I've talked before about Hakim Bey's book Temporary Autonomous Zones. The idea is that it's important to create small, even temporary places where domination-free life can be experienced. This is more effective as a revolutionary tactic than overthrowing a dominating state or system, as such a system will immediately crush you the moment you get enough power to threaten it. With the T.A.Z. thing, folks can experience what this other life is like, and get excited about starting their own autonomous zones. Bey stresses that these can be the size of a city or a bed. I see good churches at such zones, and Moltmann has turned me on to the temporal power of such an idea via sabbath. (This time I've made the God language gender neutral, but it's otherwise unchanged...)
This is from God in Creation, p.282.
"In [God's]rest all created beings find their won rest. In the presence of God's existence is the blessing of their existence. Everything that is made has been called by the Creator from non-being into being. Everything that exists is menaced by non-being, for it can again be made a nothingness. That is why everything that is, is restless and on the search for a place where this menace cannot reach it- for a 'resting place'. It is not merely the human heart which is 'restless until it finds rest in Thee', as Augustine said. The whole creation is filled with this same unrest, and transcends itself in the search for the rest in which it can abide."
Showing posts with label temporary autonomous zones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label temporary autonomous zones. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
baptist polity: form leads to content?
Here's most of my weekly response paper for my Baptist Polity class... It's about whether Baptist Polity lead to any necessary content, or whether it's just a very flexible form...
In reflecting on whether historical Baptist principles point to any content beyond a form, any policies beyond polity, I’ve actually become gradually convinced that they do, especially when functioning as designed and proclaimed.
Consider the right of the individual to join a church, and to act as his or her own Biblical interpreter, his or her own priest. This is a pretty strongly anti-authoritarian polity, and the autonomy of the local church and the seperation of church and state act to reinforce its anti-authoritarian tendencies.
If Baptists have an anti-authoritarian polity, then I would certainly argue that it will (at least usually) lead to other anti-authoritarian policies, practices, and tactics. Hakim Bey, in Temporary Autonomous Zones, argues that once individuals have experienced life beyond the bounds of domination by some ruling authority, even in a small and/or temporary context, they learn about the possibility and desirability of such domination-free living.
This raises an obvious question: if Baptist polity leads to anti-authoritarian policies, why are so many Baptist churches so grotesquely hierarchical and authoritarian? Why do authoritarian governments thrive in the US, under the hearty support of so many so-called Baptists?
I think this contemporary failure of Baptist polity to be actualized in anti-authoritarian policy is partially the victim of the lack of concern for historic Baptist principles in most Baptist churches. Many of these churches have also used a single interpretation of the Bible as an authoritative break on the individual freedoms of their members.
However, I would point out that this polity is very strong, when it functions. It is not necessarily efficient, and it is often not simple. However, it is very difficult to take over, partially as a result of that lack of simplicity and efficiency. As such, once more and more Baptist churches (and others!) start practicing the freedoms that their forebears taught, it will in theory inspire additional Baptists to start similar churches, or to transform existing churches into places that are more averse to authoritarianism. That is to say, the second answer to the “Why are Baptist churches not actually like this?” question is simply, “Give us some time.”
In reflecting on whether historical Baptist principles point to any content beyond a form, any policies beyond polity, I’ve actually become gradually convinced that they do, especially when functioning as designed and proclaimed.
Consider the right of the individual to join a church, and to act as his or her own Biblical interpreter, his or her own priest. This is a pretty strongly anti-authoritarian polity, and the autonomy of the local church and the seperation of church and state act to reinforce its anti-authoritarian tendencies.
If Baptists have an anti-authoritarian polity, then I would certainly argue that it will (at least usually) lead to other anti-authoritarian policies, practices, and tactics. Hakim Bey, in Temporary Autonomous Zones, argues that once individuals have experienced life beyond the bounds of domination by some ruling authority, even in a small and/or temporary context, they learn about the possibility and desirability of such domination-free living.
This raises an obvious question: if Baptist polity leads to anti-authoritarian policies, why are so many Baptist churches so grotesquely hierarchical and authoritarian? Why do authoritarian governments thrive in the US, under the hearty support of so many so-called Baptists?
I think this contemporary failure of Baptist polity to be actualized in anti-authoritarian policy is partially the victim of the lack of concern for historic Baptist principles in most Baptist churches. Many of these churches have also used a single interpretation of the Bible as an authoritative break on the individual freedoms of their members.
However, I would point out that this polity is very strong, when it functions. It is not necessarily efficient, and it is often not simple. However, it is very difficult to take over, partially as a result of that lack of simplicity and efficiency. As such, once more and more Baptist churches (and others!) start practicing the freedoms that their forebears taught, it will in theory inspire additional Baptists to start similar churches, or to transform existing churches into places that are more averse to authoritarianism. That is to say, the second answer to the “Why are Baptist churches not actually like this?” question is simply, “Give us some time.”
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