Why I am a Christian anarchist

As the American Independence Day has come to a close I wanted to briefly state that I am a Christian anarchist. I have come to this position after a long and hard look at the position from a wide varity of angles. I won't get into all of them here. Frankly I am tired and have been typing all night. There is a baseball game on and I want to get to know some of the Mariners' players before seeing them live this Friday.

I have come to see the issue as simply whether a Christian views themself as dual citizens (a citizen of the Kingdom of God and also the respective government that they were physically born into) or single citizens (solely a citizen of heaven). After looking the the agruements, there were some things I couldn't get away from. The major one being my view of the Kingdom. I adhere to a present/future Kingdom. I believe Jesus ushered in a real and tangible Kingdom, though its fullness is still to come. Both the fallen world and God's Kingdom are being lived out in the here and now.

Whew. I know. Some of my readers are not going to get what I am speaking of. Practically, what I am getting at is that there is a real and tangible reality sharing space with another real and tangible reality. The question then is which one am I going to live in, or is it possible to live in both.

After reading scripture and thinking and praying through the implications and applications to being a dual citizen, I saw many contraditions and questions that I couldn't wrap my mind around. Not the least being, what I do with fellow believers in other man made countries. There are citizens of the Kingdom of God in every country and territory known to man, or at least the possibility is there. I was left with answering the question of what to do if an American foriegn policy interferes with one of my brothers or sisters. Who do I side with? How can I justify my allegence to a government that may declare my fellow citizens enemies? Or how can I say that America is "good" just because they allow me freedom in worship? What if they didn't, would they cease being "good"?

These were merely a few questions I had rolling in my mind over the last few years. As I began to explore these questions, others arose. I started to see Christians here in America blending their faith in God and their faith in America together. Almost as if they were resurrecting America as a type of God. *GASP* No, I am not crazy. Look around, it's there. I here all over the place Christians saying that America gives them this freedom and that freedom. I thought Jesus said that the truth set us free. I thought Paul spoke of freedom being where the Spirit is. The problem I have of saying that America gives us as Christians freedom and liberty, is that as soon as we allow that, we are also allowing America to take those freedoms away. Didn't Paul write that there are freedoms that God offers that no one can write a law against?

Don't get me wrong, I love the freedom that we have here in America. But I don't see how creating a Christian land is contingent on us being Christians. Looking throughout history we see time and time again the times of greatest growth in the church were when the church and state were seperate. Now many in the church use that saying merely to keep the state out of the churches affairs, but what of the other way around. What about us as the church keeping out of the states affairs? What if we really lived as aliens and strangers in this world as Peter told us to? What if we truly did stay out of civilian affairs as Paul said in relating to us being citizens of another Kingdom?

Simply put, I believe that when I became a member of the Kingdom of God, I ceased being a member of America. I am still trying to figure out how this looks on a daily practical level. I don't know. I do know that once you open this, it's a pandora's box. You start to read passages differently. You start to have questions that you don't really like the answers to. But I am not going to spot asking the questions just because I don't like the answer.

Lastly I want to ask the question of whether a "King" as ever been in God's plan for his people. I don't think so. He warned of the dangers of Israel having a king. And because of their protests, he finally gave in. But I don't think it was in the original plan.