Kingdom Christians and Left-wing politics

Events occurring and how they relate/affect Anabaptist faith and culture.
Neto
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Re: Kingdom Christians and Left-wing politics

Post by Neto »

temporal1 wrote:… i'd read of Catholics helping with immigrants in the U.S. - these from Mexico. ….
This is the sort of activism / civil disobedience that I was also involved with while I was an activist-pacifist, assisting in hiding illegals from immigration officials. Back then, however, many had fled their own countries for political reasons – to escape oppressive regimes, or from (home-grown) terrorist groups (like Shining Light in Peru).

Regarding other’s comments that touched somewhat on cooperation with left-wing organizations, during our time living with the Amazonian tribe in Brazil, I sometimes found myself working toward the same goals as the Marxist “mission” CIMI in Brazil. We both advocated against illegal timber & fishing operations, for instance, or sales of liquor to the Indians. We also both supported demarcation of Indian territories.
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Neto
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Re: Kingdom Christians and Left-wing politics

Post by Neto »

I attempted to edit my comment above as follows, but the time was up for editing:

This is the sort of activism / civil disobedience that I was also involved with also supported while I was an activist-pacifist, assisting in hiding illegals from immigration officials.

(I didn't actually help carry out any thing like this - I did not have the resources necessary to do so, like a home to offer.)
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Neto
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Re: Kingdom Christians and Left-wing politics

Post by Neto »

Neto wrote:
temporal1 wrote:… i'd read of Catholics helping with immigrants in the U.S. - these from Mexico. ….
This is the sort of activism / civil disobedience that I was also involved with while I was an activist-pacifist, assisting in hiding illegals from immigration officials. Back then, however, many had fled their own countries for political reasons – to escape oppressive regimes, or from (home-grown) terrorist groups (like Shining Light in Peru).

Regarding other’s comments that touched somewhat on cooperation with left-wing organizations, during our time living with the Amazonian tribe in Brazil, I sometimes found myself working toward the same goals as the Marxist “mission” CIMI in Brazil. We both advocated against illegal timber & fishing operations, for instance, or sales of liquor to the Indians. We also both supported demarcation of Indian territories.
I just saw the news article about this man's death. He was killed by an arrow while attempting to help protect an threatened tribal group from encroaching outsiders.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-54109584

I read an article (in Portugese) after I saw this one, because I think that I met him once. The CIMI (a Left-leaning, basically Marxist, 'missionary' organization somewhat affiliated with the Catholic church in Brazil) article I read mentioned that he had worked for many years in the Arawan area, and Banawa is a member of that very small language family. I'm pretty sure it was him, who came to our village once while FUNAI (the Brazilian Indian Agency) was maintaining a military station up river from us (actually, up the Piranha River, into which the Banawa River empties) to prevent outsider from going into the area where the uncontacted tribe Himerima had been sighted. He was not pleased to find us there in the village, and I would not have met him if I had not gone over to meet him on my own. He once told another Arawan tribal man who sometimes came to our village that he shouldn't wear shorts, that he should live like his ancestors. But the biggest thing of that organization was to 'protect' isolated peoples from missionaries, and to encourage others to return to their traditional religions. So he was an enemy of what we were trying to accomplish there, and several killings of back water Brazilians were accredited to him and his team. But he was still a person who had dedicated his life to a lot of the same goals we had - to protect the tribal areas from invasions by gold miners, wood cutters, and other illegal activities like destructive fishing practices. In that sense, we were 'on the same side'.

If it was indeed him that I met, from what I can recall as to when this meeting took place, it would have been toward the beginning of his 30 some years of work in the Arawan area.
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PetrChelcicky
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Re: Kingdom Christians and Left-wing politics

Post by PetrChelcicky »

From a European perspective I don't see anything new in this. "Kingdom Christians on the Left" begin with the more radical supporters of Cromwell (the Fifth Monarchy Men) and became a virulent part of the Reformed Church again around 1900 (Blumhardt, Kutter, Ragaz and as its peak Karl Barth). In all cases the idea is to transform the world into a regnum Christi. (A kind of rightwing parallel was the Christus Rex movement.)
I would have supposed that there were Kingdom Christians among the more radical supporters of the Social Gospel movement, but I don't know enough about American history.
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barnhart
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Re: Kingdom Christians and Left-wing politics

Post by barnhart »

PetrChelcicky wrote:From a European perspective I don't see anything new in this. "Kingdom Christians on the Left" begin with the more radical supporters of Cromwell (the Fifth Monarchy Men) and became a virulent part of the Reformed Church again around 1900 (Blumhardt, Kutter, Ragaz and as its peak Karl Barth). In all cases the idea is to transform the world into a regnum Christi. (A kind of rightwing parallel was the Christus Rex movement.)
I would have supposed that there were Kingdom Christians among the more radical supporters of the Social Gospel movement, but I don't know enough about American history.
Anabaptists were radically left in 16th century europe.
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Josh
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Re: Kingdom Christians and Left-wing politics

Post by Josh »

barnhart wrote:
PetrChelcicky wrote:From a European perspective I don't see anything new in this. "Kingdom Christians on the Left" begin with the more radical supporters of Cromwell (the Fifth Monarchy Men) and became a virulent part of the Reformed Church again around 1900 (Blumhardt, Kutter, Ragaz and as its peak Karl Barth). In all cases the idea is to transform the world into a regnum Christi. (A kind of rightwing parallel was the Christus Rex movement.)
I would have supposed that there were Kingdom Christians among the more radical supporters of the Social Gospel movement, but I don't know enough about American history.
Anabaptists were radically left in 16th century europe.
In the 16th century, there was no left or right wing distinction.
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Ken
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Re: Kingdom Christians and Left-wing politics

Post by Ken »

Josh wrote:
barnhart wrote:
PetrChelcicky wrote:From a European perspective I don't see anything new in this. "Kingdom Christians on the Left" begin with the more radical supporters of Cromwell (the Fifth Monarchy Men) and became a virulent part of the Reformed Church again around 1900 (Blumhardt, Kutter, Ragaz and as its peak Karl Barth). In all cases the idea is to transform the world into a regnum Christi. (A kind of rightwing parallel was the Christus Rex movement.)
I would have supposed that there were Kingdom Christians among the more radical supporters of the Social Gospel movement, but I don't know enough about American history.
Anabaptists were radically left in 16th century europe.
In the 16th century, there was no left or right wing distinction.
Of course there was. The issues were different of course. But ever since we have had politics, alliances have formed around conservative and liberal forces. In ancient Rome, politics aligned between the Optimates, who were represented conservative oligarchic forces, and the Populares who represented more populist and merchant classe and opposed aristocratic privilege. In the 16th Century politics aligned on one side with the traditional monarchic and theocratic forces represented by Rome and Catholic monarchs who were inspired by notions of a church/state empire of Christendom. And on the other side the forces of the reformation and renaissance pushing for secular government and elevating the merchant classes to power. Early Anabaptists were very much on the revolutionary fringe, rebelling against the existing conservative church/state order.

In fact it is somewhat ironic that Anabaptists were among the most revolutionary religious forces in the 16th century and among the most conservative today.
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RZehr
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Re: Kingdom Christians and Left-wing politics

Post by RZehr »

The righteousness of conservatism is always all in what is being conserved. It is not necessarily a conflict to be simultaneously conservative and liberal. Because we are conservative and liberal on different issues.
Those early Anabaptists weren’t interested in conserving the current corrupt and abominable religious status quo, that is true, but does that really make them “liberal” more that “conservative”?
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Ken
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Re: Kingdom Christians and Left-wing politics

Post by Ken »

RZehr wrote:The righteousness of conservatism is always all in what is being conserved. It is not necessarily a conflict to be simultaneously conservative and liberal. Because we are conservative and liberal on different issues.
Those early Anabaptists weren’t interested in conserving the current corrupt and abominable religious status quo, that is true, but does that really make them “liberal” more that “conservative”?
Anabaptists weren't being persecuted for being conservatives. They were persecuted for being radicals and threatening the existing social order.

Also remember that the reformation was not strictly a religious movement. It was as much a secular movement. Yes, Anabaptists wanted a clear separation of church and state into separate spheres or kingdoms. But so did other secular forces in the merchant classes and in politics who sought to limit and roll back the influence of the church in daily life. Anabaptist were far from the only force advocating for separation of church and state and secular politics. And it is probably no accident that early Anabaptists came largely from the those same urban middle classes, merchants, craftsmen, artisans, and not the aristocracy or rural peasants. The classes and forces in larger society most opposed to religious or priestly dominion over secular life. In fact, modern secular society in Europe and the US has its roots in the reformation.
Last edited by Ken on Mon Sep 14, 2020 12:27 am, edited 2 times in total.
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RZehr
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Re: Kingdom Christians and Left-wing politics

Post by RZehr »

So they were persecuted for being liberal? Is that what you’re saying?

No one here is saying they were persecuted for being conservative, although conservatives can be radical and threatening to the social order too. I don’t know that there is any real reason or even much accuracies in tying persecution to that spectrum, but maybe so.

I don’t know how much support there is to suggest that movement was largely a class problem instead of a theological matter. Read the court trial transcripts and I doubt you’ll find a lot of grievances about class. I think you’ll find theological fights.
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