CONTRA FATUM

Note: the following post is the first of a planned series on Christian anarchism titled 'The Kingdom of God is Anarchy: Anarchy as a Christian Practice of Faith'. The below is the first part of the introduction. The links between Christian theology and practice on the one hand, and a radical, anti-authoritarian rejection of all kinds of dominance on the other, are far from being novel. Throughout most of Church history, Christian thinkers have frequently returned to Jesus’ original criticism of all forms of political and religious oppression, and his proclamation of the kingdom of God, where power is replaced by love and authority by freedom. Paul – even if his thinking is often regarded as somewhat authoritarian – made it clear, that Jesus will eventually destroy “all rule, and all authority and power”, and that Christians fight against the principialities, powers and rulers of “this dark world”. For Christians this meant not to practice any kind of violence or domin...

Note: the following post is the first of a planned series on Christian anarchism titled 'The Kingdom of God is Anarchy: Powerlessness as a Christian Practice of Faith'. The below is the first part of the introduction. ”There is a perfect likeness between Christian and anarchist: their object, their instinct, points only toward destruction. […] The Christian and the anarchist: both are decadents ; both are incapable of any act that is not disintegrating, poisonous, degenerating, blood sucking ; both have an instinct of mortal hatred of everything that stands up, and is great, and has durability, and promises life a future.” (Friedrich Nietzsche, Der Antichrist §58) The above quote appears in the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Antichrist from 1895. Nietzsche wrote his famous book in at time when anarchism as a political philosophy was gaining increasing support. Many anarchists were strongly critical of religion in general, but for Nietzsche he fundamental...