Gordon Clark: Anarchism (Baker's Dictionary of Christian Ethics)

1973. In Baker's Dictionary of Christian Ethics. Carl F.H. Henry, ed. Washington D.C.: Canon Press. [Reprinted in 1988 by Baker Book House.] Anarchism

ANARCHISM. Anarchism is a theory that rejects government and desires society to be regulated only by voluntary agreements. Not all anarchists propose to destroy government by violence. Others do.

Some proponents of secular anarchism are Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Max Stirner, and the American, Benjamin Tucker (1854-1939). The theory assumes that human nature is good and needs no coercive laws.

Christian anarchists claimed freedom from law on the basis of liberation by Christ. They are represented by the Levelers and Diggers of the seventeenth century, the Anabaptists and Doukhobors, and William Godwin, who published an Enquiry Concerning Political Justice in 1793.

Augustine argued that sin necessitates civil government. Luther and Calvin continued this Biblical tradition.

Gordon H. Clark