PDF Statecraft and Salvation: Wilsonian Liberal Internationalism as Secularized Eschatology by Milan Babík in History

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Jacque Ellul blends politics; theology; history; and exposition in this analysis of the relationship between political anarchy and biblical faith. While he clarifies the views of each and how they can be related; his aim is not to proselytize either anarchists into Christianity or Christians into anarchy. On the one hand; suggests Ellul; anarchists need to understand that much of their criticism of Christianity applies only to the form of religion that developed; not to biblical faith. Christians; on the other hand; need to look at the biblical texts and not reject anarchy as a political option; for it seems closest to biblical thinking. After charting the background of his own interest in the subject; Ellul defines what he means by anarchy: the nonviolent repudiation of authority. He goes on to look at the Bible as the source of anarchy (in the sense of nondomination; not disorder); working through Old Testament history; Jesus' ministry; and finally the early church's view of power as reflected in the New Testament writings. --With the verve and the gift of trenchant simplification to which we have been accustomed; Ellul lays bare the fallacy that Christianity should normally be the ally of civil authority.-- -- John Howard Yoder Jacques Ellul (1912-1994); a French sociologist and lay theologian; was Professor Emeritus of Law and of the History and Sociology of Institutions at the University of Bordeaux. He wrote more than forty books; including 'The Technological Society'; 'The Humiliation of the Word'; and 'Technological Bluff'.