“Where
there is no law, there is no freedom.”
John
Locke
"Rabbi Hananiah, prefect of the
priests, says: Do thou pray for the welfare of the empire, because were it not
for the fear that it inspires, every man would eat his neighbor alive."
The
Mishnah
"It is simply true that he who
pauses to choose the right word will find out what he means to mean, and
he who can't will make it clear to his reader that he is ignorant and
thoughtless."
Richard Mitchell, The
Gift of Fire
"Why,
then, do men cease to be Communists? One
answer is: Very few do."
Whittaker Chambers, Witness
Theologians quickly discover that death
and taxes do not exhaust the list of life's inevitabilities. Not only do we die and pay; we think1 -- however well or however poorly. Because such considerations are foundational
and pervasive, among the things we cannot avoid thinking about are our
relationship to the transcendent, if any, and our relationship to our neighbor,
whether near or far away. That is, human
nature and human relationships being what they now are, human existence is
inescapably theological and political.
Thus, the question is never whether or not we will have a theology or a
political ideology, but whether or not the theology and the political ideology
we have are any good.
Ellulism -- the theology and politics
of Jacques Ellul -- I am convinced, is seriously defective. It is, nevertheless, widely held and
respected among evangelicals. The burden
of this essay, therefore, is to bring its flaws to view and thereby to explain
why I believe about it as I do. My
agenda will be threefold: first, to
expose its exegetical shortcomings; second, to reveal its political and
philosophical inadequacies; and third, to trace its ideological roots back to
their source.
I.
Biblical Anarchism?
According to Ellul, the gospel should
not be tied to any prevalent political or economic ideology. To do so, he says, is to degenerate
Christianity, which "was originally an anti-ideology."2 To do so also entails a dangerous conformity
to the world, which Ellul sees as a transgression against our freedom in
Christ.3 But, Christianity is not the politically or
economically ideology-free (or even ideology-neutral) religion Ellul
describes. It most assuredly does have
political and economic proclivities, or tendencies, of a definite sort, though
they are not the sort Ellul identifies or prefers. To them I will return later. Furthermore, Ellul, as a Christian anarchist,
does not escape committing the "error" (his word) of fusing
Christianity to a political ideology, a practice about which he has warned
others. He himself has fused the radical
politics of the anarchist left with a skewed vision of Christianity and of
Scripture.
Ellul is convinced that both Testaments
inculcate anarchism. This he repeatedly
declares in the process of "reconciling anarchism and
Christianity." "I do not
intend," he writes, "to abandon the biblical message in the
slightest, since it seems to me . . . that biblical thought leads straight to
anarchism -- anarchism is the only 'anti-political political position' in
harmony with Christian thought."4
"Both the Old and New Testaments," he contends, "take
exception to all political power."5
"The biblical view," Ellul writes, "is not just
apolitical but antipolitical. . . it refuses to confer any value on political
power. . . it regards political power as idolatrous, inevitably entailing
idolatry. Christianity offers no
justification for political power."6
"We must uphold the sure and certain fact," Ellul asserts,
"that the Bible brings us a message that is against power, against the
state, and against politics."7 By so
arguing, however, Ellul has improperly recast the Bible into a left-wing
manifesto. This transformation he tries
to support with what, to me at least, seem grotesque exegetical contortions
that deface the biblical teaching on government.
A.)
Old Testament
According to Ellul, the Old Testament
"always challenges political power in itself where the 'nations'
are concerned . . . The government of a
foreign people never appears in the Old Testament as legitimate or
satisfactory."8 But, as is almost
embarrassingly obvious, the Old Testament never impugns "political power
in itself" among Gentile nations; rather, it excoriates the abuses those
powers sometimes perpetrate. Nor,
contrary to Ellul, does the Old Testament challenge the political legitimacy of
all foreign regimes, regardless of whether or not the reigning polities were
monarchical, oligarchical, or even (as was the case in some portions of ancient
Greece) ostensibly democratic. It does
not challenge Gentile regimes based upon whether or not those regimes were
legitimated, or whether or not they ruled by the free consent of the governed,
which, along with hereditary rule (and apart from any direct command of God),
seem to me to be the only bases upon which genuine political legitimacy could
ever be established. In the Old
Testament, the question of Gentile political legitimacy is not in view, much
less is it always decided in the negative, as Ellul insists. Furthermore, the application of the very
concept of political legitimacy to Old Testament times and conditions is
itself a largely anachronistic application.
Ellul's own anarchist assertions, he
believes, are taught not only in the Old Testament in its entirety, but also in
1 Samuel 8, which he identifies as "the main text" on the issue of
political power, a chapter he contends "boils down to three
objections" to government, one of which he claims is that "political
power is always dictatorial, excessive, and unjust."9
First, Ellul's assertion that 1 Sam 8
is the foundational Hebrew passage on
this issue is highly debatable, if not roundly mistaken. One could argue, as Robert Filmer did 300 years
ago in his Patriarcha, that Genesis 1 and 2 formed the basis of Old
Testament teaching on government and that from those chapters one discerns that
the universe itself is both hierarchical and monarchical (not anarchic).10 What the universe is, written large, as it
were, the family is, written small. And
government, Filmer argued, ought to take its cue from the family, of which it
was intended to be the national manifestation or extension. The family, at least as Filmer understood Genesis,
was monarchical in that the authority of the husband (or father) is singular
and unrivalled. The king is, and ought
to be, Filmer reasoned, the father of his nation and should rule (and be
honored) accordingly. The point here is
not that Filmer's monarchicalism is correct.
(I do not think it is. John Locke
disposed of that.) The point is that 1
Samuel 8 is not the unquestionably proper point of departure or locus of
debate, as Ellul too easily assumes. Nor
is the point insignificant for, as Aristotle taught us long ago, he who wishes
to succeed must ask the right preliminary questions. The right question here is where properly to
begin.
In that light, both Filmer and Ellul
notwithstanding, other theologians argue that the place to begin is in
Deuteronomy, and that the Deuteronomic code itself is an extensive and elaborate
constitution11 for ancient political power, dealing as it
does with property rights, family relationships, labor, freedom, and crime and
punishment. Among the numerous relevant
passages to which those theologians point are Deuteronomy 17: 8ff (wherein the
Israelites are commanded to obey the judicial decisions rendered by the judges
and the Levites, upon pain of death), Deuteronomy 16: 18ff (wherein civil
judges are expressly said to be given by God), and Deuteronomy 17: 14ff (which
not only permits an Israelite monarchy and gives rules for its conduct, but
actually indicates that God himself will select the king). Thus, it is not true, as Ellul alleges, that
before the incidents in 1 Samuel 8 "the people of Israel have been
without political organization,"12 or that
human government and political power are always evil and always
opposed by God. Instead, the case was
simply that Israel, at that time, did not have a human monarch at its
head. Prior to 1 Samuel 8, Israel was a
theocratic monarchy, not an instance of pre-Christian, divinely ordained
anarchism. This point is underscored by
practices in the age of judges that followed the second giving of the law, an
age in which the theocratic monarchy was still (in theory, at least) in full
force, but in which major portions of political power had been delegated by God
himself to human beings and widely dispersed among them. To the advocates of this view, the books of
Deuteronomy and Judges are pivotal, not 1 Samuel 8.13
One could also equally well argue that
Genesis 9, wherein capital punishment is prescribed and delegated to humans to
enact at their discretion, is the God-ordained origin (and endorsement) of even
the most extreme political power -- that of the power of life and death over
one's fellows. Perhaps all Christian
theorizing ought to begin there, beneath God's ancient imprimatur.
Still other exegetes argue that by
employing the suzerainty covenant ritual practiced by other nations while
himself dealing with the chosen nation of Israel, God was indirectly (though
not inadvertently or indiscriminately) endorsing human government and that such
passages are crucial, not incidental, to our understanding of the Old
Testament's teaching on political power.
Nor have I made mention of such diverse Old Testament texts as Exodus
18: 13ff (in which civil judges are appointed to administer God's statutes);
Exodus 21: 23ff, (the famous lex talionis passage requiring human
intervention for the proper administration of justice), or 2 Chronicles 19: 5ff
(which indicates, among other things, that judges rule not for man but for God
himself).
In short, that 1 Samuel 8 is the
pivotal Old Testament text is not at all clear.
While theologians commonly find starting points other than 1 Samuel 8,
and while those starting points (and the conclusions to which they lead)
differ, anarchism is rarely named among them, as Ellul argues it ought to be.
Yet, even if one were to begin with 1
Samuel 8, one could not conclude, as does Ellul, that it endorses anarchism or
that it teaches that "political power is always dictatorial, excessive,
and unjust." The passage in
question deals with Israel's decision to have a human king once Samuel is
gone. Their desire for a human king is
spiritually wicked, not because political power is always and everywhere
inescapably evil, or because monarchy is inherently vile, but because the
Israelites already have God as their king.
It simply and plainly is untrue that in 1 Samuel 8 "monarchical
organization is formally condemned" or that this chapter condemns it
"with ad hoc arguments that are always valid."14
This chapter makes no statement whatever about the
allegedly universal perversity or dictatorial propensities of political power,
in general, or of monarchies, in particular.
Ellul's anarchism cannot be found anywhere in this text. By contending otherwise, Ellul is failing in
precisely the same way about which he himself warned others: "Anytime we read the Bible to find
arguments or justifications, we wallow in Christian ideology."15
Ellul's anarchism runs counter not only to the Old
testament, but also to the Jewish tradition and liturgy to which it gives
rise. Jewish believers, for example,
consider it their sacred duty to pray for the welfare of the civil government and
of the society of the land in which they happen to live. This duty has been enjoined upon them by the
prophet Jeremiah (29:7) and reinforced by the Mishnah (Avot 3:2: "pray for the welfare of the
government"). The Jewish prayer for
the welfare of the ruling powers of state, be they royal, executive,
representative, or judicial, is a part of the Sabbath morning service and is
recited after the reading of the Torah and before the Law scrolls are returned
to the Ark. According to the Metsudah
Siddur, this prayer traditionally begins:
"He Who grants deliverance to kings, and dominion to princes, His
kingship is a kingship of all worlds; He Who rescued David, His servant, from
the evil sword, Who put a road through the sea, and a path amid the mighty waters;
may He bless, preserve, and guard, help, exalt, and make great, and raise high
our Sovereign." Clearly, these are
not the petitions of anarchism.
B.) New Testament
Not surprisingly, Ellul insists that,
like the Old, the New Testament also teaches anarchism. For example, the miraculous catching of a
fish with a coin in its mouth, a coin sufficient to pay the Temple tax for both
Jesus and Peter (Matthew 17: 24ff), Ellul describes as an "absurd miracle,"16 one designed "precisely to show that the
obligation to pay the tax is ridiculous."
By it, Ellul improperly insists, "Jesus held up power to
ridicule."17 But, Jesus's intention, as He himself
clearly indicates, is not to give offence (v. 27). Ridicule is perhaps the furthest thing from
his mind -- though not apparently from Ellul, who goes on to argue that the
payment of such taxes is a matter of indifference; we are free to pay or not to
pay. "Doctrinally I should
not," he writes, "but out of love I will"18 -- as if the demands of Christian belief and
of Christian love were somehow different.
Similarly, the standard pro-government
views that most theologians take toward Jesus's famous injunction to give to
Caesar those things that are Caesar's and to God those things that are God's
(Matthew 22:21), Ellul characterizes as
"unbelievable conclusions."19 Jesus's
words, according to Ellul, as any "pious Jew of Jesus' time" would
surely recognize, mean that, because God is the master of everything,
"Caesar is the legitimate master of nothing, except for what he makes
himself," and those things, Ellul asserts, "belong to the order of
the demonic."20 But, considering that
the question posed in this passage to Jesus by the Jews concerned the right of
Caesar to rule the Jewish homeland and not whether or not all government is
illegitimate, and considering that the demonic order is nowhere in view,
either in this verse or in the entire chapter from which it comes, Ellul's
anarchist conclusions are simply gratuitous.
Ellul here is arguing as if all political power is and only could be
exercised after a Machiavellian model; as if all political measures were
Draconian, and as if the only acceptable alternative to Machiavelli and Draco
is anarchy -- all of which are patently false.
Although Jesus's words clearly rule out any facile identification of the
divine and the political, they do not rule out the political altogether or
relegate it to the realm of the irremediably perverse. They are, quite to the contrary, an explicit
sanction of government, though not of all that governments have done. Christ's words clearly indicate the
possibility (and implicitly reveal the advisability) of loyalty to both God and
government. In no way should this
passage be construed as a vilification of all political power for all time and
in all circumstances. Such assertions
are simply the idiosyncratic contortions of Ellul's bizarre dance upon the
text. They are not the carefully
ascertained teaching of the text itself; and they are not exegetical
scholarship.
When Jesus later declares that his
kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36), Ellul again finds what he believes
is grist for his anarchist mill. These
words, Ellul writes, teach that "apart from the Kingdom of God, any power
exercised is evil" and "should be obliterated." With these words, Ellul argues, "Jesus .
. . launches a fundamental attack on power."21
But Jesus, of course, has said or done absolutely nothing (here or
elsewhere) so politically doctrinaire or irresponsible as that. In fact, Jesus tells Pilate something quite
the opposite: “You would have no power
over me,” Jesus said, “if it were not given you from above” (John 19: 11). Pilate’s power, of course, was political. It was also far reaching, including even the
power to judge matters of life and death.
We have it on the highest authority, furthermore, that Pilate’s power
was given to him by God himself.
In other words, the dominical utterance to which Ellul alludes has
nothing at all to do with the establishment or endorsement of universal
political anarchy or the iconoclastic overthrow of all political power. Those things can be found nowhere in
Scripture, much less here in John's gospel.
They are the result only of Ellul's egregious and misshapen interpretation.
Ellul then dismisses out of hand what
most exegetes would identify as the locus classicus of the New Testament's teaching on
government: Paul's word in Romans 13
that we ought to submit ourselves to the governing authorities because, as
rulers, they have been established by God himself as a force for good. This passage, says Ellul, is "much too
celebrated."22 He writes:
"This text, it seems to me, should
be reduced to its real meaning: rather than giving us the last word on the
matter of political authority, it seeks to apply
love in a context where Christians detested the authorities."23
In
spite of Ellul's imaginative supposition, we have no evidence whatever that
either Paul (who was imprisoned repeatedly by the authorities) or the Roman
Christians to whom he wrote, ever "detested the authorities." Indeed, some of those to whom Paul addressed
his admonition were themselves quite possibly active agents in the
government and part of the ruling authority, as a number of biblical
considerations might lead us to believe.
Detesting political authority is a characteristic of Ellulism, not of
apostolic Christianity.
In short, the anarchism that Ellul
espouses, and with which he labels both Testaments and Christ himself, is not
the political ideology of Scripture; it is the yield of Ellul's own anarchic
hermeneutic, a hermeneutic that refuses to submit itself to the precise verbal
parameters established by the language of any given biblical text. If the Bible entails any sort of political
orthodoxy, it is not anarchism.
II. The
Philosophical and Practical Implications of Anarchism
Because ideas have consequences, and
because bad ideas have bad consequences, an anarchistic reading of Scripture is
not without its untoward effects. Relying
on exegesis of this sort, for example, enables one unabashedly to insist, as
does Ellul, that "the state's
prosperity always implies the death of innocents," and that "a
person can exercise political power only if he worships the power of
evil."24 But, by this logic, voting -- the supreme act
of power in any democratic republic -- would be unspeakably wicked and ought to
be resisted by all Christians as a point of true spirituality and moral
responsibility.25 The same would apply (in most free nations) to
paying taxes, to military service, to sending letters (and to delivering
them), to pledging allegiance, to
testifying in court, to serving on a jury, to filing a lawsuit, or even to
purchasing and using a library card at a public library, all of which are exercises
of, and participation in, political power.
Furthermore, simply by saying publicly what he does, Ellul himself
"worships the power of evil" because the exercise of free speech and
of public discourse are political acts of power, as the ancient Greeks
well understood and as has been re-emphasized in modern times by Leo Strauss
and those who identify with Strauss's school of political theorizing, among
others. Furthermore, because
publishing, preaching, teaching, and persuading are powerful political
actions, because these avenues of
expression are open to Ellul primarily because his government (and others)
protect his freedom of speech, his academic freedom, and the freedom of the
press, and because Ellul continues to practice those liberties and to value
them highly, he must not say, as he does say, that "political power never
has any value in itself."26
But here as elsewhere, Ellul's thought
has been misdirected and imprecise. As
his exaggerated language frequently indicates, his theological and political
beliefs often are inadequately nuanced.
For example, Ellul speaks of "the radical incompatibility of the
gospel and the state,"27 which, in
light of the fact that he lives in a country that guarantees his right to
believe as he chooses, and in light of the fact that so many European countries
have Christian churches that spread the gospel at home and abroad -- churches
that are sponsored by the state, is a grossly distorted exaggeration. Had he mentioned only the incompatibility of
the gospel and some states, his remark would have been more
credible. As it is, however, one has a
good deal of difficulty working up any confidence in Ellul's theological and
political judgments because of their habitually exaggerated verbal configuration.
But faulty exegesis, internal inconsistency,
and imprecise language are only part of the problem of Ellul's anarchism; it is
also eminently unrealistic. That is,
rather than arising form an observation of what human existence is really like
and deducing, as Thomas Hobbes did in the seventeenth-century, that life in a
fallen world is typically nasty, brutish, and short; and rather than tying his
political theorizings to that fundamental diagnostic fact, Ellul seeks to foist
onto an already ruptured world the ineffective anarchic vision concocted in his
own head, unchecked as it is by human reality or the biblical text. In other words, because it is not subject to
the dictates of any external restraint, Ellul's political theory, in effect, is
epistemologically anarchistic.
Put differently, Ellul has succumbed to
what Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has
characterized as the unfortunate disjunction between political ideas and human
experience. When such disjunctions
develop, she says, irresponsible political and economic theories
proliferate. These theories, which she
labels "the rationalist perversion," "tend . . . to be abstract
and unembarrassed by the need for empirical indicators of their major assumptions." "Rationalist theories," she
observes, "are speculative rather than empirical and historical; rationalist
reforms seek to conform human behavior to oversimplified, unrealistic models."28 Rationalist theoreticians ignore the fact
that human institutions arise out of human behavior and that human behavior is
notoriously intractable. This same ideological
unperturbedness precisely describes Ellul, who is undaunted by the acknowledged
unlikelihood, perhaps impossibility, of his anarchistic political vision:
"We must not become discouraged,
[he writes,] if our anarchist declaration
fails to lead to an anarchist society, or if it does not overthrow society,
destroying its whole framework . . . In
spite of everything, in spite of this
human reality, we want to destroy power.
This is the Christian hope
in politics."29
All this flies in the face of historic
Christian wisdom, both ancient and modern, and it ignores the fact that
Christianity is, as it were, a reality game.
The Bible deals with real people in a realistic fashion. It stares directly upon human nature and does
not blink. Jesus, as C. S. Lewis rightly
perceived, was a thorough-going realist, though He is seldom given credit for
being so. Augustine, while he understood
perhaps better than anyone that the City of Man could never become the City of
God, never slid from anti-utopianism into anarchism.30
Thomas Aquinas, far from being an anarchist, was an ardent proponent of
the respublica hominum sub Deo. He believed that the proper purpose of human
law was to propose and to uphold the ideal of good conduct and to help
habituate men toward its performance.
But by doing so, however, Thomas Aquinas was not therefore an idolator
of the state, contrary to Ellul's scathing verdict on those who hold such a
view. Thomas knew that "no matter
what high ideals, how fine the structures and laws, how good and beneficent the
ruler, the political community is no substitute for . . . religion" and
that "politics is not a way of salvation." He also knew that "for the Christian,
politics is neither all-important nor unimportant." In short, Aquinas understood what Ellul does
not: the Christian "cannot let
politics fall to the perverters by default."31
Even Dante, perpetually abused as he was by government, argued to
subject the world to one state;32 Ellul (by
contrast) unrealistically argues to eliminate political power altogether. Calvin, too, understood the realism and
practical wisdom of a God who works in our world on our behalf, and
therefore he set about actively trying to bring the revealed will of God to
bear upon the political and social concerns of Geneva.33
Ellul's is just the sort of
impracticable and unbiblical political philosophy that Karl Rahner criticized
for mortgaging the present for the sake of a generation of people who were
never born and who never will be.34 As the
old maxim indicates, politics is the art of the possible. It is not an impractical affair disconnected
from human reality. Christian political
theory, to paraphrase Algernon Sidney, does not seek for that which is perfect,
because it knows that such a thing is not to be found among men. Rather, it seeks that form of government that
is attended with the fewest and most pardonable shortcomings, and it knows that
anarchism is not that form which it seeks.
Christian political theory deals with possibilities, not with
unreachable goals or with speculations about the politics of the eschaton, at
least as we imperfectly anticipate them.
Furthermore, simply because human
government is imperfectible, Christian political theorists and politicians do
not relegate politics and the state to the secularists and to the secular, as
does Ellul, who writes that we do not "have to work out a Christian
doctrine of the form of government or the economy," and that "another
way that is closed [to Christians] is that of wanting to christianize society
or the state. The state is not meant to
be Christian. It is meant to be
secular."35 To Ellul, participation in politics and in the
structures of "the powers that be" form no necessary part of
Christian life and faith. "In
fact," writes Ellul, "no directly biblical or theological argument
seems to support participation."36
The proliferation of views like Ellul's
has had a disastrous effect. Partly
because Christianity is made to seem not only unpolitical but anti-political,
most universities feel free to construct an entire curriculum in political
theory that operates as if Christianity were either nonexistent or else an
accumulation of merely irrelevant data that can be safely ignored. Theology seems to them to have no bearing
upon the integrity or content of the discipline of political science. Yet, Ellul appears not to understand that,
because they are the chief mechanisms of providing and preserving liberty,
peace, and prosperity, the state and political power cannot be considered a
matter of indifference by responsible Christians, or as something from which
Christians can detach themselves with moral impunity, as if such institutions
and concerns were theologically neutral or somehow fell outside the scope of
necessary Christian action and reflection.37
Ellul does not understand that, while the political considerations
surrounding life, liberty, and property (to invoke the Lockean triad) are not
of ultimate or transcendent importance, they have a genuine significance that
cannot be downplayed or made to appear as falling somehow beyond the purview of
Christian revelation and theology. That
such considerations are not ultimate concerns should lead us to advocate a
limited state, not no state whatever.
Ellul has not come to grips with the fact that not one shred of evidence
exists that demonstrates that the anarchist principles he advocates would make
the world more free, more prosperous, or more secure. To procure these desirable political and
economic conditions requires "the active presence and participation of the
Christian in the affairs of state and society,"38 not the radical secularization of all
political endeavors. Secularization is
the enemy of modern Christianity, not its political ally.
As John Stuart Mill once chided Jeremy
Bentham, the cardinal error in most misguided political theories is the belief
that politics can be reduced to a few simple, over-arching formulas, a
reduction that leads to an inflexible (and often universal) misapplication of
half-true truisms, much to the distress and disadvantage of those upon whom
they are imposed. Ellul's anarchism is
just such a simplistic theory. What he
does not seem to understand about his call to abolish all power is the
self-stultifying fact that the abolition of power can be accomplished,
imposed, and maintained only by means of power, for, Montesquieu observed
more than 200 years ago, it takes a power to check a power. Freedom never was, is not now, nor ever shall
be (so far as we have evidence to tell) possible without political power.
Freedom and political power are not
antithetical realities in a fallen world.
Ellul seems not to recognize that there can be no freedom without
justice and that in a fallen world there can be no justice without power. He seems not to understand that while freedom
is, in most cases, a desirable political condition, anarchism is simply freedom
gone to seed. It is freedom improperly
extended beyond the boundaries of political wisdom and foresight, the two
indispensable characteristics of any good political theory. There is no freedom without order, and there
is no order without law and law enforcement.
As Goethe has observed, only law can give us freedom. Freedom without law endures as long as a lamb
among hungry wolves. Therefore, because
order is a political requirement of the first rank, if anything in politics is
demonic, it is not Caesar or money (as Ellul says); it is that spirit that
cannot bear authority and seeks to destroy it utterly.
In that light, I am reminded of G. K.
Chesterton's politically illuminating tale, "The Yellow Bird," in
which the zealous Russian, Professor Ivanhov, the author of an intoxicating
tract for the times entitled The Psychology of Liberty,
"emancipates" a fish by smashing its bowl and "liberates" a
canary from its cage -- only to see it torn to pieces in the nearby woods.
Because moral order in society is
predicated upon virtue and not merely upon freedom, the absence of virtue is far more troubling
to a Christian political theorist than is the presence of power. For the sake of virtue alone, therefore, one
must resist the drive to abolish all power.
The variously coercive powers of family, of church, of state, and of
school are not inimical to virtue; rather, they help secure it and make it
possible. The eradication of all power
results not in virtue, order, or prosperity, but in chaos. Unencumbered freedom (even freedom hiding
behind the adjective "Christian") is not the political panacea or
objective toward which we ought to be ineluctably moving. Instead, we should desire to do what must be
done and what can be done, both of which require power. Political freedom, while itself highly
desirable, is largely neutral with regard to the advancement of moral virtues
and can be detrimental to them. The
abolition of political and economic power is not the inescapable precondition
of virtue, either that of the powerful or that of the powerless. In fact, the withering of established
political and economic institutions has often been the precondition of
history's most heinous misdeeds, as it was during the French Revolution. In light of such considerations, therefore,
Christians need to realize that the alternative to totalitarianism and to
statism is not simply anarchism. As the
framers of the American Constitution understood, our guiding principle ought to
be a rule of law, not of men; and our political objective ought to be a limited
government, not no government at all.
By radicalizing politics the way it does -- that is, by advocating
anarchism in the face of the fact that human beings are inescapably political
and societal by nature39 --
Ellulism goes Niebuhr one better: It
posits not simply a Christ against culture, but a Christ against creation.
Destruction of the state is the opiate
of anarchists. It has no part in the
Christian agenda. It cannot produce a
better world; it can only destroy the one that is. That is why Ellul's anarchistic vision is
unfit for human habitation. It
relentlessly confuses the force of law with the law of force.
But if, as I have argued, Ellul's
political ideology does not derive from Scripture, from whence does it
arise? And if it does not resemble the
teaching of the Bible or of historic Christianity, to what does it bear the
greatest affinity? The answer to both
questions is the same -- Marxism. Ellulism has Marxist roots and Marxist
branches. That is, Ellulism shares with
Marxism a plethora of presuppositions, methods, and conclusions. Because it has been done so well and so
often,40 to refute each of Ellul's capitulations to
Marxism would both fall outside the scope of this essay and be a useless
redundancy. I simply say here that both
Ellulism and Marxism are characterized by an ideological correspondence that
includes (but is by no means limited to) agreement in the following concepts,
procedures, and goals, the delineation of which will be the focus of the final
portion of this essay.
III. Marxist Roots and
Branches
Historians of Christian thought have repeatedly
noticed the difference between the theology and piety Martin Luther and those
of Ulrich Zwingli, the two greatest of the first generation of Protestant
reformers. Luther's theological distance
from Rome, while considerable, is markedly less than Zwingli's. This difference scholars often account for by
noting that, prior to his conversion to Protestantism, Zwingli was never the
intensely ardent Roman Catholic that Luther once was. Thus, while Luther brought with him into
Protestantism all of his Catholicism that the Bible did not expressly prohibit,
Zwingli brought of his only what the Bible expressly commanded. To the Zwinglians, Luther's break with Rome was
imperfect and incomplete because he continued to tolerate what, to the
Zwinglians, was too much Roman residue.
This inability or unwillingness to make
a sufficient break with one's own past is not an isolated phenomenon. For example, scholars also have noticed the
Manichean inclinations of the mature Augustine and the lingering Rosicrucianism
in Charles Williams's Christian novels.
Jacques Ellul, too, it seems to me, has made an imperfect and
insufficient break from his own Marxist
past and from the ideology that necessarily attaches to it, as the following
observations will indicate:
A).
Human Alienation
Rather than endorsing the version of
alienation expressed by such Christian thinkers as Luther, Schleiermacher, or
Kierkegaard (not to mention St. Paul), Ellul opts for the version articulated
by Marx, a version that is not only Ellul's "starting point" on the
subject, but a version he characterizes as "perspicacious and even
prophetic." "I firmly
believe," writes Ellul, "that it is in terms of the tradition that
goes back to Marx that we must consider man's present condition."41
B.) Anti-capitalism
Like Marx, Ellul views free-market capitalism as
a radically flawed, even internally contradictory economic system. To them, it is riddled with exploitive
malfunctions so great that they cannot be considered mere imperfections in an
otherwise harmonious and productive system.
Also like Marx, Ellul believes that capitalism has produced a class of
workers who, because they live by wages, are related to their employers by a
cash-nexus, which reduces their capacity to work to the subhuman level of a
mere commodity,42 something Marx characterized as wage
slavery. Ellul rarely rises above the
standard Marxist caricatures of capitalism.
For example, he absurdly states that “massacres” are “required to
maintain capitalism;” that “workers” are “starved by the capitalist system;”
and that for the Christian “allegiance to capitalism is virtually impossible.”43 Capitalism's alleged failures aside, both
Marx and Ellul have been forced to acknowledge its unparalleled powers of
production.
C.)
Determinism
In some cases, Ellul not only agrees
with Marx, he surpasses him, as he does on the question of human freedom. According to Marx, "It is not the consciousness of men that
determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence
determines their consciousness."44 But
Ellul believes that "in this regard we need to probe much deeper than Marx
did in his criticism of formal democracy . . . For our choice is never
free. We are conditioned by a number of
factors that cause us to elect this or that representative, to sign this or
that manifesto, to buy this or that newspaper.
The man who chooses is always alienated man, man subject to many necessities. Hence his choice is not an exercise of
freedom. For it is not he who
chooses. The choice is made by his
cultural setting, his upbringing, his environment, and the various
psychological manipulations to which he is subject."45 One wonders, is Ellul himself somehow
exempt from this allegedly pervasive mind control, or is he affirming that his
own ideas are merely the mindless dictates imposed upon him by his environment?
D.)
Money
Like Marx before him, Ellul believes that money
is an inescapably and universally alienating power, one that estranges both
those who have it and those who do not.
Concerning the role and function of money in society, Ellul believes
that "the analysis of Marx is perfectly correct."46
E.) Dialectical
Methodology
Like Marx, Ellul believes that only the dialectical method is able
to deal successfully with the continuously changing data with which reality
presents us. To both Marx and Ellul,
dialectical analysis is indispensable.
"I am a dialectician above all," Ellul declares, "I
believe nothing can be understood without dialectical analysis."47 In order to rescue the biblical
writers (who, at least on a consensus view, lived prior to the era of
dialectics and apart from its influences) from the wholesale dismissal that his
radical view entails, Ellul quite remarkably claims that the dialectical method
can be traced back to its beginnings with the Hebrew prophets in the
eighth century B. C. Ellul, in effect,
even goes so far as to jettison, in principle, almost the entire tradition of
biblical exegesis: "only
dialectical thinking can give a proper account of scriptural revelation, such
revelation itself being fundamentally and intrinsically dialectical."48
F.) Revolution and Liberation
At times Ellul sacrifices Marx's opinions for
Lenin's, as he does when he compares Leninism's view of revolution and
liberation to his own view of the work of Christ:
"It seems to me that the familiar
analysis of Marx, according to which a revolution consonant with the meaning
of history brings liberation to the alienated,
offers points of similarity but cannot be used because it insists on self-liberation. Lenin's doctrine is better in this regard,
since it gives the party a mediatorial
role on behalf of the proletariat. The
work of the party with reference to
the alienation of the proletariat corresponds figuratively to that of Jesus
Christ with
regard to the alienation of man. Since
the proletariat cannot liberate itself with
its feelings of revolt and spontaneous reactions, the work must be done from above. The proletariat comes into the act when it
recognizes the reality and is thus in
effect de-alienated already. Along these
lines the work of Jesus Christ
is a revolutionary action in the sense that it is a revolt against alienating forces."49
Time and space would fail were I to
identify the full range of Ellul's Marxisms, including as it does Marxist
assumptions on such things as the nature of religion, sociological nomenclature
(and the Marxist taxonomy of class structure and class struggle, as well as the
Marxist class analysis that attaches to it), egalitarianism, socialism, the
nature of merchandise, and socio-political revolution, among many others. One does not wonder, therefore, that Ellul
pronounces Fernando Belo's leftist revolutionism a political choice
"which we do not question," or
that Ellul believes that Belo's view of the "radical opposition between
God and Money, God and the State" and "God and Caesar," is not
only true, but "truly evangelical."50
Nor is it at all surprising that in Ellul's The Ethics of Freedom, Karl Marx is
the most often quoted author, even though this is a text on Christian ethics
and even though Marx is not a Christian.51 One can tax Ellul with the same charge he himself levels at Belo: he "appears not to suspect [that] Marx's
thought is a whole -- a precise, integrated unit, based on a thorough
method. Once one has adopted it, one
cannot mix it with other methods and concepts." Nevertheless, Ellul himself adopts Marxist
"methods and concepts" and believes that Belo's choice to be a
Communist "clearly merits our respect."52
It does not.
Not all, perhaps not even most, of the
choices humans make are respectable or are worthy of a Christian's considered
approval. Some choices are ignorant and
inadequately informed; some are counterproductive; some are wicked. Belo's attachment to Marxist principles is
all these things. It is no more
admirable than the choice to become a slave trader, which I consider to be very
much the same thing. Marxism has been
the ideological justification for the imprisonment, enslavement, destitution,
and murder of countless millions of human beings. It has spawned the most atrocious crimes of
history, and its marriage to colossal evil seems both indissolvable and inevitable. Marxism's historic evil towers over all
others. Since World war II, more human
beings have been murdered under Marxism between the western borders of what
once was East Germany and the eastern shores of China than in the entirety of
the rest of recorded history, stretching back as it does more than four
millennia. When compared to Stalin's
penchant for mass extermination, even Hitler seems an amateur.
But, am I inventing a Marxist
Ellul? Not at all. As Ellul himself confesses, he was converted
to Marx after reading Das Kapital in his teens. Reading Marx "answered almost all the
questions I had been asking myself," he writes. "It seemed to me that the method of Karl
Marx . . . was superior to all that I had encountered elsewhere."53 Nor has Ellul's attachment to Marxism proven
merely the skewed judgment or passing infatuation of an uninformed youth. Ellul has "remained unable to eliminate
Marx."54 “I totally agree,” writes Ellul, “with a
Marxism that offers a method of interpretation -- one of the best
interpretations, in fact, I believe the best -- of the world of the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries.”55 Ellul himself boasts
that large and significant portions of his own work and the methodology by
which he produced it is consciously patterned after that of Marx: “I was certain, absolutely certain, that if
Marx were alive in 1940 he would no longer study economics or the capitalist
structures, he would study Technique. So
I began to study Technique, using a method as similar as possible to the one
Marx used a century earlier to study capitalism.”56
Ellul identifies Karl Marx and Karl Barth as the twin fountains of his
own twofold intellectual origin.57
In short, a man who does not reject
socialism,58 egalitarianism, or the dissolution of the
state, but who does reject the teachings of the historic Christian church and
the legitimacy of every government, past or present, regardless of its
form, its history, or its ideals, has not really rejected Marxist
ideology -- despite his claims to the contrary.
Simply by distancing himself from other Marxists, Ellul has not thereby
distanced himself from Marxist ideology.
He has merely subjected it to a marginal reconstruction, as if Marxist
methods of analysis could be separated from their philosophical
presuppositions and their ideological underpinnings and implications, and as if
Marxist methods came from nothing and could lead nowhere. When Ellul opposes the Marxists, it is still
an intra-camp affair. When he attacks
Communist ideologues, he puts his own work under siege. He is not sufficiently alarmed by the
pervasive Marxist ideology of his own position.59
The crisis in Ellul's thought is that
there is no crisis in Ellul's thought, much less a proper resolution.
ENDNOTES
1That, for some, thinking is
inescapable has been memorably depicted in Ayn Rand's "The Simplest Thing
in the World," in Ayn Rand, The Romantic Manifesto, (New York: New American Library, 1971) pp. 173-185.
2Jacques Ellul, Jesus
and Marx: From Gospel to Ideology ,(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1988) p. 2. Ellul's view of the allegedly
anti-ideological character of Christianity is so extreme that he argues that
"God's biblical revelation" is "the destruction of all religions
[and] beliefs" (Ibid.). That Christianity
itself is, on any common sense view, a religion and entails beliefs seems not
to matter.
3Ibid., pp. 3, 4.
4Ibid., p. 157. Note that Ellul's anarchism moves beyond
politics without partisanship to politics without politics. Ellul seems undisturbed by the stunning
verbal antinomy here employed, or by the impossibility of an anti-political political
philosophy, something no more possible or reasonable than an anti-mathematical
mathematics. See also Jacques Ellul, Anarchy
and Christianity, (Grand Rapids: Wm.
B. Eerdmans, 1991) p. 4, where he affirms that anarchism “seems to be the
position which in this area is closest to biblical thinking” and ibid,. p. 45.
5Ellul, Jesus and Marx, p. 171
(italics added to emphasize Ellul's characteristic practice of overstatement).
6Jacques Ellul, The Subversion of
Christianity, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B.
Eerdmans, 1986) pp. 113, 114.
7Ibid., p. 121. "I believe that the biblical teaching is
clear," he adds, "it always
contests political power," Ibid., p. 116.
8Ellul, Jesus and Marx, p. 163
(italics his). Ellul here stands over
against the Jewish rabbis, both ancient and medieval, one of whom, Menahem ben
Solomon Ha-Meiri (1246-1306), comments concerning the epigraph that heads this
essay: "Rabbi Hananiah emphasizes that we must pray [on behalf of the
government]; and this is intended not merely in behalf of a Jewish government,
but in behalf of Gentile ones too.", Judah Goldin (ed.), The
Living Talmud (New York: New American Library, 1957) p. 120 (emphasis added).
9Ellul, Jesus and Marx, 165
(italics added).
10Robert Filmer, Patriarcha; or The
Natural Power of Kings, in John Locke, Two Treatises of Government
(edited by Thomas I. Cook, New York:
Hafner, 1947) pp. 249-308.
11See J. H. Hertz (ed.), The Pentateuch
and Haftorahs (London: Soncino,
1973) 2. 823.
12Ellul, Jesus and Marx, p.
165. My argument here, of course, in one
way, depends upon the traditional dating
of the Pentateuch. In another way,
however, it does not, for we are dealing here with the identification of
primary passages, or passages of prime importance, not simply with
chronological priority.
13According to Ellul, the rule of the
judges was "apolitical" and "nonstatist," The Subversion
of Christianity, p. 114.
14Ibid.
Ellul's characterization of other portions of the Old Testament are no
less unreliable. For example, he
believes that the prophets "offer no political opinion" and
"never engage in politics at all," Jacques Ellul, The Ethics of
Freedom, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B.
Eerdmans, 1976) p. 373.
15Ellul, Jesus and Marx, p. 3.
16Ellul, The Subversion of
Christianity, p. 114. Elsewhere
Ellul describes this miracle as "somewhat magical and absurd," The
Ethics of Freedom, p. 372. See also Anarchy
and Christianity, pp, 63ff.
17Ellul, Jesus and Marx, p. 167.
18Ellul, The Ethics of Freedom,
p. 372.
19Ellul, Jesus and Marx, p. 167.
20Ibid., p. 168. According to Ellul, Anarchy and
Christianity, (p. 58) not only is politics demonic, it is absolutely
devilish. He insists that “all that has
to do with politics and political authority belongs to the devil . . . Those
who hold political power receive it from him and depend upon him.” This view leads Ellul into a grotesque
interpretation of Christ’s assertion to Pilate that Pilate’s political power
comes to him “from above” (John 19 : 11).
“Jesus is telling Pilate,” Ellul writes, “that his power is from the
spirit of evil’ (ibid., p. 69). See also
Ellul, The Subversion of Christianity, p. 114.
Further, that Caesar (or any
government) is not the creator of money, as Ellul seems to think (Jesus and
Marx, p. 167ff), is something economists have known for over 200 years,
since the work of Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson, who argued that money antedates
government and that it arises from human action, not human design. Government eventually recognizes the
prevailing medium of human exchange (often rare metals, because they are
durable, dividable, and conveniently carried) and then adapts itself and its
political mechanisms to it. But
government, Caesar included, does not create money. To think otherwise is to confuse legal tender
with money, a common mistake. Government
cannot even dictate the use of money, as the U. S. government discovered at
great cost when the American public generally declined to use the newly minted
Susan B. Anthony one-dollar coin. See,
for example, Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth
of Nations (Indianapolis: Liberty
Classics, 1981) Bk.1, ch. 4.
21Ellul, Jesus and Marx, p.
168.
22Ellul, The Subversion of
Christianity, p. 113.
23Ellul, Jesus
and Marx, p. 170. Ellul also fails
to deal adequately with New Testament texts like I Corinthians 6: 1, 2;
Colossians 1: 15,16; Titus 3: 1; and 1 Peter 2: 13-17, passages he often
declines even to mention. He also
neglects to mention that the New Testament teaches that just as God gave Jesus
to Israel, so also did He give Israel both judges and kings, such as Saul
and David (Acts 13: 20ff).
24Ellul, Jesus and Marx, pp.
172, 168. See also Anarchy and
Christianity, p. 46, where, with predictable exaggeration, he insists that
today we are “confronted with the crushing of individuals by the state under
every regime,” and ibid., p.61,62, where he affirms that there “can be no
political power without tyranny” and that “there can be no such thing as good
political power.”
25Ellul himself questions the biblical
propriety of voting: "But where do
we find the epistles recommending voting at elections . . .?", Ellul, The
Ethics of Freedom, 372. See also ibid.,
p. 374 and Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, p. 14: “Should anarchists vote? . . . For my part, I
think not. To vote is to take part in
the organization of the false democracy that has been set up forcefully by the
middle class. No matter whether one
votes for the left or the right, the situation is the same.” He continues (p. 15): “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.” (emphasis added). He believes as he does about military service
because he mistakenly thinks that there is no “difference between private crime
and war” (ibid., p. 39), as if the entire just war tradition in Christian
thought could be dismissed with a wave of the hand as a tragically misguided
ruse to justify international thuggery.
26Ellul, Jesus and Marx, p. 166.
27Ibid., p. 171.
28Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Dictatorships
and Double Standards: Rationalism & Reason in Politics,(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982) pp. 10, 11.
29Ellul, Jesus and Marx, pp.
174, 175 (italics his). Ellul has
apparently not
noticed
that the startling juxtaposition of the words "anarchist society"
seems to constitute an oxymoron. That
his anarchist vision is impossible and impractical, and that he holds it
nevertheless, Ellul readily admits in Anarchy and Christianity,
(p.19): “The true anarchist thinks that
an anarchist society -- with no state, no organization, no hierarchy, and no
authorities -- is possible, livable, and practicable. But I do not.
In other words, I believe that the anarchist fight, the struggle for an
anarchist society, is essential, but I also think that the realizing of such a
society is impossible.”
30For an introduction to Augustine's
political views, see Herbert A. Deane, The Political and Social Ideas of St.
Augustine (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963) and R. A. Markus, Saeculum:
History and Society in the Theology of St Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). Unlike Ellul, “Augustine envisioned the total
Christian society, with believers having essentially captured all nominally
secular institutions, including government.”
See Doug Bandow, Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics,
(Westchester: Crossway, 1988) p.
125. Ellul regards the views of
Augustine and those thinkers whom I name subsequently as grossly mistaken. In Anarchy and Christianity, (p. 7)
Ellul insists that “We have to eliminate two thousand years of accumulated
Christian errors, or mistaken traditions.”
31Clifford Kossel, S. J., "Some
Limits of Politics, " in George W. Carey and James V. Schall, S. J.,
editors, Essays on Christianity and Political Philosophy, (Lanham,
MD: University Press of America, 1984)
pp. 35, 38, 39. For an introduction to
Thomas Aquinas's political views, see F. Aveling, "St. Thomas Aquinas and
the Papal Monarchy," in F. J. C. Hearnshaw, editor, The Social and
Political Ideas of Some Great Mediaeval Thinkers, (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1923/1967) pp. 85-106;
Ernest L. Fortin, "St. Thomas Aquinas," in Leo Strauss and Joseph
Cropsey, editors, History of Political Philosophy, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963/1981)
pp. 223-250; and George H. Sabine, A History of Political Theory, (New
York: Henry Holt, 1937) pp. 247-257.
32For an introduction to Dante's
political views, see Etienne Gilson, Dante and Philosophy, (New York:
Harper Torchbooks, 1963) pp. 162-224; Thomas G. Bergin, Dante, (New
York: Orion, 1965) pp.177-194; James
Burnham, The Machiavellians, (New York:
John Day, 1943) pp. 1-26; and Dante's own On World Government
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill,
1949/1957).
33For an introduction to Calvin's
political views and to those of Calvinism in general, see W. Fred Graham, The
Constructive Revolutionary: John Calvin & His Socio-Economic Impact
(Atlanta: John Knox, 1971); William C.
Innes, Social Concern in Calvin's Geneva (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick, 1983); Harro Höpfl, The Christian
Polity of John Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1982); E. William Monter, Calvin's Geneva (New
York: John Wiley & Sons, 1967); and
George L. Hunt, editor, Calvinism and the Political Order
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965).
34Ellul is well aware that he stands
over against mainstream Christian wisdom on this issue, which he calls
"the Constantinian heresy" of aligning the affairs of the church with
those of the state. He contends, with
typical overstatement and imprecision, that "Christianity's historical sin
has been to recognize the state. This
sin continues, no matter what form the state takes, no matter who holds
power," Jesus and Marx, p. 172.
35Ellul, The Ethics of Freedom,
p. 375. Elsewhere Ellul writes that
"it is idealistic and fanciful to think that Christianity can permeate or
modify the structures of society," Jacques Ellul, What I Believe,
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1989) p.
43.
36Ellul, The Ethics of Freedom,
p. 374. Ellul sometimes writes as if he
thinks Christians can properly participate in the political, but not in
politics. The difference is merely
semantic. It simply substitutes an
adjective for a noun.
37Surely Adam Smith is correct when he
says, "The administration of the great system of the universe [and] the
care and happiness of all rational and sensible beings is the business of God,
and not of man. To man is allotted a
much humbler department, but one much more suitable to the weakness of his
powers, and to the narrowness of his comprehension -- the care of his own
happiness, of that of his family, his friends, his country," John
Haggerty, editor, The Wisdom of Adam Smith, (Indianapolis: Liberty, 1976) p. 38. For the care and nurture of such things,
Ellul's anarchist principles are clearly insufficient.
38Thomas Molnar, "The Medieval
Beginnings of Political Secularization," in Carey and Schall, Essays on Christianity
and Political Philosophy, p. 53.
39Ellul denies that human beings are
either political or social creatures by nature:
"I believe that for millennia people lived as though grafted upon
the natural environment, and that at that time they were not social
animals," Ellul, What I Believe, p. 101. For an assertion that political institutions
and relationships also are unnatural see his discussion on the following page. For an interesting alternative to Ellul’s
idiosyncratic views concerning the social nature of man, see Eberhard Jüngel, Theological
Essays, (Edinburgh: T & T Clark,
1989) pp. 139ff.
40The literature on the inadequacies of
socialism, in general, and of Marxism, in particular, on the one hand, and of
the comparative superiority of capitalism, on the other, is enormous. See David Conway, A Farewell to Marx
(New York: Penguin, 1987); Friedrich A.
Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1944); [Even though Hayek has been
honored as the Nobel laureate in economics, Ellul insists that the fundamental
premise of this book is one that "no one accepts," Jacques Ellul, The
Technological Society (New York:
Vintage, 1964) 178.] Friedrich A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty
(Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1960); Ludwig von Mises, Socialism (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics); Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, The
Exploitation Theory of Socialism-Communism,(South Holland, IL: Libertarian, 1975); Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk,
"Unresolved Contradiction in the Marxian Economic System," in Eugen
von Böhm-Bawerk, Shorter Classics of Böhm-Bawerk, (South Holland,
IL: Libertarian, 1962) pp. 200-302; H.
W. B. Joseph, The Labor Theory of Value in Karl Marx (London: Oxford University Press, 1923); Milton
Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1962); Tibor
R. Machan, Marxism: A Bourgeois Critique (Bradford, England: MCB University Press, 1988); Thomas Sowell, Marxism:
Philosophy and Economics (New York:
William Morrow, Inc., 1985); and Frederic Bastiat, Selected Texts on
Political Economy (Irvington-on-Hudson, NY:
The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., 1964). That capitalist values and presuppositions are
Christian or else are compatible with Christian belief and practice, see George
Gilder, Wealth & Poverty (New York:
Bantam, 1981); Franky Schaeffer, editor, Is Capitalism Christian?
(Westchester, IL: Crossway, 1985);
Ronald H. Nash, Poverty and Wealth:
The Christian Debate Over Capitalism (Westchester, IL: Crossway, 1986); and Michael Novak, The
Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1982). For an
account of Marx's own personal failings, see Paul Johnson, Intellectuals
(New York: Harper & Row, 1988) pp.
52-81.
41Ellul, The Ethics of Freedom,
pp. 24, 26, 27. Later in the same text
(p. 48) he writes that "one of the merits of Marx is to have brought to
light the universal character of alienation."
42See Ellul, The Ethics of Freedom,
pp. 500ff. Capitalism's power to produce
goods and services and its ability to raise the standard of living of those
that live under it Ellul judges as detrimental or evil. See Ellul, What I Believe,
pp.61ff. Elsewhere Ellul states,
“Capitalism is a historical fact that is obsolete. It may well last another century, but it has
no more historical importance.” See
Jacques Ellul, In Season, Out of Season:
An Introduction to the Thought of Jacques Ellul (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982) p. 176. In a similar vein, Ellul writes, “Capitalism,
in spite of all its power, will be crushed by . . . automatism.” See Ellul, The Technological Society,
p. 82. Ellul’s understanding of
capitalism is abysmally distorted.
43Jacques Ellul, Money and Power,
(Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1984) pp.
14, 16, 20.
44Quoted in Sabine, A History of
Political Thought, p. 695.
45Ellul, The Ethics of Freedom,
p. 113.
46Ibid., p. 38. See also p. 154 and Ellul, Money and Power,
p. 20. Furthermore, as K. L. Billingsley
pungently comments, “Unlike Christian writers such as Jacques Ellul and Tony
Campolo, I don’t believe that money is evil in itself. (Strange that, believing this, these people
don’t give their books or videos away free of charge.)” See K. L. Billingsley, The
Seductive Image: A Christian Critique of
the World of Film, (Westchester:
Crossway, 1989) p. 77. The same
criticism of Ellul has been made at greater length and with more force in Nash,
Poverty and Wealth pp.
157-163.
47Quoted in Daniel B. Clendenin, Theological
Method in Jacques Ellul (Lanham, MD:
The University Press of America) p. 24.
48Jacques Ellul, "Epilogue: On Dialectic," in Clifford G. Christians
and Jay M. VanHook, editors, Jacques Ellul:
Interpretive Essays, (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1981) p. 297. The same essay appears in slightly modified
form in Ellul, What I Believe, pp. 29-46. In it (p. 29) he writes that "dialectic
is so much a part of my way of thinking and being that [ when I talk about it]
I am talking about myself and my studies rather than about an academic mode of
exposition or a philosophy." See p.
35 for his assertion concerning ancient Hebrew dialectics. According to Ellul, both “Christianity and
biblical thought are dialectical.” See Ellul,
In Season, Out of Season, p. 202.
As David W. Gill comments, “Ellul’s thought . . . is thus very dialectical.” See Ellul, Money and Power, p. 8.
49Ellul, The Ethics of Freedom,
p. 68.
50Ellul, Jesus and Marx, pp. 86,
89.
51If Ellul's index is to be trusted,
Marx is cited 44 times (p. 513), or nearly as many times as Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John (and therefore Jesus) combined.
52Ellul, Jesus and Marx, pp. 94,
86.
53Jacques Ellul, "From Jacques
Ellul," in James Holloway, ed., Introducing Jacques Ellul, (Grand
Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1970) p.
5. As Ellul himself recounts the event
elsewhere, “I borrowed Das Kapital from the library and started reading
it, you can easily see that the effect this reading had on me was not purely
due to chance. I was eighteen years
old. I discovered a global
interpretation of the world, the explanation for this drama of misery and
decadence that we had experienced. The
excellence of Marx’s thinking, in the domain of economic theory, convinced
me.” See Ellul, In Season, Out of
Season, p. 11.
54Ibid., p. 16.
55Ibid., p. 60.
56Ibid., p. 176.
57See Ellul, What I Believe, p.
30 and Ellul, "Epilogue: On Dialectic," p. 292.
58As he writes (ibid., p. 8), "I
like the Socialists, . . . and I could wish that they would bring about a true
Socialist revolution, as I have often said." In Anarchy and Christianity , p. 3,
Ellul insists that he regards “anarchism as the fullest and most serious form
of socialism.”
59My recitation of Ellul’s Marxisms in
this essay is far from complete. One
could also add, as Ellul himself does, that both his reluctance to offer
political solutions for current problems and his dramatic style of political
exposition consciously follow the example set by Marx. See Ellul, In Season, Out of Season,
pp. 196, 223. Among his numerous other
Marxisms, Ellul also identifies “Marx’s analysis of democracy, which I hold to
be true.” See Ellul, The
Technological Society, p. 403. All
this notwithstanding, pro-Ellul evangelicals continue to resist any linkage of
Ellulism with its pervasively Marxist roots.
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