[This is part 3 in a series on “anarcho-theocracy.” See part one, two, four, five, six]

Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris 

If one is serious about the claim that Jesus Christ is their King, they must refrain from regarding other men as kings. The kingdoms of men are rival kingdoms to the Kingdom of God. True Christians must then take up the rallying cry, No King But Christ!

Therefore, all Christians are anarchists insofar as the kingdoms of men are concerned. They must oppose the human archists (rulers) of the world. They must change their words of allegiance from those who say “we have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15). The new allegiance should be to Jesus: “We have no king but Jesus.”

The problems with anarchism

There are a lot of problems with the term anarchism, though. The public perception of that word is one of the first obstacles. Many believe a stateless society is synonymous with chaos and destruction. There are all sorts of misunderstandings that come with conceiving of society without a State. Most people are led by their political handlers to believe that the State is civilization-breathing. They are told that without it, as Hobbes argued, men live a wretched state of existence. They have been convinced that order originates from the State. As a result, they think a stateless society would necessarily mean disorder.

Whatever the problems with the term anarchism however, Jesus still commands His followers to not (an) be statists (archists). Whatever struggles we may have with the term anarchism, Christians are forbidden from being statists, i.e., men who believe that States are necessary and legitimate to social order. Political violence is not an appropriate means of advancing the Kingdom of God. This is what Jesus taught His apostles.

“Jesus called them aside and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their superiors exercise authority over them. It shall not be this way among you’” (Matthew 20:25-26).

Christian anarchism

The conception of anarchism from even “secular” proponents does present some problems that we won’t dwell on too long here. It is true that some anarchists believe they can get away from God or “gods” altogether. They take up the slogan “no gods and no masters” in a vain attempt to escape theocracy. This is not the conception of Christian anarchism. We are arguing more so that non-Christian anarchism is an impossibility. As we pointed out before, the question is never just gods or not gods, statelessness or statism, theocracy or non-theocracy? The real question is, who is your god and what type of theocratic order are we to live under?

The Christarchist, Kevin Craig, explains some of the problems here of “secular” conceptions of anarchism. He points out that these anarchists who hold to some sort of non-Christian anarchist position are not really anarchists at all.

“Some who call themselves ‘anarchists’ say they believe in no law at all. From a Christian perspective, this is an impossibility. In a group of 50 such ‘anarchists’ there will be 50 law-makers and (at least) 50 codes of law. Every such ‘anarchist’ is really just a nascent archist. When everyone is his own god, his own law, you have multi-archy, or poly-archy. You may have chaos. You may have terror. But you do not have the absence of archism, which is what ‘anarchy’ literally means.”

The Christian “anarchist” therefore must explain some qualifications of this term. We are not necessarily calling for a society that is free of archists. We are seeking to abolish human archism and raise up the Lord as the only legitimate archist. As we established already, it is impossible to have a society without an archist, ruler, or god. The real question is, who is your god? Is it the Lord God who rules from Heaven? Or is it the false gods who rule over the kingdoms of this world?

As we see then, the simple conception that we get in the “secular” world of “anarchism” or “statism” is really a false dichotomy. Men can never really do without an archist. The question is, who is the archist? Jesus teaches that we are not to be like the rulers of the world who exercise authority over others and use the sword of the State against people. We are not to have such an appetite for benefits that we adopt the covetous practices of human governments that eat up their neighbors with taxes. We are not to be ensnared in these systems of socialist welfare that trap men in political bondage. The Kingdom of God is contrary to the ways of the Romans and Egyptians.

Whatever our struggle for a word that opposes (“an”) such systems of human rulers (“archists”), we are not to be like them. But “anarchism” is still a term that men are more familiar with to express an objection to state rule, whatever else may come to mind when they think of it. For that reason, “anarchism” is still a useful political term if strictly used to refer to the opposition of human archism. God’s natural order is one without human rulers, though it is not one without a Sovereign in the Lord. True theocracy under God does not have human political rulers. It is an anarchist one: God is God, not men.

This is why we might use the term “anarcho-theocracy.” At the end of the day, there really is no such thing as secular anarchism (liberty without God). Nor is there such a thing as statist theocracy (Christian statism); this contradicts the necessary Christian position of Jesus Christ as King. We are never seeking to be free from God or gods entirely. We are choosing whether the Lord is our God or whether men who call themselves the “government” are our gods. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as secular anarchism. There will be no “anarchism,” no true statelessness, unless men make the Lord their archist. Our cry is not “no gods and no masters,” but “one God and no other masters.”

For these reasons, Christarchist or Godarchist is a better term than “anarchist” to express the true (anti-state) politics of Christians. It signifies that the Lord is our only archist. It shows that we have one King in Christ. It is most certainly preferable to “Democrat” or “Republican,” which express an allegiance to man-gods and the false religion of statism. A Christarchist or a Godarchist is still for all intents and purposes an “anarchist.” But this former term better describes a politics where the only archist is the Lord. 

The slavery of statist “theocracy”

As we see, anarcho-theocracy—a stateless society where God rules—is really the only valid Christian political position. All such statist systems that uphold man-gods are false religions, and there really is no such thing as secular anarchism. 

Man’s choice in his type of theocracy is a crucial decision. This choice involves either the “anarchist” theocracy where God rules or the “statist theocracy” where men rule. The choice is important for several reasons. First of all, it is a necessary one to make. A man cannot have two masters (Matt 6:24). It also demonstrates where one’s allegiance lies. Additionally, they have two vastly different outcomes. Men either make God their God, in which case they have liberty; or they make men their gods, in which case they find themselves in bondage. This is an essential lesson throughout the whole scriptures. Purge the political gods from among you. Make the Lord your God if you want to live freely.

It has been the failure to decisively choose the kingship of the Lord that explains the problems that have come upon our society. We need to look no further to explain our troubles than to point out that men have served the state-gods rather than the Lord. When men turn from God to the man-gods of the world, i.e., when they adopt the worldly philosophy of statism, God judges them by sending state rulers against them who bring hell upon their societies. As God’s people of old were to explain their problems, 

“Because they have forsaken the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them — because of this, the LORD has brought all this disaster upon them” (1 Kings 9:9).

This is why our people are in trouble today:

“Because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went and served other gods, and they worshiped gods they had not known—gods that the LORD had not given to them” (Deuteronomy 25:25-26).

When men refuse to serve God, when they walk away from an anarcho-theocracy to set up the false statist theocracies of the world, they invite bondage upon themselves. 

“When the people ask, ‘For what offense has the LORD our God done all these things to us?’ You are to tell them, ‘Just as you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so will you serve foreigners in a land that is not your own” (Jeremiah 5:19).

Which theocracy?

As we see, men must choose which theocracy they wish to live under, and the choice matters greatly.

It is not possible to have it both ways: to regard God as God and men as gods. We must choose this day whom we will serve (Josh 24). If God’s anarcho-theocratic order, then there is no room for the lawmaking of men. As one prophet put it,

“For the LORD is our Judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our King. It is He who will save us” (Isaiah 33:22).

A true theocracy—the social order of God—excludes the “lawmakers” and “kings” of human governments. Christians must be Christarchists, not statists.