Sins of the Times

Reading most of the Jacques Ellul books that weigh down my bookshelves is a major achievement. Mastering Ellul's thought is no mean feat either, as he has written 50 books and more than 1,500 articles.

There are presently available two fine examples of his work. Both are slim, readily comprehensible, and absolutely essential to Ellul's thought. These are Ellul at his best. Summarizing many of his important themes, these books serve as an excellent introduction to Ellul.

In Anarchy and Christianity, Ellul delves into a topic that he has alluded to elsewhere and occasionally written about in essays. Addressing both anarchists and Christians, he confronts the largely unchallenged beliefs that Christianity is inherently hostile to anarchism or that anarchism is inevitably opposed to Christian faith.

Ellul rejects the stereotypes of anarchism. Anarchy is not disorder but the absence of authority and dominion. Anarchy is a rejection of violence, a conscientious objection, "not merely to military service but to all the demands and obligations imposed by our society: to taxes, to vaccination, to compulsory schooling, etc." He particularly endorses "marginal actions which repudiate authority" and recommends creating "new institutions from the grass-roots level."

While challenging the idea that Christianity is inevitably hostile to anarchism, he is not trying to persuade anyone to embrace anarchism. He just does not want it ruled out too easily. As political options go, anarchism is "in keeping with the biblical Word" and "closest to biblical thinking."

Ellul notes that there have always been subterranean threads of anarchism throughout Christian history: early Tertullian, Francis of Assisi, Wycliffe, Soren Kierkegaard, Christoph Blumhardt, and Charles de Foucauld. The early church's resistance to military service was particularly eloquent in its condemnation of state power.

Ellul notes, however, that Christianity usually acts wrongly in its relations with the state and the powers-and-principalities-that-be. "All the churches have scrupulously respected and often supported the state authorities. They have made of conformity a major virtue. They have tolerated social injustices and the exploitation of some people by others, explaining that it is God's will that some should be masters and others servants, and that socioeconomic success is an outward sign of divine blessing." These offenses cause anarchist suspicion of Christianity.

Ellul surveys the Bible's attitudes toward power. He looks at the Old Testament, considers "honor the emperor" passages, sheds new light on Romans 13, and offers startling insights on the matter of paying taxes. He notes that Jesus was not "an enemy of power but...treated it with disdain and did not accord it any authority. In every form he challenged it radically." Thus Jesus mocked, defied, and provoked authority.

According to Ellul, Jesus' condemnation of political power is universal: "All national rulers, no matter what the nation or the political regime, lord it over their subjects. There can be no political power without tyranny." Jesus' formula is to set up alternative communities in society.

Ellul never equates Christianity with anarchism. But he challenges the assumption that political power is our highest priority and highlights important themes that are common to both Christianity and anarchism.

ELLUL, ALTHOUGH suspicious of movements and political involvements, has not been passive. He was active in the French resistance to the Nazis, served as deputy mayor of Bordeaux, taught law for many years, and was part of a renewal movement in the Reformed Church of France. But his involvements are done self-critically. He is suspicious of both those Christians who are piously disinterested in the world and those who are assimilated into political movements.

In 1943, he formed a plan to write two series of books. One series would critique contemporary society. The other would study biblical texts in order to help us understand our current situation. In the first stream are The Technological Society, Propaganda, The Political Illusion, and Autopsy of Revolution. In the latter stream belong The Politics of God and the Politics of Man, Prayer and Modern Man, Hope in Time of Abandonment, Violence: Reflections From a Christian Perspective, The Meaning of the City, The Ethics of Freedom, and Apocalypse: The Book of Revelation.

The Presence of the Kingdom is explicitly theological and the forerunner of all of Ellul's books. It was first published in France in 1948. In the late 1960s, it was published in the United States and was influential for many Christians active in movements for peace and justice. Unfortunately, the American publisher folded a few years ago and The Presence could only be found in used bookstores.

Happily, the book has been out for some time now on another press and in an expanded edition. I first read The Presence during my formative university days and it reoriented my thinking. So I approached this expanded edition with both fondness and apprehension. Would a book that I read in the 1970s be worth reading in the 1990s?

But my fears were unfounded. If anything, the book is more relevant than ever. Even though it was obviously written in the 1940s (with references to atomic bombs and Nazism), it is as if Ellul reflects on life today. That shows his prophetic insight: His discernment of the times over four decades ago still holds true today.

Ellul is particularly trenchant in his criticism of our fascination with technical means. Being able to accomplish something scientifically has become our highest end. He notes that when the possibility of an atomic bomb was developed, it could have been refused. "But this question was never even raised. Humankind was confronted by a fact, and it felt obliged to accept it." By refusing to consider deeper questions, we have become slaves to technical facts.

Ellul's analysis applies directly to our day. In the Persian Gulf war, technology became its own justification. "In reality, today what justifies the means is the means itself, for in our day everything that 'succeeds,' everything that is effective, everything in itself 'efficient,' is justified....Everything that succeeds is good; everything that fails is bad."

Ellul sees the totalitarian triumph of technic in all spheres of society: Everything and everyone have become means. He glumly calls our century the very worst: "The Roman slave, the medieval serf, was freer, more personal, more socially human (I do not say 'happier,' from the material point of view) than the modern industrial worker or the Soviet Union official."

Rather than discussing whether the end justifies the means, we have become slaves to self-justifying means. "There is no longer an 'end'; we do not know whither we are going. We have forgotten our collective ends, and possess great means: We set huge machines in motion in order to arrive nowhere."

Ironically, our means are not productive. Impressive medical technology saves a few lives, but war technology has destroyed more lives in this century than in any other. Labor-saving devices salvage a few minutes, but we spend days waiting in bureaucratic lines or not knowing what to do with our time. Change does not always equal progress.

THE PRESENCE OF THE KINGDOM calls for resistance, refusing to conform to technic, and learning to see clearly. The Presence of the Kingdom describes how we can live faithfully and dialectically in but not of the world.

Ellul delights in paradox. God's future kingdom is already present. That frees us from the tyranny of technic and means, allowing us to live in and for God's true end. Our resistance will be ongoing and perpetual. "Thus the Christian is constantly obliged to reiterate the claims of God, to reestablish this God-willed order, in presence of an order that constantly tends toward disorder." While we may embrace certain political movements, they are always at best a temporary compromise. We Christians are prophets, not just telling about God's intentions on Earth as in heaven, but living that reality in the here and now.

An important step of resistance is to understand our world. "If we let ourselves drift along the stream of history, without knowing it, we shall have chosen the power of suicide, which is at the heart of the world."

By recognizing that the kingdom of God has already come, we are freed to live in God's future kingdom now. Although the times are bad, we can live within God's kingdom "and refuse to accept the methods of action proposed by the world."

Some see Ellul as pessimistic, given his harsh analyses. But after the Persian Gulf war it is more and more difficult to deny Ellul's insight into the monolithic momentum of technology toward its own demonic ends. Ellul shows in his life and writing that Christian hope persists and even thrives in spite of the worst that the world can do. That resilient hope is precisely the help that we all need these days.

Arthur P. Boers was pastor of the Windsor (Ontario) Mennonite Fellowship and the author of On Earth as in Heaven (Herald Press) when this article appeared.

Anarchy and Christianity. By Jacques Ellul. Eerdmans, 1991. $9.95 (paper).

The Presence of the Kingdom. By Jacques Ellul. Helmers & Howard, 1989. $11.95 (paper).