I think that Christian anarchism is the only probable sect of anarchism that would have a chance in today’s society. With the talk of how we are able to communicate with random people across the world through the internet, the world isn’t necessarily getting smaller. We are just realizing how separated the world once was before we could shoot emails. This being said, I believe that only certain governments, theologies, and societies can thrive in this vast environment. Christian anarchism is what the world needs. Its concepts can apply to a large world, or rather to a small community within the global society we live in the 21st century. However, I do not mean to say that the world could be fitted with Christian anarchism. Being too big, the global community could not settle on a common set of moral laws that would be shared throughout the Christian anarchist world. But, if there was an attempt to create a Christian anarchist society, it would have to mock the utopian colony attempt in Alduous Huxley’s Brave New World. What inevitably happens to a combination of Alphas on one island is disastrous and somewhat realistic; powerful people want to take charge. So there needs to be structure within a community that is larger than a town. I envision the idea of a Christian anarchist community would be the size of a nudist colony or a hippy commune.
There’s a quote from Men in Black (which I hate to use, but it holds some truth to it) which says something like, “A person is smart, but people are dumb, rash and they panic!” I think the concept of a thriving community is hard to envision without some authority. Christianity has a set of morals that can be found in the Bible. The Ten Commandments encompass a widely accepted set of morals that can cross into multiple religions. So it’s not just the idea of Christ himself being the unseen, spiritual ringleader of a Christian anarchist group, but the morals He set by example, some of which reflected the teachings in the Old Testament. I think the early Christian communities, such as Antioch, exemplify the reality of a group of individuals coming together and being led by only an agreed set of morals and beliefs.
There is a need for spirituality in setting morals. Inevitably, anarchism’s lack of leadership and/or government demands for a set of said morals. However, without any spiritual influence, morals can’t be agreed on. It is not one religious sect whose name has to be put before anarchism. I think Hinduism’s term ishta, meaning one’s chosen ideal of God, explains the transcendence of shared spiritual morality. This means that Arjuna experienced the same laying down of laws in the Bhagavad Gita, as did Moses on Sinai, and the Buddha under his Bodhi tree. This explains how there is a shared set of morals only to be found in a spiritual setting. I think that governments like republics, democracies, and autonomies depict the failing attempts of using philosophy as a common ground to group communities under one set of morals. Without the spirituality aspect, morals cannot be respected. I think today in the 21st century, we see that morals aren’t respected anymore. If the morals can’t be respected, then there is a definite need for rule by government and authority. But if there is a well thought-out attempt at establishing a realistic Christian anarchist community, I think that the global community would gain the respect for morality that was recently lost.
I think that Christian anarchism could also apply to an individual’s mind. An example of someone’s mind that would look like a democracy would have the cliché devil and angel sitting on his shoulders. His conscience would be ruled by both sides. But a Christian anarchist mind would free one’s conscience, influenced by society, from ephemeral limitations. I think that a mind such as that would have a moral compass that comes into play time after time in that minds’s life span. And it is never disrupted by societal norms as a democracy’s mind would. Again, I think Hinduism’s concept of atman, meaning the ultimate being within, defines how free our conscience could be if we were to train it to be still. If our minds were constrained only by morals that had to be inevitably developed from the lack of leadership found in a democracy’s mind, then we would be in total control of our thoughts.
