Is This the Most Anarchist Verse in the Gospels?
An Unfamiliar Competitor Gives Jesus a Chance to Overturn Hostile Prejudice
This, the second Wednesday of November, is the start of my second year of publishing weekly Wednesday Wakeup articles here at Substack!
After 53 previous articles, I’m finally getting around to something I’ve wanted to write about for a long time: a contender for the most anarchist verse in the Bible.
And I’ll preface it with something a college professor of mine (who also happened to be a Catholic priest) said that’s stuck with me all these years. It eventually helped me change mindsets, which was necessary to understanding the political anarchism of the Gospel message.
His insight was, essentially, that our shared faith is a spiritual union, rather than a mental uniformity. I previously used that turn of phrase in this article countering theocracy.
Religious traditions, systemic thought, ideologies, common rituals, and all the rationalizing that goes into them, can push us toward a perceived sameness, a copying of one another (like a mimetic cycle, discussed here, here, here & here), a uniformity in what we expect others to think and express.
Spiritual union requires something more and different … and better!
And Jesus demonstrates how to combat the lesser mindset that can poison relationships among both friends and strangers.
Both the Gospels written by Mark (9:33-37) and Luke (9:46-48) recount Jesus’ closest followers, the Apostles, arguing among themselves about which one of them “was the greatest.” Jesus shuts down that in-group politics by teaching them that greatness is about service, not overlord status: “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”
And then, the Apostles’ complaints turn outward:
Then John said in reply, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow in our company.”
Jesus said to him, “Do not prevent him, for whoever is not against you is for you.”
— Luke 9:49-50 (parallel in Mark 9:38-41)
There it is: Whoever is not against you is for you.
Unpacking the new approach
I appeared on the “Dispatches From Dystopia” podcast, published the morning of Election Day, Nov. 5 (listen on Spotify and here on Substack!). Host Starr O’Hara and I had a conversation that explored issues and motivations beyond the obsession with the Holy Election Day.
About an hour into the podcast, she asked about people having different approaches to achieving what can be very similar goals. We talked about the problems that arise when some people’s preferences require forcing others to comply. I said:
We navigate the world, which includes navigating other people who aren’t exactly the same as us. How do you respond to that?
And I think it’s so important — and this is why it was so groundbreaking for Jesus to do this — to model a neighborly mindset and a neighborly mode of behavior, rather than a caste system where everybody’s got different permissions based on where they stand in the social order.
In the Gospel incident about the rival healer “casting out demons” in Jesus’ name, the Apostles want to define their strict in-group and denigrate anyone who doesn’t honor them and do things their way. In their mindset, someone not explicitly “for them” must be treated as “against them.”
They also seek to protect what they think is Jesus’ and their “intellectual property” (which I wrote about here): healing and helping people in Jesus’ name.
They prefer something resembling mental uniformity and control.
Jesus teaches a neighborly alternative that involves a spiritual leap beyond the confines of a person’s previously defined experience, and into a space of discovery. The connections with others on this level will respect what makes us unique individuals, rather than belligerently impose upon them.
In doing so, Jesus lays waste to in-group/out-group prejudice so characteristic of the rigidly citizen mindset.
The ‘closing argument’ for openness
The connection to anarchism/voluntarism should be obvious.
Opposing all forms of imposed, hierarchical social order, and seeking consent-based interactions, require rising above the primitive fear of the unknown and the different, to instead cultivate genuine tolerance.
As long as the other person hasn’t violated what’s rightfully yours, the working assumption should be that the other person is free to do as he/she sees fit.
Jesus models and preaches this anarchist/voluntarist behavior throughout His public ministry, as recorded in all four Gospels of the Bible. So it’s not as if this particular saying from this one incident is an outlier.
For me, what makes it the most anarchist verse in the Gospels is how fundamentally it contrasts the authentically good, rigorous mindset/attitude with the crude psychological path of least resistance that’s sadly used to justify coercive tactics.
Add in how clearly and succinctly Jesus phrases it, and you have a deep, concentrated, counterintuitive insight to ponder.
Social dynamics can be grounded in something better and more ethically humane than mental uniformity: the openness — and anarchist/voluntarist quality — of spiritual union.
“Whoever is not against you is for you.”
Another year of Comments starts now!
Thanks to everyone who has joined me in this endeavor, now beginning its second year of Wednesday Wakeup reports!
I wouldn’t keep publishing if people weren’t interested in what I have to say (and sometimes interested in saying something back to me in article Comments, subscriber Chats, the Notes feed, and emails!).
Do you have any favorite Gospel passages that speak to anarchism/voluntarism and the breaking down of collectivist barriers?
How do you react to learning a potential competitor does things differently than you do (like the target of John’s criticism in the Gospel passage quoted earlier)?
Anything else catch your interest about this article?
Share your thoughts in the Comments section …
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I have sometimes thought how this scripture in Luke 9 applies to those who are so ready to call someone "controlled opposition" because they don't stress some specific "hobby horse" that they have decided is the key problem behind the attacks on personal sovereignty and liberty.