The Kingdom Of God Is Within You

“[a:Tolstoy|85|Leo Tolstoy|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1265491361p2/85.jpg]’s [b:The Kingdom of God Is Within You|658|The Kingdom of God Is Within You (Value Edition)|Leo Tolstoy|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157085877s/658.jpg|3137652] overwhelmed me,” wrote [a:M.K. Gandhi|3450180|MK Gandhi|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]. “It left an abiding impression on me.”

[a:Ammon Hennacy|561859|Ammon Hennacy|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg] wrote: “I felt that it must have been written especially for me, for here was the answer already written out to all the questions that I had tried to figure out for myself…”

Gandhi went on to read more of Tolstoy’s works on nonviolence, and began to develop his own implementations of ahimsa (non-harm) and satyagraha (truth-force) at a place he called “Tolstoy Farm” in South Africa. Hennacy adopted a life of voluntary poverty and tax resistance “as I had learned them from Tolstoy and the Catholic Worker.”

The book is the most influential work of Christian anarchism, and would probably be considered the founding work of that tradition if it didn’t itself claim to merely be pointing out Christian anarchism as the plain meaning of the gospels.

Tolstoy argues that Christianity as it currently exists in the form of doctrines, church institutions and hierarchies, and ritual practices, is anti-Christian. Not just that it happens to be because these things are corrupted (though they are) but because Christ explicitly told his followers to reject doctrines, church institutions and hierarchies, and ritual practices, and instead to love truth, to honor God, and to treat all people as your family and as you would want to be treated.

This intuitively simple message, which Jesus made explicit in the gospels, ought to be the lodestone of all of our lives, he says, and indeed the progress of society throughout human history is leading us in this direction as truth slowly erodes away falsehood.

An inevitable conclusion of the command to treat all people as your family and as you would want to be treated is that the current political order is unsupportable. You cannot participate in the political system, which is based on the use of violence to enforce the separation of people and the priviliging of some people over others, and at the same time follow the guideline to love your neighbor.

So everybody ought to work to orient their lives along true Christian lines immediately (without waiting for the world to be “ready” for it). This means ending all support of and participation in government, for instance as a soldier, an office-holder, a juror, or a taxpayer. And it also means renouncing any privileges that the government implicitly defends by violent means (such as private property).

Well, that's well and good, but I am not a Christian. That Jesus said this or the gospels say that, to me does not constitute an argument for a course of action. In addition, while Tolstoy’s interpretation of Jesus’s message is attractive in some ways, it does not convince me as being so clearly the best and most accurate summation of what Jesus had to say.

So while Tolstoy thought of himself as explaining the clear teachings of Christ to people who wanted to follow those teachings, I think of Tolstoy as explaining to us what worldly ethics he thinks the wisest person he can think of would have naturally taught. This is the Gospel of Tolstoy, and as such it is interesting even to a non-Christian.

Wiener's translation is okay, but unnecessarily awkward in parts, and some of his decisions are questionable (calling Ivan the Terrible “John IV,” overliterally translating Nicene Creed into the Nicene “Symbol,” refering to icons as “images,” and so forth). I think if I had to do it over again, I'd hunt up a different translation.

“[a:Tolstoy|85|Leo Tolstoy|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1265491361p2/85.jpg]’s [b:The Kingdom of God Is Within You|658|The Kingdom of God Is Within You (Value Edition)|Leo Tolstoy|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157085877s/658.jpg|3137652] overwhelmed me,” wrote [a:M.K. Gandhi|3450180|MK Gandhi|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]. “It left an abiding impression on me.”

[a:Ammon Hennacy|561859|Ammon Hennacy|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg] wrote: “I felt that it must have been written especially for me, for here was the answer already written out to all the questions that I had tried to figure out for myself…”

Gandhi went on to read more of Tolstoy’s works on nonviolence, and began to develop his own implementations of ahimsa (non-harm) and satyagraha (truth-force) at a place he called “Tolstoy Farm” in South Africa. Hennacy adopted a life of voluntary poverty and tax resistance “as I had learned them from Tolstoy and the Catholic Worker.”

The book is the most influential work of Christian anarchism, and would probably be considered the founding work of that tradition if it didn’t itself claim to merely be pointing out Christian anarchism as the plain meaning of the gospels.

Tolstoy argues that Christianity as it currently exists in the form of doctrines, church institutions and hierarchies, and ritual practices, is anti-Christian. Not just that it happens to be because these things are corrupted (though they are) but because Christ explicitly told his followers to reject doctrines, church institutions and hierarchies, and ritual practices, and instead to love truth, to honor God, and to treat all people as your family and as you would want to be treated.

This intuitively simple message, which Jesus made explicit in the gospels, ought to be the lodestone of all of our lives, he says, and indeed the progress of society throughout human history is leading us in this direction as truth slowly erodes away falsehood.

An inevitable conclusion of the command to treat all people as your family and as you would want to be treated is that the current political order is unsupportable. You cannot participate in the political system, which is based on the use of violence to enforce the separation of people and the priviliging of some people over others, and at the same time follow the guideline to love your neighbor.

So everybody ought to work to orient their lives along true Christian lines immediately (without waiting for the world to be “ready” for it). This means ending all support of and participation in government, for instance as a soldier, an office-holder, a juror, or a taxpayer. And it also means renouncing any privileges that the government implicitly defends by violent means (such as private property).

Well, that's well and good, but I am not a Christian. That Jesus said this or the gospels say that, to me does not constitute an argument for a course of action. In addition, while Tolstoy’s interpretation of Jesus’s message is attractive in some ways, it does not convince me as being so clearly the best and most accurate summation of what Jesus had to say.

So while Tolstoy thought of himself as explaining the clear teachings of Christ to people who wanted to follow those teachings, I think of Tolstoy as explaining to us what worldly ethics he thinks the wisest person he can think of would have naturally taught. This is the Gospel of Tolstoy, and as such it is interesting even to a non-Christian.

Wiener's translation is okay, but unnecessarily awkward in parts, and some of his decisions are questionable (calling Ivan the Terrible “John IV,” overliterally translating Nicene Creed into the Nicene “Symbol,” refering to icons as “images,” and so forth). I think if I had to do it over again, I'd hunt up a different translation.