Alexandre Christoyannopoulos

overall i really appreciated this book. Christoyannopoulos weaves together all of the different strands on christian anarchy to provide a picture of the thinking of the movement as a whole. no one has ever done that before and his contribution will be a great addition to the christian anarchist scholarship. since much of the work can be hard to find, this survey (with meticulous footnotes) is very important.

my frustration with a lot of the conclusions drawn (both by this survey and by other christian anarchist writers) lies in a poor academic reading of many of the Gospel texts. These texts are read with a cursory exegesis and not in light of the empire. whether that is because empire scholarship is relatively new or whether it's because christian anarchists haven't completely done their homework is unclear. this lack of exegesis leads to conclusions that don't fit with the gospel texts. in this book, Christoyannopoulos' conclusion tries to set up the way forward by christian anarchists but sets up a false dichotomy; either one is completely non-resistant (read non-engaged) with the political world, or one is buying in to the state.… (plus d'informations)