The Little Friar

I was educated under Stanley Hauerwas.  So I'm accustomed to theologians who use language -- even what we might consider "blue" language -- to get the message of Jesus across to others.  But, I typically shy away from using that language on peace-making grounds.  I don't curse because I refuse to practice violence.  And, in our culture, that sort of "blue" language carries violent undertones (even explicitly).  That said, I was initially tempted to shy away from using the word "asshole".  Here, though, I'm using it in the sense that psychologist Bob Sutton of Sanford uses it, in his The No Asshole Rule:  Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't .  I want to do that in order to explore, yet again, why I'm a Christian anarchist. First, what is the "no asshole rule"? It probably seems a bit strange -- well, not so much, considering the general tone of American politics these days -- to connect Sutton...

Continuing my political theology posts of late, here are some thoughts on Christian anarchism. First, in an important sense, all Christians are anarchists.  The word anarchism comes from the Greek αναρχος ( anarchos ) which means "no rulers" or "without rulers".  For the Christian such a description, obviously, refers to the ultimacy of human rulers. An anarchist strain runs throughout the Old and Testaments.  We see it in the Old Testament in God's unwillingness to give a king to Israel.  When God finally relents God takes this as an explicit rejection and predicts things aren't going to go well for Israel: But when they said, "Give us a king to lead us",  this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD.  And the LORD told him:  "Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.  As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, fo...