Politics, Music and Anarchy

By Eileen Fleming

“Bach gave us God’s word. Mozart gave us God’s laughter. Beethoven gave us God’s fire. God gave us music that we might pray without words.”-Proverb from a German Opera House
“We do not know what we ought to pray for, but The Spirit intercedes with groans deeper and with more meaning than any words.”- Paraphrase of Romans 8:26

Politics, Music and Anarchy follows

Christian anarchism combines anarchism and Christianity and we believe that there is only one source of authority and that authority is God as embodied in the teachings of Jesus as laid down in the Sermon on the Mount.
Christian anarchists believe that “earthly” authority, such as government, do not and should not have power over them and we are pacifists who oppose the use of all violence-no matter who wears what uniform or how noble they believe their cause, because how can you kill when it is written in God’s commandment: “Thou shalt not murder!”
Anarchy is best understood as Rebellion against UNJUST laws.
The Yang/male force of anarchy resists authority and causes disorder and is socially and politically incorrect by the norms of the status quo for it seeks the higher ground of justice.
The Yin/feminine force of anarchy births a new order out of the chaos and chaos is creativity in action.
As a struggling Christian Anarchist [most would NOT engage in politics or support collective bargaining for State workers], fiscal conservative and political progressive, I understand that we fight a spiritual battle and I am fighting for it in the political realm, for no religion owns God and no church owns Jesus Christ.
Christian anarchists know inner freedom comes by way of doing the teachings of Jesus for Christianity is more than a religion; it offers a new vision of life and a wide awake way of living it!
Christian anarchists are critical of all outer authority, be it Church or State.
Good and evil cut through every human heart and all Free Will means is that we get to choose which rules.
All individuals have free will and thus all are free to choose whether or not to also seek and knock on the door of our own heart that Jesus stands behind and that is the door of Conscience!
Jesus envisioned a society based on love and tolerance, which is completely incompatible with war and all violence.
When Jesus was mocked, whipped and nailed to a cross and remained NONVIOLENT he was over throwing the status quo of violent retaliation and eye-for-an-eye mentality.
Not many of his ‘followers’ have been able to drink from that cup of The Prince of Peace, which is another name for Jesus Christ who commanded his followers to LOVE all people and to forgive ones enemies in order to be forgiven-NOT bomb, shoot at, torture or militarily occupy them!
If there be a Christian Manifesto beyond the Sermon on the Mount, it is Leo Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God Is Within You
Tolstoy understood that the command “Thou shalt not murder” meant that all governments who wage war are directly affronting the Christian principles that should guide all life-and shouldn’t being pro-life really be about honoring the sacredness of every life that already is?
Tolstoy wrote to separate Orthodox Russian Christianity, which had merged with the State, for it left behind the true message of Jesus Christ, as contained in the Gospels, specifically the Sermon on the Mount.
Tolstoy understood that NONVIOLENCE was the solution to nationalism whose very essence reeks of superiority and that is NOT Christian.
Tolstoy also critiqued the heresy of the church of his time, “Nowhere nor in anything, except in the assertion of the Church, can we find that God or Christ founded anything like what churchmen understand by the Church.”
The Kingdom of God Is Within You was banned in Russia and was first published in Germany in 1894. It is the culmination of thirty years of Tolstoy’s meditating-meaning thinking about the Christian life. He offered a new organization for society based on a literal interpretation of what Jesus said and when Christianity is lived rightly it looks a lot like anarchism.

What follows are a few excerpts [emphasis mine] from Tolstoy’s THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU: CHRISTIANITY NOT AS A MYSTIC RELIGION BUT AS A NEW THEORY OF LIFE

“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”– John 8:32
I do not believe, and consider as mistaken, the Church’s doctrine, which is usually called Christianity. Among the many points in which this doctrine falls short of the doctrine of Christ [is] the principal one the absence of any commandment of non-resistance to evil by force.
The perversion of Christ’s teaching by the teaching of the Church is more clearly apparent in this than in any other point of difference…I knew what had been said on the subject by the fathers of the Church – Origen, Tertullian, and others – I knew too of the existence of some so-called sects of Mennonites, Herrnhuters, and Quakers, who do not allow a Christian the use of weapons, and do not enter military service.
There are many reasons why Christ’s teaching is not understood.
But the principal reason, which is the source of all the other mistaken ideas about it, is the notion that Christianity is a doctrine that can be accepted or rejected without any change of life.
Christ’s teaching is not only a doctrine that gives rules that a man must follow, it unfolds a new meaning in life, and defines a whole world of human activity quite different from all that has preceded it and appropriate to the period on which man is entering.
The life of humanity changes and advances, like the life of the individual, by stages, and every stage has a theory of life appropriate to it, which is inevitably absorbed by men. Those who do not absorb it consciously, absorb it unconsciously. It is the same with the changes in the beliefs of peoples and of all humanity as it is with the changes of belief of individuals. If the father of a family continues to be guided in his conduct by his childish conceptions of life, life becomes so difficult for him that he involuntarily seeks another philosophy and readily absorbs that which is appropriate to his age. That is just what is happening now to humanity at this time of transition through which we are passing.
“It is unreasonable,” says the socialized man, “to sacrifice my welfare and that of my family and my country in order to fulfill some higher law, which requires me to renounce my most natural and virtuous feelings of love of self, of family, of kindred, and of country; and above all, it is unsafe to part with the security of life afforded by the organization of government.”
But the time is coming when, on one hand, the vague consciousness in his soul of the higher law, of love to God and his neighbor, and, on the other hand, the suffering, resulting from the contradictions of life, will force the man to reject the social theory and to assimilate the new one prepared ready for him, which solves all the contradictions and removes all his sufferings – the Christian theory of life.
And this time has now come.
We think today that the requirements of the Christian doctrine – of universal brotherhood, suppression of national distinctions, abolition of private property, and the strange injunction of non-resistance to evil by force – demand what is impossible.
The time will come – it is already coming – when the Christian principles of equality and fraternity, community of property, non-resistance of evil by force, will appear just as natural and simple as the principles of family or social life seem to us now.
Humanity can no more go backward in its development than the individual man. Men have outlived the social, family, and state conceptions of life. Now they must go forward and assimilate the next and higher conception of life, which is what is now taking place.
This change is brought about in two ways: consciously through spiritual causes, and unconsciously through material causes.
Humanity has outgrown its social stage and has entered upon a new period. It recognizes the doctrine that ought to be made the basis of life in this new period. But through inertia it continues to keep up the old forms of life. From this inconsistency between the new conception of life and practical life follows a whole succession of contradictions and sufferings that embitter our life and necessitate its alteration.
One need only compare the practice of life with the theory of it, to be dismayed at the glaring antagonism between our conditions of life and our conscience.
Our whole life is in flat contradiction with all we know, and with all we regard as necessary and right. This contradiction runs through everything, in economic life, in political life, and in international life…we do the very opposite of all that our conscience and our common sense require of us.

We are guided in economical, political, and international questions by the principles that were appropriate to men of three or five thousand years ago, though they are directly opposed to our conscience and the conditions of life in which we are placed today.
Men of ancient and medieval times believed, firmly believed, that men are not equal, that the only true men are Persians, or Greeks, or Romans, or Franks. But we cannot believe that now. And people who sacrifice themselves for the principles of aristocracy and of patriotism today don’t believe and can’t believe what they assert…we know and cannot escape knowing the fundamental truth of the Christian doctrine, that we are all sons of one Father, wherever we may live and whatever language we may speak; we are all brothers and are subject to the same law of love implanted by our common Father in our hearts.
Whatever the opinions and degree of education of a man of today, whatever his shade of liberalism, whatever his school of philosophy, or of science, or of economics, however ignorant or superstitious he may be, every man of the present day knows that all men have an equal right to life and the good things of life, and that one set of people are no better nor worse than another, that all are equal. Everyone knows this, beyond doubt; everyone feels it in his whole being.
The more delicate a man’s conscience is, the more painful this contradiction is to him. A man of sensitive conscience must suffer if he lives such a life. The only means by which he can escape from this suffering is by blunting his conscience, but even if some men succeed in dulling their conscience they cannot dull their fears.
The men of the higher dominating classes, whose consciences are naturally not sensitive or have become blunted, if they don’t suffer through conscience, suffer from fear and hatred. They are bound to suffer.
A man must suffer when his whole life is defined beforehand for him by laws, which he must obey under threat of punishment, though he does not believe in their wisdom or justice, and often clearly perceives their injustice, cruelty, and artificiality.
The antagonism between life and the conscience may be removed in two ways: by a change of life or by a change of conscience.
Christianity cannot, as its Founder said, be realized by the majority of men all at once; it must grow like a huge tree from a tiny seed.
If we feel no astonishment at the contrast between our convictions and our conduct, that is because the influences, tending to obscure the contrast, produce an effect upon us too. We need only look at our life from the point of view of that Indian, who understood Christianity in its true significance, without any compromises or concessions, we need but look at the savage brutalities of which our life is full, to be appalled at the contradictions in the midst of which we live often without observing them.
We need only recall the preparations for war, the machine guns, the silver-gilt bullets, the torpedoes, and – the Red Cross; the solitary prison cells, the experiments of execution by electricity – and the care of the hygienic welfare of prisoners; the philanthropy of the rich, and their life, which produces the poor they are benefiting.
And these inconsistencies are not, as it might seem, because men pretend to be Christians while they are really pagans, but because of something lacking in men, or some kind of force hindering them from being what they already feel themselves to be in their consciousness…We are so accustomed to the inconsistency that we do not see all the hideous folly and immorality of men voluntarily choosing the profession of butchery as though it were an honorable career. [end Tolstoy]

Humankind has suffered too many unnecessary, fruitless agonies much akin to the throes of birth pangs for humankind has resisted the simple truth that only “the truth shall make you free.”
If I had to choose to pursue only one passion in my life, it is to speak truth and seek to bring in the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God comes from above and it comes from within.
The kingdom of God is a kingdom of justice ruled by love and “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with THE TRUTH! It always protects, it always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. Love never fails.”- 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8

20th century Christian Anarchist, Peter Maurin penned:
“The world would be better off if people tried to become better, and people would become better if they stopped trying to be better off. For when everyone tries to become better off nobody is better off. But when everyone tries to become better everyone is better off. Everybody would be rich if nobody tried to become richer. And nobody would be poor if everybody tried to be the poorest. And everybody would be what he ought to be if everybody tried to be what he wants the other fellow to be [and] it is about time to blow the lid off.”

This 21st century struggling Christian Anarchist blows the lid off the Sermon of The Mount this way:
About 2,000 years ago, when Christ was about 33, he hiked up a hill and sat down under an olive tree and began to teach the people; “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.”
In other words: it is those who know their own spiritual poverty, their own limitations and ‘sins’ [the only 'sin' is selfishness] honestly and trust God loves them in spite of themselves who already live in the Kingdom of God.
How comforted we will all be, when we see, we haven’t got a clue, as to the depth and breadth of pure love and mercy of
The Divine Mystery of The Universe.
God’s name in ancient Aramaic is Abba which means Daddy as much as Mommy and He/She: The Lord has said, “My ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not yours.” -Isaiah 55:8
Christ proclaimed more: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
The essence of meek is to be patient with ignorance, slow to anger and never hold a grudge. In other words: how comforted you will be when you also know humility; when you know yourself, the good and the bad, for both cut through every human heart.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they will be filled.”
In other words: how comforted you will be when your greatest desire is to do what “God requires, and he has already told you what that is; BE JUST, BE MERCIFUL and walk humbly with your Lord.”-Micah 6:8
“Blessed are the merciful, they will be shown mercy.”
In other words: how comforted you will all be when you choose to return only kindness to your ‘enemy.’
“For with the measure you measure against another, it will be measured back to you” Christ warns his disciples as he explains the law of karma in Luke 6:27-38.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they see God.”
In other words: how comforted you will be when you WAKE UP and see God is already within you, within every man, every woman and every child. The Supreme Being is everywhere, the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. Beyond The Universe -and yet so small; within the heart of every atom.
“Blessed are The Peacemakers: THEY shall be called the children of God.”
And what a wonderful world it would be when we all seek peace by pursuing justice; for there can be none without the other.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires, theirs is The Kingdom of Heaven.”
And one fine day the lion will lie down with The Lamb and man will make war no more; and thus create the Kingdom of God on planet earth.
I am Eileen Fleming for US HOUSE and I approve of ALL of my messages.

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/05/26/politics-music-and-anarchy/