Imagine a healthy population of categorically christian individuals who, for reasons neither specified nor important, decide to found a new nation, to start a society for scratch somewhere uncontested, somehow free of the geopolitical tensions and economic pressures that make such an ambition impossible in the real world. A deep, but simple people, they all agree it is imperative they attain guidance from someone informed and experienced, an expert in the anatomy of the state, so they turn to you, a world renowned political consultant and tenured professor of imperial anthropology at SouthCoast Boluxi Communoity College.
 
They promise a commission of $6 million dollars if you tell them how best to organize a society at the foundational level to ensure it never becomes an impediment or openly hostile to that virtue that grounds their faith in God, Jesus, and the promise of a kingdom to come. In other words, this new society needs to be created in a way that protects, and if at all possible reinforces and grows, their shared, unconditional love for one another, the land, their enemies, and God. A secondary priority, though near equally important, is economic stability. In order to make possible their mission to spread the good news, they hope to lean deeply into the ingenuity, sustainability, sovereignty, confidence, and opportunity that tends to come with a robust economy.
 
So, this group of pleasant christian founders who have the land and infinite funding, free of any looming threat and motivated by the purest intentions, want to know: what political philosophy, or blend of philosophies, implemented at the very start of a new nation, and a guiding it through its development, will result in a society that is geopolitically and economically viable, and also abidingly Christian?
 
Before you answer, let’s make sure we’re all looking at the same horizon. It’s generally understand that there are three kinds of government. Monarchy means rule by a single individual, like an authoritarian despot or a king. Oligarchy means rule by a few, not necessarily rich, but it sure helps. And, of course, democracy means everybody rule. Whatever political philosophy you suggest, it will be born of one of these three basic organizing principles. Okay, now, with a hefty consultant fee on the table, the elders of this ambitious church come nation sitting across the table eagerly awaiting your sage guidance- what do you say? What political philosophy will make for a successful Christian nation state?
 
WRONG!!! There is no philosophy of politic, none at all, suited to a truly Christian state, there is no government or mode of governance that can sustain a Christian life, ethic to ritual, in a society that is just another globally conscious nationalist entity among others. It was a trick question. Sorry- though not really. You really oughta seen that coming.
 
I could spend a few days laying out all the ways in which political philosophy is incompatible with the idea of love as a foundational principle for society, but I will spare you that. The short version goes something like this: the state, government, politics, is a systematic means to rule, rule requires rules, rules necessitate authority, and authority is an inherently conditional relationship. It should be clear on the face of it, that it is prohibitively difficult, if even possible, to live in unconditional love, while making endless concessions and compromising constantly in order to survive in any given political environment. Spend enough time trying to balance that antithesis, you find yourself dissonant and sick with subtle, all pervasive resentment that erodes the integrity of both the society and the faith, terminating in a deeply antiChristian place to live.
 
Thank god we don’t live in that kind of a place, right? If we did, god forbid, what sort of alternative ideal might serve to guide us out of such a pit of philosophical politic?
 
If politic won’t work, and there’s no overcoming the drive to gather in large, settled populations and cultivate a purportedly consensus agenda, then it has to be the apolitical philosophy. Apolitical literally means, the opposite of political, and apolitical philosophy is a systematic approach to organizing society that does not begin with the presumption of a need for government. You may have heard this approach referred to as Anarchy, which is what it’s called. In fact, no one calls it apolitical philosophy, but whatever.
 
Anarchy translates from the old Greek as ‘an’, or no, ‘archos’, or rulers. Literally no rulers. Some people, most people, have a difficult time imagining a society without rulers, because they assume that not having rulers means there are no rules. After all, rulers exist to enforce the rules, and little other reason. But all societies have rules, and there is a sort of subtle distinction that should clarify the means to anarchy. In a traditional political arrangement, the rules are recorded in a public ledger that, in theory, is available for review by anyone who is subject to those rules. We call this cannonical law. An anarchic society presupposes a culture that is attuned to the reality of noncannonical law, or rules that are implicit, a set of expectations and standards that are understood by everyone without the need for a record and, in turn, for the authority that a record make necessary. It sounds absurd, a culture that could make such a society possible, but it’s not. Visit any church, any synagogue, any temple, any lodge, any mosque, or the home of any number of other relatively homogenized peoples, and you’ll find that culture on display.
 
Try and scale that church however, turn it into a nation state, and it’s anarchy or it’s hypocrisy. Hence the point of departure here, the t-shirt, Jesus was an anarchist, because he was, and if you don’t believe it, that doesn’t make you a bad christian, it just means that you could be a better one.

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