JACQUES ELLUL: Anarchy and Christianity

Ellul is provocative, stimulating, and interesting. He is also desperately wrong.

Central Park, New York City

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Read this book, but don’t pay attention to it.

Ellul is a provocative writer. He has a great at getting your thinking processes started, but doing what he says will get you hopelessly sidetracked. Still, for a person who is concerned about the validity of organized religion, Ellul’s book is a novel explanation of why a person who claims to be a Christian should do that in a radical way.

My criticisms to his forms of anarchy are that it doesn’t go far enough, that he is far too concerned with power, and that he wants to organize his anarchy:

• He doesn’t go far enough because he wants only repudiation and correction. This is naïve. The world—and the church—are the way they are because that’s the way people want them. Most people want to be either leaders or followers. Almost no one wants to go it alone. The history changers (John, Jesus, Paul, Luther, Francis, Gandhi) struck a lonely course based upon a truth that had no regard for political or religious power or for popular opinion and—importantly—did not depend upon anyone believing in their cause. They did it, regardless of who agreed or disagreed. Ellul wants us to attack, expose, rebuild on the margins... No one has hearkened to his call because he hasn’t! He writes books wanting other people to do it. He has no conviction, only obsession.

• Possibly the most troubling thing about Ellul is his obsession with power: his own lack of it and his dislike of people who have it. One gets the impression that his type of anarchy is really nothing more than a reaction against any display of power. If you attempt to follow Christ based upon Ellul’s teachings you will waste your life on trifles. He thinks there is satisfaction in opposing authority, but it’s his own imagined battle. If you do what he says you win nothing and lose everything.

• His attempt to evangelize others to his cause is silly and self-destructive. Anarchy is, if nothing else, lonely. Ellul wants his anarchy to be organized. He must have company. He wants to be in charge. He wants to be listened to. But an anarchy is by definition none of those. An organized anarchy is oxymoronic.

My main criticism with Ellul including the word “Christianity” in the title of his book is that if you regard Scripture as the word of God you will not be able to accept Ellul’s reckless, thoughtless approach. He shamelessly discards everything that doesn’t agree with his argument, while at the same time choosing passages that prove his point to give his words weight. Even if you don’t think the Bible is authoritative you’ll have a difficult time accepting Ellul’s very uneven, amateurish use of the text.

My hope was to finally have someone who could outline a coherent argument for how the Christian could live as Christ wanted. Ellul disappoints. Badly. He’s not an anarchist; he’s just angry. It’s understandable that someone dissatisfied with the way things are would take a harsh look at everything, but we can’t depend upon Ellul. He’s inconsistent, unfair, arrogant, conceited, haughty, and quite frankly, disturbed.

So, why respond? Because he says things no one else does. Because it’s likely some people agree with him. Because it’s a good starting point to set things right.

I am not disagreeing with Ellul because he doesn’t see Scripture the way I see it. People can look at Scripture and come to different conclusions, honestly and fairly. But it’s impossible to accept Ellul’s arguments because he sees himself as the only authority. He has no regard for God, Scripture, principles of interpretation, history... Only when the text agrees with his preconceived conclusions does he accept it, and then he distorts the text horribly to make it say what he wants. No serious student of Scripture can allow for his methods. They are juvenile and unprofessional, and hence his explanations are at best suspect, and at worst appalling.

Pages 6-7

Churches have scrupulously respected and often supported the state authorities. They have made of conformity a major virtue. They have thus transformed the free and liberating Word into morality. Finally, all the churches have set up a clergy furnished with knowledge and power. Hence we have to eliminate 2000 years of accumulated Christian errors.

Ellul clearly dislikes any church support of the state. This is a major problem that will cause him trouble in the second half of the book. He strains the text badly when he tries to show that Christians are to defy the state.

Christ didn’t defy the state; he disregarded it. This is very different from what Ellul says we should do. Christ wanted his people to be free from everything: possessions, jobs, families, and certainly the state. Ellul wants to have a church that is organized against the state. Christ said to just leave it all alone and follow him.

I agree that the church has erred in supporting the state, in making a virtue of conformity, of codifying Scripture into a morality for the masses (and especially a morality for the world!), and of setting up a clergy and empowering it to tell us how to believe and to live. But the problem is not what Ellul thinks. The problem is that the church has discarded the demands of Christ. Discipleship is the ultimate anarchy. It is aloneness. It is separation from (or at least disregard of) everything. A person who is following Christ doesn’t need either the state or the church, but can put up with both their sillinesses. It just shouldn’t matter.

Christ paid his taxes because it was the easiest way to have the state leave him alone. He had work to do and standing up to the state wasn’t part of it. He stayed out of their cross-hairs until it was time, then he made himself brilliantly obvious.

The reason the church has set up a clergy is because Christians want to be organized and need to be led. They can’t do it on their own. The reason the church has supported the state is that it wants to. Most Christians depend upon the state. They need what it has. If they oppose it, they lose their ability to survive. It’s the inevitable consequence of living in the world. You come to depend upon it, and then you have to support it because you can’t live without it.

The state gives Christians jobs, schools, roads, police protection, parks, libraries, medical care, and tax deductions. In return Christians pay their taxes and fulfill their patriotic duties. Everyone gets what they want.

Christians need someone to run the church because they have their own lives and don’t want to be bothered. Having a clergy gives them what they want with the least amount of fuss. Pay your tithes, and other people will make sure that everything is ready for you by Sunday morning.

Of course the church soon loses sight of the original reasons for this structure and turns it into dogma. Then it expects everyone to be part of the organization, and anyone who defies that organization is suspect. There was a time in the history of Christianity when the requirement was for everyone to leave everything: your possessions, your family, and most certainly your religion. In modern Christianity you are not only allowed to keep everything, for the most part you are wrong to give it up.

When Ellul says we have made conformity a virtue he is correct, but not in the way he thinks. It is not conformity to the state that is the problem; it is conformity to the world, and conformity to a church that has long ago lost sight of Christ. And further, a conformity that cannot tolerate nonconformists. That is the final error: a church that is so structured, organized, codified, hierarchical, wealthy—and so far away from Christ—that it can only tolerate those who fit comfortably into its structure, organization, dogma, and wealth. And so the person who can’t fit has to leave.

Page 8

Christians do not need to obey the political authorities but should organize themselves in autonomous communities on the margin of society and government.

Christians do need to obey the political authorities! Christ did, Paul and Peter said we must (in spite of what Ellul says), and the reason they did is because it is silly not to. We are here to do the work of God. Why throw that away just so you can have the satisfaction of not paying your taxes? It’s not a matter of obeying them; it’s a matter of obeying God. If you defy them you lose your freedom—not that they put you in jail but that you waste your life doing worthless things.

Paul also obeyed the church authorities, who were much more of a problem than the state authorities. Acts 21.24-28: 

Do what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow. Join these men, go through the rite of purification with them, and pay for the shaving of their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself observe and guard the law. But as for the Gentiles who have become believers, we have sent a letter with our judgment.

James was the first modern Christian. He needed everything to be organized, he needed to be the one to organize it, and he couldn’t tolerate anyone who disrupted what he had constructed. He told Paul what to do, he told the Gentiles what to do... anyone who was outside his box he wrestled back in. James was nothing to Paul, but Paul submitted because James was nothing to Paul... or to Christ. To oppose James would have harmed his ministry. Submitting defused the situation and let him get back to work.

Ellul’s problem is pride. He can’t allow the state to win. He hates power because he hates to submit, so he tells us the state is the problem when the problem is really with him. He wants to set up an opposing force of organized resistance to the state’s power. But in fact he doesn’t hate power; he only hates power that is over him. He wants the power for himself. And so he says we must resist.

He says that resistance must be nonviolent, but that misses the point. Why should the state’s power matter? How does it hurt your ability to follow Christ? The only thing that hurts your ability to follow Christ is spending all your time defying the state. Just leave it alone! It means nothing.

The Jews wanted a Messiah who would release them from the oppression of Rome and Christ said no! The problem is not them, it’s you! Ellul says he wants to be free, but it’s not the freedom Christ was talking about. A person who is truly free doesn’t care about power. He doesn’t want it for himself and he doesn’t care who uses theirs against him.

Page 9

Whenever they succeeded in launching a renewal, the movement that they started on the basis of the gospel and the whole Bible was quickly perverted and reentered the path of official conformity. This happened to the Franciscans after Francis and to the Lutherans after Luther.

This happens because the followers were followers. They needed organization, other people alongside, and someone to lead them.

And this happened because the leaders were leaders. They couldn’t tolerate aloneness and they liked people to follow them.

What the church needs are people who follow Christ. No one leads, no one follows anyone else. Then we have Christians rather than Franciscans and Lutherans.

Page 10

The visible things are the sociological and institutional aspect of the church, but no more; they are not the church. On the outside, however, they obviously are the church.

True to a point. We love to remind ourselves that the church is not the building. It would also be good to point out that the church is not its hierarchy, doctrine, clergy, holidays, services, songs, or art either. We have a far too obvious church. Too much concrete, too much noise, too much talking, too much avoidance. There are too many visual-tactile-verbal-auditory-intellectual-emotional-ceremonial substitutions for the real thing.

Page 15

Anarchy first implies conscientious objection—to everything that constitutes our capitalist and imperialistic society. Conscientious objection is 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.

We have to want to do it, not dispersing our energies but attacking at a single point and winning by repulsing the administration and its rules.

Ellul wants to be left alone. I can’t see how this can qualify as Christian anarchy. It has nothing to do with following Christ. It is, in fact, a retreat from the demands of discipleship. How is this taking up your cross? How is the insistence that you be left alone in any way a part of discipleship?

Again his problem has everything to do with himself and nothing to do with Christ. There is nothing here supported—much less demanded—by Scripture. It’s all about him.

The discussion about attacking is silly. When the state tells you to pay taxes, to have your children vaccinated, or to send your children to school, Ellul wants you to attack and repulse. Wow. Show me that verse!

Ellul would do well to study Francis more closely. You don’t need to retaliate or attack. Just do what you must and forget about them.

Page 16

It is essential that we lodge objections to everything, and especially to the police and the deregulation of the judicial process. We must unmask the ideological falsehoods of the many powers, and especially we must show that the famous theory of the rule of law which lulls the democracies is a lie from beginning to end.

Ellul is not as interested in the Kingdom of God as he is in the kingdoms of this world. Why is he so obsessed with this? Does he think that removing the falsehoods will make room for truths? This is absurd. He wants us to waste our time lodging objections “to everything”. Why? What do we win if we win?

But of course it’s unwinnable. And so by following Ellul we end up doing nothing but lodging complaints. Is this really what you want to do with your life?

God said he would destroy it all. That’s our assurance that (1) it can’t be fixed and (2) we cannot waste our time trying to do so. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done” has nothing to do with unmasking ideological falsehoods. The Kingdom of God is not advanced if we show the world’s system to be false.

Page 23

The more the power of the state and bureaucracy grows, the more the affirmation of anarchy is necessary as the sole and last defense of the individual, that is, of humanity.

Why does the individual need a defense against the state? The state regards everyone as a gray mass. There is nothing the state wants from you that harms you to give it. Give them what they want. Stay gray. Get on with the business at hand.

Pages 34-35

The primary role of human beings is to be those who respond to God’s love.

The first aspect of God is never that of the absolute Master, the Almighty. It is that of the God who puts himself on our human level and limits himself. Theologians who were under the influence of a monarchy might have insisted on omnipotence by way of imitation, but they did so by mistake. The true face of the biblical God is love.

Ellul is very wrong to depict God solely as the self-limiting, kindly, loving, still small voice. God is that, but he is much, much more. To claim that the Bible never presents God as “the absolute Master, the Almighty” is absurd. The only way you can do that is by removing every passage of Scripture that says so, and that’s a lot. Ellul has no grounds for removing them other than they disprove his argument. No reputable theologian would do that.

If Ellul’s approach to Scripture is allowed then we have to throw out all principles of interpretation, hermeneutics, and truth. If he says that Scripture is not true unless he says it is he should just write a book on anarchy and leave Scripture out of it. They are all his own ideas anyway; it’s dishonest to use Scripture to give his arguments authority and at the same time say that the parts he doesn’t like aren’t authoritative.

Why not remove all the passages about God the Father as well? Why can’t someone claim that people formed their impressions of what a father was like from their earthly fathers, assumed that if God was father he would be like them, and therefore mistakenly ascribed those attributes to him?

God certainly is love, but the response he demands of us is faith, which translated for the dull modern ear means dependence, obedience, submission, and self-sacrifice. (It’s called taking up your cross.) Christ came to do the Father’s will. His entire life was one of perfect obedience. If that was the expectation upon Christ, how can it not apply to us? Christ says it does: explicitly, repeatedly, with sarcasms and warnings.

Jesus was free. More free than any of us. Yet he did nothing except what the father told him: John 5, 19; 8.28; and especially John 5:30:

I can do nothing on my own. I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me.

Ellul could say it was Jesus’ individual choice to limit himself like this, but he would still have to admit that Jesus should not have acted this way because the concept of a God who is an absolute Master is a fabrication of people under the domination of hostile forces, not the self-revelation of a loving God. For Ellul, Jesus was therefore, at best, misguided, and at worst, mistaken in his perception of God.

Ellul is monstrously wrong to present a single-dimension God. Of course the only way he can do that is by discarding the parts of Scripture that say God is more than love. He wants us to believe that the idea of God as absolute Master is a creation of abused people. But that’s a ploy. The truth is that Ellul refuses to have a master over him so he invents a God who leaves him alone.

Ellul’s obsession with freedom steers him far outside the teachings of Scripture, and the boundaries of common sense. This is truly bizarre.

Page 40-41

God’s commandments are always addressed to individuals. God chooses this or that person to do something specific. It is not a matter of general law. We have no right to generalize the order. At most we may draw a lesson from it. Thus Jesus tells the rich young ruler to sell all his goods, to give to the poor, and to follow him. We must not generalize this command. We must not decide that all Christians have to sell their goods, etc. But the saying is designed to put us all on guard against riches. We ourselves are free to act and are responsible for our actions. The biblical God is not a machine, a big computer, with which we cannot reason and which functions according to a program. Nor are we robots for God who have to execute the decision of him who made us.

Jesus was not using the rich young ruler as a lesson for us to be on guard against riches. He told him to sell everything. How can the generalized principle from this be that we are not to sell everything? If that wasn’t what Jesus was telling this young man, then how can it be the lesson for us? Can the lesson have nothing to do with the teaching?

The young man asked Christ what was expected and Jesus told him. He didn’t like it, so he went away. The demand was simple: if you want to live with me, you must live like me. If I have only one cloak, you have only one cloak. If I have no place to sleep, you have no place to sleep. If you follow me I make the rules, and rule number one is this: be like me.

Jesus did not reason with the young man: he had to either accept Christ’s terms or go away. Jesus was not a machine, but he didn’t change the rules either. The rich young man didn’t “have to execute the decision” of Christ, but he did have to go away.

If the message to the rich young ruler was to either sell or go away, how can Ellul’s revision of it provide us with a lesson on how we should follow Christ? If Christ told the rich young ruler all or nothing, how can we follow Christ by going only half way? If it wasn’t far enough then, how can it be far enough now?

Ellul wants the Word to be his, not God’s, so he gives a reasonable-sounding reinterpretation of Christ’s demand. Let’s be clear: it’s not an explanation, it’s a reinterpretation. It’s Ellul’s word, not Christ’s.

Is this really what Ellul wants in his freedom? The freedom to esteem the Word of Christ as just one option to consider along with all the rest?

Ellul doesn’t want a God who is a machine, and that’s fine, but apparently he doesn’t want a God who is God either. Ellul’s God gives lessons, which we evaluate to decide what to do. Ellul can’t tolerate anything higher than himself, so he invents a God who is so low (or has Ellul made himself so high?) that he is just one of us. He discusses, reasons, cajoles, and counsels because what we want is just as legitimate as what he wants. In order to make us intelligent he makes God silly. In order to make us free he makes God irrelevant.

Here are a few verses that are apparently not in Ellul’s Bible:

Job 40.2, 8

Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?

Will you even put me in the wrong?

Will you condemn me that you may be justified?

Job 42.3, 6

You asked, “Who is this that obscures my counsel without

knowledge?”

Surely I spoke of things I did not understand.

I despise myself

and repent in dust and ashes.

Ezekiel 20.3

Have you come to inquire of me? As surely as I live, I will not be inquired of by you, declares the Sovereign Lord.

Romans 3.10-18

There is no one who is righteous, not even one;

there is no one who has understanding,

there is no one who seeks God.

All have turned aside, together they have become worthless;

there is no one who shows kindness,

there is not even one.

Their feet are swift to shed blood;

ruin and misery are in their paths,

and the way of peace they have not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Romans 9.18

He has mercy on whomever he chooses, and he hardens whomever he chooses.

Romans 9.20

Who are you, a human being, to argue with God?

1 Cor 9.19-21

Though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law.

1 Cor 14.36

Did the word of God originate with you?

The clear message of Scripture is that God does interfere, demand, threaten, and judge. It also says we are fundamentally and inexorably hostile to God, selfish, unkind, cruel, and hateful.

God tells us what to do because (1) he has the right to, (2) he cares, and (3) he must: we inevitably do the wrong thing. He does not invite us to discuss his decisions because we’re stupid. He acts in ways completely unexplainable by us because our minds are warped. His word is final because we’re rebellious. He does not accept suggestions because... well, just because. The person who expects to be invited into his counsel is the most incredible fool imaginable.

Ellul sees freedom as a virtue. Possibly the highest virtue. (Certainly higher than following Christ.) While it is true we are self-determinate beings, God is more determinate and he does not allow us to escape the consequences of our decisions. We decide; God punishes. It’s inescapable. Your “freedom” ends as soon as you choose the wrong course.

Paul cared nothing for the law, state or religious. He could live as easily under it as outside it. It was nothing to him. He was a complete anarchist. He was free.

Ellul wants us to believe he is free, but clearly this one thing bothers him deeply, and so he is not free at all. He must resist it, and so he is pushed along his entire life doing things that he claims are proofs of his freedom, but in fact he is trapped by it. No one can care this much about something unless it’s important.

Pages 45-46

We in the West are convinced that order can be established only by a strong central power and by force (police, army, propaganda). To challenge power of this kind necessarily means disorder! Even faithful readers of the Bible and true Christians can be blinded by the obvious usefulness of kings, princes, etc. But today, confronted with the crushing of individuals by the state under every regime, we need to challenge this Behemoth and therefore to read the Bible differently.

Ellul overstates the case. Is it only in the West that there are armies? Is it true that we are convinced that to challenge power means disorder? Does seeing a usefulness to government mean we are blind? And especially: is it really true that we are confronted with the crushing of individuals by the state under every regime? Ellul needs us to believe the situation is desperate so he creates a monster to frighten us into agreeing that we need to oppose this Behemoth. But what if it is not true that people are convinced that order can be established only by a strong central power? or that to challenge power necessarily means disorder? or that individuals are being crushed? What if the beast is not as dangerous as he pictures?

We can agree that there is truth in his argument. But the determination of what response to make must take into account the strength of the aggressor, and I don’t at all agree that the sky is falling. Nor do I agree that the problem requires us to challenge this monster—or to read the Bible differently. It’s possible—even likely—that reading the Bible the way Ellul does will send us far off the path.

It is certainly a horrible thing when police who use their power to arrest and harass. But I wonder if Ellul has ever lived in a country where the police don’t use their power. Until 1990 Romanian’s lived under Ceauşescu’s dictatorship and had every right to fear the police, especially the secret police: the securitate. But after Ceauşescu’s execution the opposite situation surfaced: the police did nothing. If your house was broken into, if your car was stolen, if you were attacked on the street—whatever encounter the individual had with criminals—you had virtually no recourse, other than to hire your own thug to mete out justice for you. In its own way it was just as horrible

If you live in a police state you can survive reasonably well because there are millions of people and only thousands of police. The odds are with you. If you keep your head down, you can avoid problems. But if the police do nothing, then you really have a problem because the criminals run free. Where before you had to fear thousands of police, now you have to fear millions of criminals. There is literally nowhere to hide.

I’m sure Ellul, who can’t abide people keeping their heads down, would say that’s too high a price, that individual freedom is worth making yourself a target. Many people would agree. But not God—at least the God of Scripture. The only thing that matters is doing what he tells you, and protecting your personal rights isn’t one of them. The Bible says your life is not your own. You simply do have the option of disregarding everything God has for you in order to fritter away your time correcting personal injuries.

Christ said you have to do it: “Do not resist an evildoer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” God does not allow you to retaliate. If you do, that’s all you’ll do your entire life.

To be fair to Ellul, the reason he thinks this way is because his God is a still small voice who self-limits, doesn’t require of us, and doesn’t interfere in our lives. Ellul can spend his time fighting personal battles against the state because there is no work of God. God is not doing anything, so we are free to do what we want. It’s an interesting view of the Christian life. Hopefully not too many people agree with him.

And that’s the point: if you don’t agree that God is doing nothing and that he has no requirements upon us, then you can’t agree with anything Ellul is saying, because that’s his core belief and everything else derives from it.

Pages 57-58 (The Temptation)

The enemy takes Jesus to a high mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. The extraordinary thing is that according to these texts all powers, all the power and glory of the kingdoms, all that has to do with politics and political authority, belongs to the devil. It has been given to him and he gives it to whom he wills. Those who hold political power receive it from him and depend upon him. Jesus does not say to the devil: It is not true. You do not have power over kingdoms and states. He does not dispute this claim. We must thus say that in the first Christian generation political authorities—what we call the state—belonged to the devil.

It is true that the devil was able to tell Christ, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please.” But it does not necessarily follow that all who hold power receive it from the devil or that all political authorities belong to the devil.

Let’s go back to basics. Ellul says that people are free. Absolutely. According to him, you are either free or you are a robot, and we’re not robots, so therefore we are free. Now, if Satan is doing this through people then they are robots, which is impossible according to Ellul, but if it could be possible then we would not be responsible for our actions: it would be Satan’s sin because he has his hand on our puppet strings. But if we are free and cannot be robots then the machinations of the devil are useless. He could tell us his plans, but the response from us would be free: uncoerced, which would mean Satan’s power is limited to making suggestions, which doesn’t seem too frightening.

Ellul wants to say something and so he finds verses to say that for him. What he wants to say is that he desperately wants to be free. He tolerates no interference with that, even if it’s from God. He can’t make God out to be a bad guy, so he invents a God who is super good, a God who never interferes, seeks only a free loving response from us, and otherwise leaves us alone. But he can make the devil out to be a bad guy, so he overdoes it and brings him into the picture whenever he needs to paint his enemies black. Anything Ellul doesn’t like is in the dominion of Satan.

Along with this, Ellul’s despises power because whenever people wield it they interfere with his freedom, which he protects at all costs. Ellul sacrifices everything to stay free. He would spend his entire life battling powerful forces just so he could tell himself he is free. He can imagine a good power (his own) and so wants to set up opposing communities that live on the margins of society, away from the influences of the bad powers, but fortified so that hostile powers, when they come, cannot prevail.

I think we can accept or reject Ellul’s argument as a whole. If we reject Ellul’s notion of God then we can also reject his notion of Satan. God is not so good that he refuses to interfere, and Satan is not so bad that everything bad that happens is his doing. Ellul’s enemies are a fabrication of his obsession with freedom. If you aren’t so inclined, you don’t have to worry about it.

There’s a bit of the-chicken-and-the-egg problem here too. It’s unclear whether Ellul thinks power is intrinsically evil or whether evil uses power to extend its borders. I think Ellul would say the state is evil is because it has power, because I doubt he would care about the state if it didn’t have power. He therefore targets the state because he dislikes its power.

His solution is for Christians to “organize themselves in autonomous communities on the margin of society and government.” Why? If it’s evil, why stay that close? Why not get out completely? Better yet, why not organize yourself within the kingdom of God rather than on the outskirts of the kingdom of the devil?

His plan can’t work for a very simple reason: the problem is not out there; it’s in here. He thinks the problem is an evil force that works through the state to destroy his freedom. That’s silly. It doesn’t take an evil force to make people bad. No community, no matter how remote, will ever get him away from himself.

Ellul’s explanation is illogical and his solution solves nothing. Even if you could get a little farther way from Satan that still wouldn’t get you any closer to God.

Pages 60-61 (Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s)

The head of Caesar on this coin was more than a decoration or a mark of honor. It signified that all the money in circulation in the empire belonged to Caesar. Caesar was the sole proprietor. The coin, then, belongs to him. Give it back to him when he demands it.

On the other hand, whatever does not bear Caesar’s mark does not belong to him. It all belongs to God. Caesar has no right of life and death. Caesar has no right to plunge people into war. Caesar has to right to devastate and ruin a country. Caesar’s domain is very limited. We may oppose most of his pretensions in the name of God.

The argument has some merit, but at the core is Ellul’s erroneous insistence that it is the Christian’s right (I would say duty but I doubt he would like that word) to oppose powers that wrongly expand their borders.

Jesus never said that rendering unto God the things that are God’s includes opposing Caesar. He said to give to Caesar and to God. A person can do both. Ellul wants to make it a conflict because he draws borders around Caesar’s territory and says we need to oppose him when he crosses into God’s territory. But Jesus never said to do that. He said, in fact, to not do it.

It is absurd to say that Caesar’s ownership is limited to whatever bears his mark. If we give Caesar the right to claim ownership to whatever bears his image, then he should simply stamp everything—including you! And what if he puts his stamp the church? Does that then belong to him as well?

Jesus was telling the people that what Caesar wants doesn’t matter. It’s just a coin. Give it to him. Forget it. Move on. It’s nothing. Don’t waste your time on this silliness. God has more important things for you to worry about.

Ellul is what happens to a person who can’t let it go. He takes the simple statements of Scripture and cranks them around so they can’t possibly mean what Christ said. He’s out to prove his point, no matter what Christ says.

Page 64 (the temple tax)

It is not worth causing offense for so petty a matter, that is, causing offense to the little people who raise the tax, for Jesus does not like to cause offense to the humble. He thus turns the matter into a subject of ridicule. The power which imposes the levy is ridiculous, and he thus performs an absurd miracle to show how unimportant the power is. The miracle displays the complete indifference of Jesus to the king, the temple authorities, etc. Catch a fish—any fish—and you will find a coin in its mouth. He devalues political and religious power. He makes it plain that it is not worth submitting and obeying except in a ridiculous way.

Again, Ellul is so intent on proving his point that he misses the point.

Jesus was not concerned about “the little people who raise the tax”. The text says Jesus did not want to offend “them”: the people who were demanding the tax: the kings. Why? Because (once again) it wasn’t important. He didn’t want his work disrupted over petty things. Why destroy the one thing that is important over some little thing that isn’t important? It makes no sense to stir up trouble when it puts your work at risk.

If Ellul is right, what is the lesson for us? That if we catch a fish—any fish—it will have a coin in its mouth? If Jesus displayed his contempt for authority in this way, what recourse do we have? How do we catch a fish—any fish—to make it plain that we are submitting in a ridiculous way?

It is not that the authorities aren’t important, it’s that you unnecessarily stir up trouble by resisting them. Ellul says they aren’t important, therefore you can make fun of them. Christ says that they aren’t important, but what they want from you is nothing, so do it and get back to work. But if you treat it as something important then they will make a big deal of it, and they will take what they asked for, plus a lot more, and then you’ve lost. You win nothing important because the argument wasn’t over anything important, but you do lose something important: your time—and God’s work. You don’t have the right to divert your attention on such frivolous things.

Pages 67-68 (the trial of Jesus)

His attitude was one of total rejection and scorn for all religious or political authority. He took the offensive at times and manifested disdain or irony.

Ellul’s characterization of Jesus is closer to what he wants than to what the text portrays. When Jesus appears before Pilate he seems, in fact, to be concerned more for Pilate’s welfare than his own. Telling Pilate that the power he is exerting is not his own and that others are more guilty certainly seems to be completely free of disdain. Jesus, if anything, appears to be assuring Pilate that the others have more to worry about than he does.

Jesus’ point seems to be that what happens to him is of less concern than what happens to those who are doing this to him. Contrary to what Ellul would like Jesus to be saying, in fact Jesus has no need to oppose the authorities. This is no accident, these people are doing exactly what they are expected to do, and they are not winning. It might be good for Ellul to explain what Christ could have gained by taking the offensive.

Certainly Jesus, when he was before the high priest, pointed out that since this was a trial it would be appropriate to call witnesses. We can agree that this was an ironic remark. But it does not follow that Jesus was taking the offensive or expressing disdain, especially before Pilate. It’s not that it would have been unseemly for Jesus to do so, only that he didn’t—at least not at the trial. He had already proven he could be outrageously hostile when he wanted. He had attacked the Jewish leadership many times—but not because they were exerting power over him, and not because (like Ellul) it bothered him that they had power. He attacked them because they, the leaders of Israel, were bad.

But here, now, all that is history. He is where he has to be. He has nothing to gain by opposing them, and in act, he refuses to oppose them. When Peter cut the ear off the high priest’s slave Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?”

This is Jesus’ true attitude. No opposition. He is here to die, and all his words and actions are directed toward that, not making a political point by showing scorn for authority. That’s Ellul, not Jesus.

Page 69 (Before Pilate: “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.”)

Jesus is telling Pilate that his power is from the spirit of evil. This is in keeping with what we said about the temptations, namely, that all powers and kingdoms in this world depend on the devil. It is also in keeping the reply of Jesus to the chief priests, namely that the power of darkness is at work in this trial.

We can agree that many bad things are going on here, but Ellul exaggerates and distorts. Jesus never said that the power of darkness was at work in the trial. What he said—when he was arrested in the garden—was that “every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour—when darkness reigns.” The hour of darkness may be the same thing as the spirit of evil (i.e., Satan) but we have no proof of this. Again, Ellul makes a statement, finds one passage that says roughly the same thing, puts them together, and presents it as truth. This is a careless use of Scripture.

An alternative explanation is that Jesus is once again accusing the religious leaders of treachery. At other times he said they were blind, wicked, ignorant, proud, dangerous, lazy, and full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. He called them liars, snakes, hypocrites, blind guides, fools, murderers, and whitewashed tombs full of bones and filth. And he said their father was the devil.

In spite of all this, it is not true that Jesus said their power came from Satan. If he said they were lazy and proud and blind it was because they were, not because the devil made them so. If he called them liars and murderers, it was because they were, not because the devil made them so. And when Jesus told them their father was the devil it was because they were boasting that their father was Abraham, and Jesus refused to have the name of Abraham slurred with such a despicable association. When they said Abraham was their father they certainly weren’t claiming that Abraham was their actual father, nor were they saying that Abraham controlled them. So when Jesus told them their father was the devil he was using the same logic: Satan was not actually their father, nor did he control them, but they acted like him, and so they therefore were his sons, not Abraham’s.

It is dangerous to see Satan behind everything. This “the devil made me do it” excuse gets us nowhere. Human beings are capable, on their own, of being evil enough to account for all the bad things that happen in the world. We don’t have to be pushed or pulled or tempted or possessed; it’s just in us. We don’t have to think about it; it comes naturally. Satan could take a break for a few thousand years and the world would still be hopelessly bad.

Jesus was angry at the religious leaders because they were bad, not because their power came from the devil. If it was Satan’s, why would he be mad at them at all? Clearly the guilt was not theirs if they were being manipulated by an irresistible power. Jesus had cast out many demons. If they were truly in the grip of Satan, why didn’t Jesus just cast the devil out of them? It would have saved everyone a lot of trouble.

It is interesting that Ellul insists that God does not control him but that the devil controls his enemies. He is adamant that unless our response to God is free and loving we are robots, not human. But then he consistently places people he dislikes in the devil’s grip. They derive their power from Satan, they work for Satan, they do what he wants... so in what way are they not robots? It is (again) Ellul’s hatred of people in power that makes him lose sight of a consistent argument. If God can’t control us, how can Satan? Is it because God limits himself or is it because we would not be human if we were not free? I think Ellul believes the latter. Ellul says that God made us free, and that this freedom means we cannot be robots. It would be helpful for Ellul to have explained why people are robots if they obey God but not robots if they obey Satan. I don’t think he saw this inconsistency, but it is unfortunately now too late to get a clarification.

Nevertheless, Adam determines what we do, not Satan. Because Adam listened to the lie rather than God, we, like him, also listen to the lie rather than God. In fact, we can’t hear God. Jesus told this to the Jewish leaders (“Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God.”) and to Pilate (“Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”). Paul says the same thing, and more: that if they could have understood they would not have crucified Jesus. 1 Cor 2.7-8:

We speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

Now certainly “the rulers of this age” includes Pilate. Paul is not saying Pilate had no involvement, but the issue is not whether a Roman governor understands the things of God; the issue is whether the high priest of Israel does. Paul lumps them all together: Jewish high priest and Roman governor. Neither knew God, both were guilty. This puts the high priest in rather poor company.

Of course Jesus says that the guilt is not equal. Pilate not knowing God is understandable; Caiaphas not knowing God is monstrous. Pilate doesn’t comprehend the significance of Jesus being Israel’s Messiah—and certainly not the monumental importance of Israel rejecting him. To Pilate, this disturbance is just another annoying Jewish problem and this man is just another Jewish troublemaker. Caiaphas the high priest, however, knows exactly what he’s doing. He determined to kill Jesus because people were beginning to accept the possibility that he might be Israel’s Messiah. Caiaphas’ plot to murder Jesus was in defiance of everything he knew to be true and right.

When Jesus says to Pilate “you would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above”, he certainly was not implying that the chief priest’s power was not from above. It obviously was. Jesus said this because Pilate would never have considered it on his own. Undoubtedly the last person he would think he would answer to was the God of Israel: this pathetic little nation that was under his thumb.

The high priest didn’t need to be told this; he knew who he reported to. When Jesus told Pilate “the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin” he wasn’t changing thoughts; it was the same topic. He was informing Pilate that everyone—Pilate, the high priest, and Jesus! (1 Peter 2.23)—must answer to him who judges justly. Pilate, though a Gentile and having no concern about Israel’s God or this common Jewish man in front of him, would nevertheless have to answer for his cowardice. The Jewish leaders, because they should have known God and had it in their heart to commit murder, would have to answer for much more serious crimes.

It is also important to note that Pilate’s role in this trial was purely legal. Pilate may have been lazy, bored, disinterested, and even dismissive of his duty, but that’s not the same thing as committing murder. Heads of state are not held liable for their official decisions, even if others die as a result. Soldiers are sent into battle, and some die, but that does not make the commander in chief a murderer. Criminals are sent to the gallows, but that does not make the judge a murderer. Here, Pilate is acting as governor. He has nothing against Jesus, so his decision is official, not personal. His decision, it will turn out, will be quite literally a mistake of Biblical proportions, but then, on that day, this is just another Jewish annoyance that he has the duty to adjudicate.

The same cannot be said of Caiaphas. His position as high priest does not protect him if he has people killed. In fact it makes him more guilty. And of course this was personal. He hated Jesus; he wanted him dead. It was premeditated murder.

Back to the Ellul’s argument, that Jesus is telling Pilate his power is from the spirit of evil and that the power of darkness is at work in this trial.

Things are not as Ellul says. When Jesus said “you would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above” it was in reply Pilate’s boast that he had the power to either free or crucify Christ. If Pilate’s power was from the spirit of evil why would Pilate say that this power could also set Jesus free? And why would Christ agree, saying in essence that “yes, you could use this evil power to do the right thing”?

Ellul’s comment that “it is also in keeping with the reply of Jesus to the chief priests, namely that the power of darkness is at work in this trial” is too strong. Jesus was not saying that only Pilate’s power at this trial was from above; it was his position as governor that was from God. It was because he was governor that he was targeted by the Jewish leaders to complete their murderous plot. It is not true that this power surfaced only during the trial. Pilate’s position would have been from God whether Jesus was standing in front of him or not. Pilate’s power “from above” it is not nearly as sinister as Ellul makes it out to be.

Ellul says that the “therefore” connects the two halves of the discussion and makes the one who gave Pilate his power also the one who delivered Jesus into his hand. There is nothing in the passage that says anything like this. The identity of the person who has more guilt is obvious. Pilate had just remarked to Jesus that “your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me” and Jesus replied that “the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin”. Jesus would not confuse things by using Pilate’s words to refer to someone Pilate wasn’t talking about. Clearly, both Pilate and Jesus had in mind the Jewish leaders, with Caiaphas being the point man. It’s astonishing Ellul would miss this.

Or maybe not. Ellul needs to paint his enemies black to justify his hatred of the state, so he sees things that aren’t there. There is nothing we need to listen to here. It’s not argument; it’s ranting.

Page 71

Jesus spoke to Pilate in such a way as not to be understood.

In this lengthy series of texts relating to Jesus’ face-to-face en­­counters with the religious and political authorities, we find irony, scorn noncooperation, indifference, and sometimes accusation.

Ellul says that Jesus’ refusal to answer Pilate’s question “what is truth?” and answering his question “so you are king” with “it is you who have said so” shows that Jesus was trying to disconcert Pilate and that he used mockery, defiance, and provocation.

There is no doubt that Jesus was hotly confrontation with the Jewish authorities. This is undeniable, but it was for a reason: they were the leaders of the people of God.

Contrary to what Ellul says there is nothing inherently scornful in anything Jesus said. He might have been using a calm, reasoned voice that Pilate responded to with honest questions. Or he might have been sarcastic and defiant. What clues do we have? Well, we can look at Pilate’s response.

If Jesus was scornful then Pilate certainly didn’t pick up on it, because the next verse says that he went out to the Jews and told them, “I find no case against him.” If Pilate was angry we might imagine he would have instead told the Jews “Here, do what you want with him; I can’t talk to the man.” Since Pilate still wanted to let Jesus go we have to assume he wasn’t upset. It could have been because he was dull-witted, or possibly he just wasn’t easily offended. Or it could mean Jesus did nothing to offend him.

We have no hard evidence either way, and because of this we cannot accept Ellul’s “factual” account of the event. But it does seem reasonable that Pilate wasn’t a man to tolerate an altitude from a commoner, especially a Jew. The Jewish leaders were pushing him and the crowd outside was yelling to crucify him. If Pilate could have found a way to get out of this easily, he would have. Clearly he was not upset with Jesus.

Ellul may be right that Jesus spoke to Pilate in such a way as not to be understood, but can we assume that Pilate didn’t understand enough to know he was being toyed with? Not understanding is one thing: not understanding you don’t understand is quite another. Ellul is making Pilate out to be very simpleminded.

The easiest way to explain what we see in the text is that Pilate was not offended, therefore Jesus did nothing to offend him. This also agrees with Philip’s explanation to the Ethiopian that Isaiah 53 was a prophecy about what would happen to Jesus:

He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,

and as a lamb before the shearer is silent,

so he did not open his mouth.

In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.

Ellul can’t fathom someone not answering back so he has Jesus answering back, even when Scripture says he didn’t. He can’t imagine anyone tolerating an injustice, so he says Jesus didn’t. Interesting.

Why does it matter? It shouldn’t, except that Ellul creates this scene of irony, scorn noncooperation, and indifference in order to holster his argument. We have no way of knowing what the voices were like, and Ellul is wrong to put a sarcastic tone to Jesus’ words without any support from the Scriptural account.

Page 74 (the book of Revelation)

What is promised is the pure and simple destruction of political government. God judges political power, calling it the great harlot. We can expect from it neither justice, nor truth, nor any good—only destruction.

Whether the state must be destroyed because justice, truth, and good can never come from it is not the issue. The book of Revelation is clear that justice, truth, or good are nowhere to be found in any part of society. It is true that political governments will be destroyed, but so will everything else!

The problem is much more serious than what Ellul says. Scripture says that everything will be destroyed, not just the state. And the reason all these things will be destroyed is not because they have power but because they are bad.

It is no secret that the world system is opposed to the will of God. The world does not pray “thy kingdom come, they will be done”. Clearly God would not destroy the world if it were part of his kingdom. It will be destroyed because it is irreparably hostile to God. Christians are to be in the world but not part of it; we are to come out from the world so we aren’t destroyed with it. And this isn’t just the government; it’s everything: the private sector as well.

If the state is to be destroyed because it is evil then Ellul must say that every private business belongs to the devil as well, and that everyone who works for a private business is in his employ. Clearly the reason these organizations exist has everything to do with profit and nothing to do with the Kingdom of God, so they therefore aid the enemies of God, right? Matthew 12.30: 

Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

Jesus says there is no middle ground. If you’re not with him, you’re against him. If you don’t work for him, you work against him. It’s not just the state that is hostile to God: the entire world is. Do you therefore work for Satan by holding a job? If you run for office are you in fact offering yourself to the devil? If you join the military are you fighting (and dying!) for Satan?

Ellul does not allow for the possibility of fallen humanity. He does not see that “there is no one who is righteous, not even one”, that the problem is not Satan, but us: that we are enemies of God and that it doesn’t matter who we work for, government or business, because everyone is working for themselves.

Ellul, who sees humanity as essentially good, must nevertheless explain the evil that so unmistakably inhabits the world, so he invents evil forces that oppress the people through the state. It’s silly. He makes the state to somehow be not just impersonal, but peopleless. How does anything in the world run without people? It’s just us. We’re the problem. We’re the other kingdom.

Page 77 (1 Peter 2.13: be subject to the king as supreme)

The passage is in accord with the general Christian attitude, which is far from being one of passivity or obedience, and which we might classify in three ways:

1. It may be first an attitude of scorn, of a refusal to recognize the validity of political power,

though not of total rejection.

2. It may be an attitude of total repudiation of political power.

3. It may be an attitude of condemnation of Roman power. After the capture of Jerusalem by

the Roman armies, the destruction of the temple, and finally the suppression of the

Christian church at Jerusalem in A.D. 70, the Christian hatred of political power came to

focus on Rome.

Nothing Ellul says here can be found in Scripture. This comes at the end of a dubious string of arguments that individually have very shaky support—or none at all. Here, in his explanation of 1 Peter 2.13, he admits that what he says is pure hypothesis, yet from this pure hypothesis he concludes that we have three options. Remarkable. He wants Christians to embark on a crusade against the state based upon a hypothesis. His arrogance doesn’t allow the possibility of a fourth option: that we can disregard his idiocy and go with a simple, consistent reading of the text.

His hypothesis is that Peter was not talking about the Roman emperor because the emperor did not allow anyone to call him the king, so Peter was actually referring to the king of the Parthians, which means that Peter is telling us to not honor the emperor. (He admits some historians dispute this. I think he is being generous with himself.)

One has to ask how Peter gained such insight into world politics. Even if Peter did have contacts in the intellectual community to discuss such things with, how could we expect his readers to know what he was talking about? If Peter was trying to stir up anti-emperor sentiment, it seems like wasted effort: almost no one could have detected such a subtle clue.

More confusions: At the end of his letter Peter says “she who is in Babylon sends you her greetings.” Since there is no evidence Peter ever got to Babylon most scholars take this as a reference to Rome. Ellul wants us to believe that when Peter says “king” he means Parthia, not Rome, but when he says “Babylon” he means Rome, not Parthia (Babylon was in Parthia). The reader is also expected to understand that Peter uses “Babylon” to associate Rome with the most negative symbol imaginable but then says “honor the king” to make a positive statement about Parthia and a negative statement about Rome. If Ellul is right, how could Peter’s readers have ever figured out what he was talking about?

Even if we allow that Peter is saying that the king of Parthia should be honored, the text still does not tell us to dishonor the emperor, and no reader could see that outright repudiation is expected. Peter says to honor everyone. This is the full text of 1 Peter 2.13-17:

For the Lord’s sake accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the king as supreme, or of governors. As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil. Honor everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honor the king.

It is impossible to read this and see what Ellul sees. Peter says we are to accept the authority of every human institution. The fact that he gives two examples cannot possibly be taken to mean only those two are to be honored and all others are to be dishonored. Ellul’s logic is senseless. There is no way to get from A to B here. The whole weight of Peter’s instructions are completely opposite of what Ellul says. (I’m certain Ellul would never agree that we should fear God either.)

Peter’s focus is not on politics but the people of God. He is not telling us how to attack the emperor; he is telling us how to follow Christ, which means that regardless of what anyone does to you, you must be conscious of God and do what is right:

It is a credit to you if, being conscious of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.

When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.

Peter is (obviously) saying the opposite of Ellul: that you cannot return evil for evil, that you must endure it, that you must follow the example of Christ who did not threaten or retaliate. When Peter says “to this you have been called” the message is clear: Did you know nothing of Christ’s suffering when you first believed? This should not be a surprise. It is in fact the foundation of your faith.

Ellul is not repudiating the emperor; he’s repudiating Christ.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.

There are all sorts of legitimate ways to explain a passage of Scripture: literal, symbolic, metaphorical, lesson... Only Ellul takes a literal approach to not do what the text says. The text shows that Peter says we are to honor everyone; Ellul says Peter is telling us to not honor everyone. The text shows that Peter says we are to accept the authority every human institution; Ellul says Peter is telling us to not accept the authority any human institution.

There are a number of honest approaches to Scripture, but saying that the writers are telling us to do the opposite of what they say isn’t one of them. Of course it has nothing to do with Peter. Their Ellul’s words. He just wants Peter’s authority so he uses Peter’s words but adds his meaning. Peter says “honor everyone” and Ellul says, “but not those in power.” Peter says “accept the authority of every human institution” and Ellul says, “no, scorn and repudiate.” Peter says “Christ did not return abuse, he did not threaten” and Ellul says, “no one tells me what to do.” Peter says “leave it alone; God will take care of these things” but Ellul says “I’ll handle it myself thank you.”

If Ellul had a shred of integrity he’d leave Peter out of it and just tell us what he thinks. But Ellul, obsessed with power and wanting no one to have it except himself, in his stupor imagines that he stands above Peter as a voice of authority.

Page 78 (Romans 13.1-7 “Let every person be subject to the higher authorities” and 1 Timothy 2.1-2 “Make prayers, supplications...for all who are in high positions”)

These are the only two texts in the whole Bible which stress obedience and duty of obeying the authorities.

If there are only two verses that talk about how we are to respond to authorities then maybe that should be a clue that we aren’t permitted to spend our lives repudiating the state. It would seem logical that a person who claims to be a Christian would pay attention to the things that are said most often and most strongly, not something that occurs only two times in the whole Bible.

Strangely, Ellul seems to leave 1 Timothy 2 alone. He says we are indeed to pray for everyone, including the authorities, that they would be saved, even though, as Ellul says, we detest them. One has to wonder how Christ’s command to love your enemies allows you to detest them at the same time. Ellul doesn’t touch on verse 2, which gives Paul’s reason for making this prayer: so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. Ellul says we should pray but also scorn and repudiate. Paul says we should live quietly and peaceably, in all godliness and dignity. This is not the same thing that Ellul means.

Everyone can say what’s right in their own eyes

Ellul lists a bewildering collection of statements, all bolstered with Scripture but none agreeing with it, and some discarding what the text says to say exactly the opposite.

If you accept Ellul’s premises—that we are free, that freedom is a virtue that deserves to be protected even at great cost, that the goodness of God precludes him from interfering with us in a way that would diminish our freedom, that many of the events of Scripture did not actually happen but were ways that people expressed their experiences and thoughts cryptically, that humanity is not fallen, that people are responsible decision-makers, and that all state and most religious authorities are under the dominion of evil powers—if you accept these foundational points then you can accept his conclusions as logical extensions of these beliefs: that we must not submit to the state’s dictates, that it is the duty of Christians to expose and oppose these forces, and that the best way to protect ourselves from these evil powers is to create small communities on the margins of society.

If however you believe differently—that mankind’s self-determination means he is responsible for his actions but that the only free person is God, that we are either slaves to sin or slaves to God, that the goodness of God requires him to interfere in our lives, that things described in Scripture actually happened, that mankind is fallen, that people are driven by their fallenness to make very irresponsible decisions, and that states and organizations work their evil not because they are run by Satan but because they are run by people—if you accept these different foundational points then you can never accept Ellul’s conclusions, because the call of Christ demands that we do the work of God, and to be sidetracked by opposing the state makes us useless to God.

This then is my belief: that when Christ commands us to sacrifice everything, that includes our anger. We do not have the right to consume our days insisting that people pay attention to our personal injuries. If it doesn’t matter to God it shouldn’t matter to you, and these things just don’t matter unless you—like Ellul—can’t tolerate anyone telling you what to do, even if it is God.