Many thanks to all who have responded to this thread, in the Name of Jesus I pray.
As I said in my OP I do not consider myself a Christian Anarchist, it is just that I am interested. Politically I have been an armchair anarchist since my early days (1966) of school-teaching in the UK, and as a science teacher I picked up on epistemological anarchism of the Paul Feyerabend variety, non-violent and he considered himself to be a Dadaist, that movement in art in the 1920's which was a reaction to the horrors of WW1.
My spiritual development is also a long story, but after a very personal experience in 1972, I discovered C. S. Lewis had had a similar experience when he came to accept the reality of God (his choosing of Christianity came later, as an intellectual development, again similar to my own movement towards becoming a Christian, which is still going on!). Continuing my interest in anarchy I then discovered some of the work of Leo Tolstoy, and as I have already mentioned, his influence on Mahatma Ghandi and others. As I try to become a more mature Christian I am exploring all theological interpretations of the Bible.
Both my wife and myself were then baptised into the Seventh Day Adventist Church, but after a few years we stopped going on the Sabbath. I intend to post about that on the "Church House & Cell Group" forum here in CF. I am impressed with many of the posts there, which brought me here to open this thread under the advice of the moderators.
I will give one quotation from Tolstoy to show my interest in Christian Anarchy, which he wrote in an essay on anarchy:
"But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require the protection of governmental power ... There can be only one permanent revolution—a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man."
I think the moral revolution to which he is referring is a spiritual one, and many of the posts here encourage me in my spiritual search. My search is nothing else. I have no intention to proselytize, and a discussion on Christian Anarchy is already underway in the Christian only forum here entitled "Discussion and Debate", sub-forum "General Politics".
Attending a house church, or holding one in our own home is something my wife and myself might do. We did attend one a year or two ago, but when I attempted to involve the Sunday meeting members in open discussion, as I had been trained as a school teacher (it's called circle time now I think in primary schools), the self-appointed leader turned down my efforts. All he did was hold the front of his meeting to give a sermon. I had a similar experience in the SDA Sabbath School, even though it was encouraged by their own Quarterly. I was just laughed at!!
I will try to address each response above individually, and any more if they arrive. C. S. Lewis spent his last years in quite severe illness, but continued to answer all correspondence personally with hand-written letters. I wonder how he would have used the Internet!? I am also interested in the writings of Teilhard de Chardin, and the suggestion now that the Internet is a God-given tool to promote the next step in Teilhard's evolutionary ideas, from geosphere to biosphere to a noosphere, which would be the final step in evolution culminating in the Second Coming of Jesus.
As I said in my OP I do not consider myself a Christian Anarchist, it is just that I am interested. Politically I have been an armchair anarchist since my early days (1966) of school-teaching in the UK, and as a science teacher I picked up on epistemological anarchism of the Paul Feyerabend variety, non-violent and he considered himself to be a Dadaist, that movement in art in the 1920's which was a reaction to the horrors of WW1.
My spiritual development is also a long story, but after a very personal experience in 1972, I discovered C. S. Lewis had had a similar experience when he came to accept the reality of God (his choosing of Christianity came later, as an intellectual development, again similar to my own movement towards becoming a Christian, which is still going on!). Continuing my interest in anarchy I then discovered some of the work of Leo Tolstoy, and as I have already mentioned, his influence on Mahatma Ghandi and others. As I try to become a more mature Christian I am exploring all theological interpretations of the Bible.
Both my wife and myself were then baptised into the Seventh Day Adventist Church, but after a few years we stopped going on the Sabbath. I intend to post about that on the "Church House & Cell Group" forum here in CF. I am impressed with many of the posts there, which brought me here to open this thread under the advice of the moderators.
I will give one quotation from Tolstoy to show my interest in Christian Anarchy, which he wrote in an essay on anarchy:
"But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require the protection of governmental power ... There can be only one permanent revolution—a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man."
I think the moral revolution to which he is referring is a spiritual one, and many of the posts here encourage me in my spiritual search. My search is nothing else. I have no intention to proselytize, and a discussion on Christian Anarchy is already underway in the Christian only forum here entitled "Discussion and Debate", sub-forum "General Politics".
Attending a house church, or holding one in our own home is something my wife and myself might do. We did attend one a year or two ago, but when I attempted to involve the Sunday meeting members in open discussion, as I had been trained as a school teacher (it's called circle time now I think in primary schools), the self-appointed leader turned down my efforts. All he did was hold the front of his meeting to give a sermon. I had a similar experience in the SDA Sabbath School, even though it was encouraged by their own Quarterly. I was just laughed at!!
I will try to address each response above individually, and any more if they arrive. C. S. Lewis spent his last years in quite severe illness, but continued to answer all correspondence personally with hand-written letters. I wonder how he would have used the Internet!? I am also interested in the writings of Teilhard de Chardin, and the suggestion now that the Internet is a God-given tool to promote the next step in Teilhard's evolutionary ideas, from geosphere to biosphere to a noosphere, which would be the final step in evolution culminating in the Second Coming of Jesus.
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