Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Why I Criticize Christianist Authoritarians

For me the desired end state, the Kingdom of Heaven as it were, will be a society without any form of coercive government. I am probably not going to live to see it. Nobody alive today will live to see it. It will happen though, and the seemingly futile actions and arguments of people like me may help to usher in the age if only by keeping the idea alive and problematizing rather than fetishizing the state. I believe that the anarchistic utopia requires a profound transformation of humankind and that this will be accomplished through the working of the Holy Ghost in the disciples of Jesus Christ.

One of the greatest obstacles to this movement is authoritarianism disguised as Christianity. Christianists preach that the Kingdom of Heaven announced by Jesus, thr Prince of Peace, must be established by the state, an instrument of pure violence and that the state, in the hands of the Christianists, will produce a world without sin. Other Christianists preach that the world is about to end anyway, so forget about improvements on earth and encourage states to take the necessary steps to hasten the day of destruction. They quench the Spirit. They would re-enslave mankind that Jesus emancipated.

And they are especially dangerous because they coopt and distort the language of the Gospel. They slander God and demean the name "Christian". They are in an unholy alliance with those who would rule by the sword. For a price, they will grant the divine imprimatur to tyrants as if it were theirs to grant.

May their time be brief.

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