Preliminaries

“The Biblical Form of Government”

Many forms of government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government – except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 11 Nov. 1947

Few Americans are interested in a debate over “the proper form of Government.” We are. We contend that the only Biblically legitimate form of social order is not

a monarchy
an aristocracy
a democracy, or
a republic

but a society which might be labeled an "Anarcho-Theocracy." It is a nation "under God," but a nation without the institution of "civil government."

Statement of the Thesis

Our thesis is that actions which are sinful for individuals (such as theft, murder, and kidnapping) are also sinful even for those who

call themselves “the State,” or who
collect a carefully-screened “representative” sample of people (e.g., “eligible voters”) who will “vote” for them or “elect” them to become “the State,” or who
claim to have inherited the right to sin (tax, execute and conscript) from a relative (e.g., “hereditary monarchy”).

Stated another way, our thesis is that Christians should work to abolish any institution which claims an ethical right to steal, kill, or kidnap (such as the State, the Mafia, etc.), and abolish such an institution in a way that does not involve stealing, killing, or kidnapping. The focus of this thesis, however, is limited to the State.

Stated another way, our thesis is that a group of people occupying a previously-unoccupied territory where no civil government exists are under no Biblical obligation to form “the State.”

“Anarcho-Theocracy”: Lousy Label for a Great Idea

The author of this Thesis is not unaware that the term “Anarcho-Theocracy” is a PR disaster. Neither “anarchy” nor “theocracy” has any positive connotations with most readers, with declining values as education rises. Technically speaking, however, it is the perfect term for the form of social organization advocated in this Thesis.

Why This Thesis is Really Not That Controversial

"Biblical Anarchism" sounds like a shocking doctrine at first. But if you were to be

transported back in time 1,000 years
into any court or chapel
among the greatest intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the day
armed with a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution,
and you politely suggested that people adopt the views of those documents concerning the civil magistrate,

you likely would have been executed by sundown. "The Divine Right of Kings" dominated political thinking in those days, a doctrine which

every priest and prince agreed was an essential doctrine of the Christian Faith,
the abandonment of which would result in the destruction of the social order,
a doctrine which has been universally repudiated in favor of the doctrine of "the consent of the governed,"
and is believed by virtually nobody in the 21st century West.

The idea that vengeance is prohibited[1] (even to those calling themselves "the State") and the idea that civil functions can be provided by the private sector, are ideas which are not as far removed from our thinking today as today's ideas are separated from Christians of the first millennium after Christ. Our thesis (that the Bible does not grant ethical legitimacy to an institution which is based on vengeance and confiscation of property) will not appear as controversial after surveying the evidence.

[1] See Tab 13.