The Unkingdom of God by Van Steenwyk Mark;Fitch David E.;

Author:Van Steenwyk, Mark;Fitch, David E.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780830895670
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2013-07-31T00:00:00+00:00

Namers of All Forms of Oppression

Defining anarchism is problematic (to “define” something often implies the authority to do so, after all). Nevertheless, for the sake of clarity, I will offer my best attempt at a reasonable definition. An-arch means contrary to authority or without ruler. So anarchism is the name given to the idea that a group of people may live together without being ruled.

That is the textbook definition. Most anarchists go further, trying to name and resist all the things in our societies that oppress people. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza coined the helpful term kyriarchy (from the Greek word kyrios, which can signify the domination of the emperor, lord, master, father, husband or elite propertied male) to signify the complex interrelatedness of various forms of oppression (like classism, sexism, racism and so on). These various forms of domination do not stand alone. Rather, they reinforce one another into a domination system.3

I have found it helpful to focus my critique on the “empire” as a manifestation of interrelated oppressions. Empire is, in our context, that social reality (or unreality, depending upon how you look at it) that globally reaches out to manage all of creation (including humanity) into a system of exploitation wherein only the elite ultimately benefit.

Empire is the bringing of death to the whole of life. Good anarchists are namers of all forms of oppression, seeking to understand the way oppressions reinforce each other in enslaving creation and seeing, in contrast, a way of liberation and life for all of creation.

Anarchism is, as a defined idea, a new concept. This complicates any effort to delve too deeply into the past in order to name any group or movement as “anarchist.” However, as anthropologist David Graeber writes:

The basic principles of anarchism—self-organization, voluntary association, mutual aid—referred to forms of human behavior . . . have been around about as long as humanity. The same goes for the rejection of the State and of all forms of structural violence, inequality, or domination . . . even the assumption that all these forms are somehow related and reinforce each other. None of it was presented as some startling new doctrine. And in fact it was not: one can find records of people making similar arguments throughout history, despite the fact there is every reason to believe that in most times and places, such opinions were the ones least likely to be written down. We are talking less about a body of theory, then, than about an attitude, or perhaps one might even say a faith: the rejection of certain types of social relations, the confidence that certain others would be much better ones on which to build a livable society, the belief that such a society could actually exist.4

It would make sense for those who follow Jesus Christ (who presumably want to embody the way of love) to feel drawn to a set of practices that seek to remove oppressive social relations and, instead, seek a new way of relating. Christians can learn from anarchists.

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