Many would would say to be a Christian Anarchist is a double negative or a oxymoron. After all a true Anarchist holds no one as leader, including God. Of course this being the case no anarchists are true anarchists as all of them at least hold themselves as their leader. Regardless, a Christian Anarchist is this: Someone who does not hold humans as their leaders but only God alone. So my question to other Christians is why are they not anarchists? I repeatedly come across I Samuel 8:4-22 and I am disgusted as this is our stupid culture today and will forever be. So here's that story in a nutshell (please look up the actual verses): The Hebrews are moving along with God as their leader chiefly and they continually distrust him and fall back on their own ways and for some odd reason they believe they need a human leader in addition to God. Their reasoning: They wanted to be like everyone else who had kings around them. Huh, that's funny I do recall God explicitly telling them not to be like the nations around them for they are set apart (see Joshua 23). And what a horrible illogical reason to want a king in the first place. The motherly phrase, "well if everyone was jumping off a cliff would you too" comes to mind. Sadly the answer is often yes. So the Hebrews beg God for a king. God tells them that a king will take everything they have; their children, their livestock, their money, etc. Hmmm . . . gosh is this sounding familiar, seems like I pay a ton of taxes. Notice God says the king will take take take take take and take, but never once does God mention that he will give anything back and we who actually pay attention have noticed this still holds true. No government/king/president has ever helped me or my family so I and friends and family have had to do it ourselves and yet we still pay those taxes that are somehow supposed to benefit us! This past election I was flipping through the TV and came across the inauguration and people were being interviewed in the streets and they came across an elderly black woman who said "Oh thank the lord, President Obama is going to pay my bills, buy off my house and my car, we are saved". I could not believe the idiocy I was hearing, but Lord help us all so many people think that way. "If we can just get the right man or woman in office all of our problems will be solved, they just have to be right?". But God says they will only take and take and take and then when you have nothing left they'll take some more. Very curious that God does not mention that they will give anything back. But the people begged God still. What an offense to God. You can spin these verses any way you like but this instance is a hard slap to God's face, followed by spitting in his face. After all God had done for them, getting them out of Egypt, making them numerous, giving them food and water, giving them everything they needed and then some. Then to have the audacity to ask for someone else to lead them. I don't understand this. Historians can argue their political reasons for the "need" for a king, coming into a land surrounded by enemies and superpowers, surly they would need a good strong leader to lead them through all of that so they could be a strong nation. Yep that's true, the leader is God. The fact is even when they got a king that when they failed to believe and trust in God then the king failed and so did they. So why not just leave it in God's hands. It is beyond me why they and why we want a human leader who will always fail us, take from us, and never give anything back to us. I have to wonder are we really that dumb? God relents to the people and gives them a king and anyone with a history book can easily see that it went nothing but downhill from there and continues to do so. I have to wonder how far we will fall before we finally realize that God is the one and only leader who would ever do us justice. Even better in I Samuel 9:2 the scriptures makes it very known that Saul, the Hebrew's first king, is ridiculously handsome. Big whoop, who cares, I want to know if he can freaking lead us not win a flipping beauty pageant! This too has not gone away as I hear people remark how handsome our leaders are. And as all the good little Christian's quote Jesus says, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and give to God what is God's" and I say yep you should probably really pay attention to that last part because it's the key especially in light of I Samuel 8. God warned us that Kings will take from us and one day said King is going to tell you to bow down to him as opposed to bowing to God as you should, what will you do then? You should probably consider that God very reluctantly gives into the people as he probably does today since we still beg for a king over him, so I have to say that the only reason their is human leader is to show how bad they are in comparison to how great God is. You can rely on that worthless human leader, "but as for me and mine, we will serve the Lord!"
Kalos Elpis
Kelly M. Doolittle
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