/system/files/The%20Fall%20-%20Anarcho%20Primitivism%20%2526%20the%20Bible.pdf
(accessed 11/09/12)
http://www.chedmyers.org/system/files/The%20Fall%20-%20Anarcho%20Primitivism%20%2526%20the%20Bible.pdf
(accessed 11/09/12)
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