By Vernard Eller

Christian Anarchy Jesus' Primacy Over the Powers by Vernard Eller Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan 1987 This work may be freely reproduced and distributed provided that no changes are made, no revenues are collected beyond the nominal cost of media, and credit is given to the author, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., and House Church Central. Any other use requires the written permission of the author. Citing this material on other Internet sites is encouraged. Please include a hypertext attribution to http://www.hccentral.com/eller12/. In appreciation of JACQUES ELLUL who has led me not only into Christian Anarchy but into much more of God's truth as well. Merci, mon ami! Table of Contents Preface Before we start I. Christian Anarchy--The Very Idea! II. In This Corner Arky Faith III. Churchly Arkydom It's Unreal! IV. On Selective Sin and Righteousness V. Karl Barth A Theology of Christian Anarchy VI. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Almost Persuaded VII. Anarchic Theology and Arky Politics VIII. Christian Anarchy and Civil Disobedience IX. The Modus Operandi of History X. On Ways More than One of Skinning Cats XI. Justice, Freedom, and Grace The Fruits of Anarchy Preface I hope you find this book "important." But whether you do or not, it is very important to me. More than thirty years into my writing career, I finally have my answer to the question "Who am I?" From the outset, of course, I have been aware that my thought has been formed by the Anabaptist/Brethren tradition of my own church background--and that, it must be said, much more by its classic, historical manifestation than by any contemporary version. I knew then, too, who were the modern thinkers leading me further and further along this line of development. My doctoral dissertation had me exploring the convergence between the thought of Kierkegaard and that of early Brethrenism. Later, I discovered the Blumhardts and published a volume of excerpts from their work. I quickly caught on that Jacques Ellul was of this company and consequently have done studies of and had correspondence with him. More recently, I have had a growing appreciation of Karl Barth as being another representative of the school. My problem has never been that of floundering around. I have always known where I was--even if not quite sure who. I even got this tradition identified (and I think accurately enough) as "Radical Christian Discipleship." However, although it worked for a time, that label didn't begin to explain the full distinction between this and other Christian traditions. And I regularly found myself at odds with other individuals and groups also claiming to represent Radical Christian Discipleship. This tradition, clearly, had made me a "pacifist"; yet I was entirely unhappy with the "pacifism" of contemporary Brethrenism. Why, I asked myself, did I always wind up on the wrong side of each of the Christian Left's enthusiasms--peace, justice, equality, liberation, feminism? After all, I was supposed to be part of that gang, not an outsider. Yet no matter what was said or implied about me, I knew I was not a "conservative" over against their "liberalism." I was every bit as unhappy with the positions of conservatism as with those of liberalism. So, being neither a radical, a liberal, nor a conservative, what under the sun was I? What other option could there be? The chapters here following will recount my discovery of the rather easily identifiable but almost entirely subconscious and submerged tradition of "Christian Anarchy." And with that tradition I had found my home and am at peace. All of my battles of the past thirty years now fall into place and make sense. Now I can see a consistency throughout; I knew what I was doing but didn't have name for it. I really do believe the key was in coming up with the requisite terminology: "anarchy," with the derivatives "arky" and "arky faith." All along, of course, Scripture itself provided the terms that should have led us to this understanding but had not. Its talk of "the powers" would have done it--except that we automatically identified those only as the evil powers we were eager to combat and not at all including the good powers we embraced. Likewise, both with Jesus' "being not of the world" and Paul's "not being conformed to the world," we read them as counsels to separate ourselves only from the world's bad powers and certainly not from its good ones. Consequently, lacking an explicit terminology, even the greatest Christian anarchists--from Jesus on down--have not had themselves or their condition identified in a way that would make possible explicit consideration, analysis, and debate. Yet the material is there. In fact, even before I made my discovery of Christian Anarchy, several of the chapters of this book had been written as independent pieces. I now found that all I had to do was a bit of recasting into arky terminology in order to make them fit-- and not only fit but also come alive with a clarity and relevance they had not had before. Indeed, I could now read any number of my earlier efforts and say, "Of course! If I had only had the concept 'anarchy,' I would have known what I was talking about." Actually, at one point I was right on the verge. In my book The Promise (New York: Doubleday, 1970), there was an untimely born, now-I-see-what-this-book-is-all-about chapter entitled "The Grand Irrelevancy of the Gospel," in which I spoke particularly of the grand irrelevancy of Jesus. That chapter can now be seen to be pure Christian Anarchy. But I didn't have the word for it and so had to wait another fifteen years to get the answer to "Who am I?" Sorry about that. Nevertheless, whether you find this book important or not, it is a most important one to me. When it comes to acknowledging those who have aided in the creation of this book, I am in an impossible situation. In bits and pieces, the manuscript has circulated ever so widely. Some of the ideas and materials have been used in public presentation and discussion. I can't begin to recall who all contributed what helpful suggestions and criticisms. Therefore, I have decided here to list by name only those recognized scholars who have done the equivalent professional critique from their field of expertise. Most of these get mentioned within the book itself. And it must be emphasized that the appearance of a name here does not necessarily connote that person's approval of the book's thesis; in a couple of cases that is definitely not so. But I here want to recognize my debt and express my gratitude to the following distinguished professors (all in the fields of theology and the Bible except Jacques Ellul, who is distinguished in any number of fields, and James Stayer, who is a historian): Bernard Ramm (American Baptist Seminary of the West, Berkeley); Jacques Ellul (retired in Bordeaux, France); George Hunsinger (Bangor Theological Seminary); Warren Groff (Bethany Theological Seminary, Oak Brook, Illinois); Markus Barth (University of Basel, Switzerland); Martin Rumscheidt (Atlantic School of Theology, Halifax, Nova Scotia); James Stayer (Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario); Howard Clark Kee (Boston University). The best I can do for all the other people who feel they have contributed to the book is this: I hereby want to express my heartfelt gratitude to all the other people who feel they have contributed to the book. I do also want to give special thanks to the Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company--in particular to Publisher Eerdmans and editors Gary Lee and Sandy Zeles. My relationship there has always been much more personal and precious than simply a business one. As ever, I am deeply obligated to the members of my own family--some of whom made a direct contribution to this particular book; all of whom hold me up and keep me going through the labor of book-birthing. Finally, regarding the typing and manuscript preparation, I gratitude for my faithful TRS-80 Model I computer and its Allwrite word-processing program. It gets the job done right--and cheap. VERNARD ELLER La Verne, California New Year, 1986 Before We Start Enough of the manuscript already has been around enough that I can know for a surety what the major criticism of this book will be. It makes sense, then, for me to enter my rejoinder here--even before we start. This way, the readers can immediately be cognizant of the issue and thus prepared to weigh its pros and cons in the very process reading. It already has been and will continue to be said that the position presented here has me essentially "apolitical"--and thus quietistic, unconcerned about the state of the world, irresponsible, and altogether deplorable. For one thing, I would respond that the book is not exactly an arguing of "my position." Before it is that it is an effort to discover: (1) the position of Scripture (particularly Jesus and Paul); (2) in a major way, the positions of Jacques Ellul and Karl Barth; (3) in a lesser way, those of Søren Kierkegaard, J. C. and Christoph Blumhardt, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer; and (4) in a still lesser way, of several contemporary New Testament scholars. It is only out of these sources, then, I derive what might be called "my position." Accordingly, before denouncing Vernard Eller's "apoliticism" out of hand, any critic ought really to decide whether he means also to include Scripture and these other human authorities in that denunciation--or whether he is prepared to show that my interpretation of them is wrongheaded.

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