A Review of Christian Anarchism: A Political Commentary on the Gospel

An Overview of Christian Anarchist Theory

By Nathan Jun, Midwestern State University, WSA/TX

Alexandre Christoyannopoulos’ Christian Anarchism is a meticulously researched but readily accessible survey of an often overlooked and frequently misunderstood anarchist tradition. As he explains in the introduction, “Anarchism is not all there is to Christianity. The point which some describe as the overlap of the two separate traditions, however, seems to be precisely where others argue that Christianity logically leads to some form of anarchism… The aim of this book is to focus on this overlap, and therefore solely on the anarchist political implications of Christianity. That is, this book focuses solely on the view that Christianity implies a (peculiarly Christian) type of anarchism” (7). There is no question that Christian Anarchism meets its stated aim, and this in two ways: first, by offering a richly detailed overview of Christian anarchist theory vis-à-vis its key thinkers and schools of thought; and second, by vividly demonstrating how Christian anarchists have attempted, and continue to attempt, to live their ideas in practice.

At the level of content, my only criticism concerns the puzzling inclusion “anarcho-capitalists” [sic] alongside genuine anarchists such as Leo Tolstoi and Dorothy Day. While I am not in a position to judge the Christian bona fides of any of the figures discussed in this book, I do feel confident in asserting that capitalists—by definition—cannot be anarchists, and vice versa. (As an anarchist as well as a scholar of anarchism, Professor Christoyannopoulos surely knows this, which is why I say—quite charitably, I might add—that I am “puzzled.”) At the same time, so little space is devoted to “anarcho-capitalists” [sic] that it’s fair to describe the entire discussion as an aberration in an otherwise fine book.

Book CoverBy its own admission, Christian Anarchism is not a critical work; it is a descriptive work intended to introduce the reader to the Christian anarchist tradition, and on this score it is a great achievement. My hope is that Christoyannopoulos will follow up at some point with a more critical treatment of Christian anarchism—one that, for example, will address some of the common arguments which non-Christian anarchists level against the very idea of Christian anarchism. I say this as someone who has serious moral and philosophical objections to organized religion in general and Christianity in particular but is also willing to countenance religiosity when it is marshaled in the service of liberation. And although Christian Anarchism goes a long way toward allaying my concerns, many remain unaddressed. For example, isn’t Jesus Christ himself the ultimate ground of political and moral obligation for Christians? If so, doesn’t this imply that any Christian action—no matter how much it happens to outwardly overlap with the means and ends of anarchism—is ultimately carried out for the sake of Christ? And wouldn’t this suggest that Christian anarchists’ reasons for acting differ in a non-trivial way from those of non-Christian anarchists (viz., because they are acting ultimately for the sake of Christ rather than for the sake of humanity)?

The overarching problem I keep returning to is this: Christian anarchism has an archē—an ultimate authority, a first principle—that structures, organizes, and licenses it, and this seems self-contradictory to me as it did to Bakunin and others before me. I do not doubt this problem is a non-problem, that I am somehow missing the point in fretting over it, but this is where Christoyannopoulos needs to set my mind at ease. By raising these sorts of questions, Christian Anarchism has definitely whetted my appetite and I have no doubt that it will be followed up by deeply satisfying critical work.

Imprint Academic, Exeter, 2011, ISBN 978-1-845-402471; $34.90/£17.95


 

Posted: December 25th, 2011 under Ideas, Reviews.
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