Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Update: Hankerin'

In a previous post, I said:
I think God still thinks that all of our governments are unnecessary.

I later thought the statement may have been too strong. But after re-discovering Greg Boyd, it turns out that I'm not alone in my thoughts about government. And it may, in fact, be biblical:
So far I've tried to establish that, according to the Bible, earthly governments are premised on mistrust of the rule of God (I Sam. 8). It was not part of God's original plan for humans, but rather exists as a way of God accommodating himself to human sin. I've also tried to establish that, from God's perspective, all governments are "less than nothing" (Isa 40:15-17). Since our trust is exclusively in this God, the "ruler of the nations," we should adopt this same perspective. To live under the reign of God is to live solely under the reign of God and to therefore regard earthly government as insignificant.

What I now want to argue is that all human governments are not only premised on mistrust: they are actually ruled by Satan. In Luke 4:5-7 Satan offered Jesus all the authority of the governments of the world, for he claimed to own all this authority and claimed that he could give it to whoever he wanted. What's amazing is that Jesus does not dispute his claim. He granted that Satan owned this authority and thus could give it to whoever he wanted. But he refused to put himself under Satan's rule to acquire governmental authority.

What he's describing is something called "Christian Anarchy". I had no idea such a thing existed. But, after my first skim of it, it sounds pretty good to me. (I'm not ready to totally jump on board yet. I may end up disagreeing with it as I learn more about it.)

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