On Anarchy

My friend Chris, who is part of our Relational Tithe network, is going to this conference this weekend on Anarchism and Christianity.

What a great quote from the Jesus Radicals' (the folks who are putting on the conference) site...

Even when they call us mad, when they call us subversives and communists and all the epithets they put on us, we know we only preach the subversive witness of the Beatitudes, which have turned everything upside down.
–Oscar Romero

This last Sunday morning, we talked a bit about the subversive nature of the Beautitudes. How Jesus was raising the lowest to places of honor... those society had marginalized: the meek, those who did not hunger and thirst for the riches of the world, those who declared peace over war. And then uses these people as models for the Kingdom.

Some of Wendell Berry's thoughts on this from our Colossian book:

Despite its protests to the contrary, modern Christianity has become willy-nilly the religion of the state and the economic status quo. Because it has been so exclusively dedicated to incanting anemic souls into Heaven, it has been made the tool of much earthly villainy. It has, for the most part, stood silently by while a predatory economy has ravaged the world, destroyed its natural beauty and health, divided and plundered its human communities and households. It has flown the flag and chanted the slogans of empire. It has assumed with the economists that "economic forces" automatically work for good and has assumed with the industrialists and militarists that technology determines history. It has assumed with almost everybody that "progress" is good, that it is good to be modern and up with the times. It has admired Caesar and comforted him in his depredations and defaults. But in its de facto alliance with Caesar, Christianity connives directly in the murder of Creation. For in these days, Caesar is no longer a mere destroyer of armies, cities, and nations. He is a contradicter of the fundamental miracle of life. A part of the normal practice of his power is his willingness to destroy the world. He prays, he says, and churches everywhere compliantly pray with him. But he is praying to a God whose works he is prepared at any moment to destroy. What could be more wicked than that, or more mad.