Leaving Egypt Ministries, Joseph P. Macolino

In today’s splintered christian communities, there is a surge of pop theology that distracts from the core Gospel message. Things like “sola scriptura” and “we’re saved by faith alone,” sound great and seem to work so well. But when you really dig into Christ’s teachings, you find these simplistic beliefs fall utterly short of the Truth. And though none of us can expect to live a perfect life, always behaving as Christ would want, if we don’t even make an honest effort, can we really call ourselves Christian? Today, let’s examine that by focusing on a core part of the early church: the christian community, or more concisely, the church. 

What Is Our Calling?

As seen throughout scripture, and especially highlighted in Acts, a Christian’s primary role is to spread the gospel. Unfortunately, many people pick and choose how they wish to do this, often looking back to the Old Testament for guidance. This allows them to justify violence and authoritarian rule, trying to force people to follow Christ, or at least to follow their rigid rules. 

Instead, these passages should always be viewed through the lens of Christ. And when considering how the Church should interact with the world, Christ taught us that a lot of what people believed about God prior to His coming was not quite right. Specifically, He showed throughout his ministry that He wouldn’t force anyone to follow Him. On the contrary, He helped clarify the entire Law to rest on two commands: love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Again, it’s important to realize this doesn’t mean we ought to reject the “old law,” but rather that we must interpret it through the lens of Christ. And when you recognize how Christ called us to form communities, it helps put a lot of this in context. 

Building A Christian Community

Considering the way Christ traveled while on earth and the company he kept, coupled with the church shown in the book of Acts, it becomes clear how to most effectively spread the gospel. And that truth is to live the Gospel. Though I’m hesitant to call out individual passages from scripture, mainly because people so often cherry pick to use them as weapons, one passage I’ve been especially drawn to recently is James 1:19-27:

“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

Like many other epistles, and the Gospels themselves, this reiterates the position that we are not just to hear and preach Christ’s commands. We are meant to live them out. After all, how do you claim to follow someone and then not bother to keep any of his commands? And chief among those commands, according to Christ himself, harkens back to two simple things: love God, and love your neighbor.

The Church as a Peaceful Community

If love is to then be the core of Christ’s instruction for us, it makes sense that we focus on building supportive communities to live in. And just as the early Christians lived in the books of Acts, we ought to consider how we can replicate that sort of community today. Therefore, terms like anarchism, agorism, voluntaryism, when used in a practical sense, are synonymous with Christianity.

Forcing someone else to obey His commands is something Christ himself never did. Therefore, the entire concept of operating in a system that does rely on forceful coercion is antithetical to the gospel. After all, He is God and He came not as a worldly force as the early believers expected, but rather as a lamb for sacrifice. But let’s stop beating around the bush and talk about what this really means.

What Should Today’s Church Look Like?

A Christian community, the proper role of the church, should be to unite believers together in a way that enables them to fulfill their mission of love. It’s an agorist, voluntary place where people can live without concern for material wealth or worldly attachments. And if that sounds radical, maybe you ought to go back and really read Acts, especially those first five books!

From a practical perspective, it’s our moral imperative to take any action we can to remove ourselves from the satanic systems of this world. Can we fully stop paying taxes or suffering under the authoritarian powers of the world? Perhaps not. But what if those of us who heard the call organized into communities? What if we made a commitment to trade free of the coercive authorities and to love our communities as Christ called us to?

It may not be perfect, but it would surely beat the world we live in today!

How did Marftaport do it?

Marftaport? That’s not even a real place! But bear with me as I put on my nerd hat and explain. In the Evorath universe of my book series, Marftaport is the first voluntaryist society to form. With the elvish word marfta at its root, the town is meant to represent chaos or disorder. I.e., it’s a way of saying this is an anarchistic town. And the main founder of Marftaport was a former lizock (a humanoid lizard) prince. This of course gave the town an advantage that many of us might not have today. That is, he was able to bring a small fortune to the table.

Without diving too much into it, that money was less important than it is today on earth. In fact, much of the early construction and efforts were simply because prince Vistoro had the connections to recruit a fair number of people to follow him. The initial money did help ensure a smoother start however, as they were able to pay for some specialized labor and materials. Basically, to fill in the skill gaps they had. And before I’ve lost you completely, let’s reign this back into reality.  

Building a Contemporary Christian Community

I’m taking direct action to make this sort of thing come true. How soon will my vision come to fruition? Only God can say. And there are most definitely things I’m not accounting for. The beauty of that is the community aspect. That is, the belief that as things start to take form, we’ll be led by The Spirit, and we’ll find ways to overcome those obstacles. With that said, if enough people are committed to making a functional community work, there’s nothing on this earth that can stop us.

In practice, every individual involved will need to make clear agreements with one another on how everything is planned. Because while I believe we shouldn’t bog ourselves down with “perfect equity,” it does help to ensure no one is being unfairly relied on. In other words, no one wants to end up being the sole provider of a community. Everyone ought to carry their weight, which is something that should go without saying in Christian circles.

But What About Those Who Can’t?

I hate that I even have to dive into this. Because while there are plenty of times where I understand how things in scripture can be unclear, this is one where Christ was quite explicit. That is, we are called to care for those who can’t care for themselves. Charity is a must in the kind of Christian community that imitates Acts. Again, if you struggle recognizing this, you might want to just go back and read it. 

Instead of focusing on actual sick and disabled individuals though, I think the real hangup for most is on their specific roles. Let’s keep things small and simple and consider a theoretical community of half a dozen families. 

• Family A grows enough vegetables for them all. 
• Family B produces enough milk and cheese for that same group. 
• Family C offers honey and fruit. 
• Family D provides meat. 
• Family E offers the special skills of an electrician and doctor. 
• Family F provides the specialized skill of a plumber and veterinarian. 

Between these six families, assuming they can work together on things like framing and foundation work, they can build houses, a power grid, indoor plumbing, and all the modern “necessities” they would need. After the initial setup of their community, this sort of small group of people could easily produce enough food and specialized labor to not just provide for those half dozen families, but likely double or triple that amount. They can start reaching out to other communities and helping those in need.

Because they wouldn’t be bogged down by the busy work of the world, they’d also still have time to pursue artistic endeavors, and to gather in praise and worship of the Lord on their sabbath. The only thing preventing this sort of community from thriving is human weakness and sins of the flesh: jealousy, envy, sloth, etc. If everyone were actually committed to God’s Kingdom, no one would worry if Family A has a dirtier job, or if family E has a slightly larger house. In fact, in this sort of community, if someone did have substantially more, that person would be the one hosting gatherings and helping those with less to thrive. 

Making this Community Real

Here’s the reality: we’re all inexorably tied to the state in some form; we’re all compromised! Our moral imperative is to diminish the amount we are compromised as much as possible. And at the beginning, this might mean some people involved in the formation of these communities have to continue working their worldly jobs. In fact, short of a massive influx of capital to buy all the land and materials for building homes, this would be an inevitable steppingstone.

However, I think most people underestimate how much they can accomplish. Using my wife and I as an example, we have a toddler at home, I work full time, we raise goats for milk, chickens for eggs, and are starting to put a dent in our produce by growing our own fruits and vegetables. Oh, and did I mention we both have other artistic endeavors that take up time, with my writing and my wife’s baking, sowing, and candle/soapmaking?

And we’re not special in this aspect. There are plenty of people out there juggling just as much or more. The point is, most people don’t realize how much they can accomplish with a little extra effort. When you consider the community aspect of it, this little bit of extra effort gets diminished. There’s no better way to see the truth in “many hands make light work” than when considering an agrarian community. 

Ultimately, I believe the thing that holds us back most is fear. We fear doing something outside the safety of the local law. We fear the sacrifice of even a modicum of convenience. And most importantly, we fear the idea of joining with our neighbors and trusting that everyone in the community will work towards the glory of God (and subsequently seek to love their neighbors, namely us). I say it’s time we put aside these fears and take some massive action! Or as God put it repeatedly, “do not fear.”

[Joseph is the author of the Evorath trilogy, a fiction book series about Christian anarchist community. It can be purchased on Amazon]