Leaving the Comfort of the Cell

This was the final of three talks I gave at Approaching Humanity, a conference hosted by Larken and Amanda Rose.

I asked everyone to imagine a man who had spent 40 years in prison. One day, the warden opened his cell and told him he was free.

Instead of running out, the man panicked.

Where would he sleep? Who would tell him when to eat? What if he made the wrong choice?

So he begged to stay.

Not because prison was good, but because prison was familiar. Freedom was unknown.

We may laugh at that story, but many of us live the same way.

We say politicians are liars. We say the system is rigged. We complain about taxes, wars, debt, corruption, and broken promises.

Then election season arrives, and we line up to choose which rulers will control us next.

Why?

Because injustice we understand often feels safer than freedom we have never experienced.

Why the Cage Feels Safe

The state does not remain in power because it is always right. It remains because it is familiar.

We know what a tax bill looks like. We know what an election looks like. We know how government schools, courts, police, and agencies work.

We may dislike those systems, but we understand them.

A world without rulers leaves a blank space in our minds. We fill that space with images from disaster movies: riots, warlords, burning cities, and everyone fighting over the last can of beans.

We rarely stop to ask whether those images are true.

We have simply been trained to believe that without rulers, there can be no order.

Trauma Bonding With Authority

When being ruled is all we have ever known, it starts to feel like safety.

A child raised by an abusive parent may still defend that parent. The parent is not good, but the parent is familiar. That is home.

We often speak about the state the same way.

“At least we have roads.”

“At least we are not Somalia.”

“At least our rulers are better than their rulers.”

We are not describing freedom. We are asking for a gentler hand on the leash.

The cage feels safe because we know where the walls are.

Learning to Feel Helpless

From childhood, many of us are trained to ask permission.

We ask permission to speak, move, eat, or use the bathroom. Later, we are told that voting is how adults solve problems.

After years of that training, our ability to imagine voluntary cooperation becomes weak.

So when someone asks, “Could we handle conflict without Congress?” our first response is not curiosity.

It is disbelief.

“That could never work.”

But is it truly impossible? Or have we simply been trained not to see it?

Who Are We Without a Political Team?

There is also a deeper fear.

Who are we without the state?

We call ourselves voters, citizens, taxpayers, Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, and progressives.

But those identities only exist in relation to a political system.

Freedom does not hand us a team jersey. It gives us a mirror.

Without politicians to blame or political teams to defend, responsibility comes back to us.

It comes back to me.

It comes back to you.

That can feel frightening because we have been taught not to trust ourselves or our neighbors.

We are told that power must be gathered at the top because ordinary people cannot cooperate without being controlled.

But is that actually how most of life works?

What Did Winning Change?

Before I became a voluntaryist, I spent plenty of time arguing politics online.

Team Red versus Team Blue.

One day I won an argument. I had the better facts, the better joke, and the sharper reply.

I won, and nothing changed.

The IRS still existed. Wars were still being funded. Government debt continued to grow. Politicians kept breaking their promises.

The only thing my victory changed was my blood pressure.

That forced me to ask a harder question:

What if the problem is not which political team controls the state?

What if the state itself is the problem?

That question did not bring instant relief. It felt like the floor disappeared beneath me.

If there were no politicians to manage everything, then responsibility would fall on us as neighbors.

Could I trust people to cooperate?

I had been taught that I could not.

Letting go of corrupt politicians was easy. Letting go of my belief that we needed politicians at all took much longer.

It is still a process.

No Rulers Does Not Mean No Rules

When I talk about a stateless society, I am not saying we should have no rules.

I am saying we should have no rulers.

You follow rules every day that no politician created.

You do not punch your waiter because Congress told you not to. You avoid doing it because it is wrong, because there are consequences, and because you want to live peacefully with other people.

You lock your door without waiting for the government to approve your defense plan.

You cooperate with coworkers, customers, friends, family members, and neighbors without a politician standing nearby.

Order does not require a throne.

Think about a farmers market.

A farmer grows tomatoes. A baker brings bread. Someone else sells honey.

No member of Congress decides how many loaves the baker must bring. Nobody forces you to buy the tomatoes. You look at the product, agree on a price, exchange money, and walk away.

If the food is bad, you do not return. If someone cheats customers, word spreads.

That is cooperation, accountability, and order without a ruler controlling every decision.

The most forced part of the entire market may be the permit the city charges the farmer to sell you carrots.

Remove the permit, and the carrots still appear.

Statelessness does not mean no order. It means order without a throne.

We already practice it. We just do not notice.

The Cost of Familiar Injustice

The danger of familiar injustice is that we slowly become used to it.

We get taxed, then accept higher taxes.

We get watched, then accept more cameras.

We get lied to, then stop expecting honesty.

The cage gets smaller a little at a time. Because the walls move slowly, we call it stability.

The cost of unfamiliar freedom is uncertainty.

The cost of familiar slavery is everything, billed to us through taxes, debt, war, surveillance, and dependence.

We Do Not Need to Burn Anything Down

So what do we do?

Do we burn the system down?

No.

Violence is the language of the state, and the state owns more weapons.

We can do what the early Christians did to Rome.

We can stop depending on it. We can outlive it. We can build something better.

That is why The Bad Roman Project exists.

The early Christians were considered bad Romans because they would not worship Caesar or call the emperor lord.

They were not trying to repair Rome. They were learning how to live under another King.

We can become bad at dependence, fear, and blind obedience.

We can become good at feeding people without waiting for a grant. Good at helping neighbors without asking permission. Good at building communities without political control.

We can say No King but Christ and mean it.

Sit With the Question

I am not demanding that you burn your voter card or move into the woods.

I am asking for something smaller.

Sit with the discomfort.

Picture your street, your workplace, and your family without someone ruling over you.

Notice the first emotion that appears.

If it is fear, pay attention to it.

That may be the chain rattling. That may be the familiar cage asking you not to leave.

You do not need every answer today. You only need to stop being afraid of the questions.

The door may have been open longer than we realized.

The cell is familiar. It may even feel like home.

But it is still a cell.

Walk out.

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Are We Picking Our Own Battles? Are Christians and Atheists Really Enemies?

This was the second of the three talks I gave at Approaching Humanity, a conference hosted by Larken and Amanda Rose. My question was simple:

Are Christians and atheists truly enemies, or have we been trained to treat one another that way?

Craig on stage

Who told you that your neighbor who does not believe in God is your enemy?

Who told you that the Christian woman sitting in a church pew wants to control your life?

Was it actually your neighbor? Or was it someone on television who needs you angry enough to vote, donate, and choose a team?

The state depends on division. Without conflict, there is less fear. Without fear, there is less demand for control.

So the biggest questions we ask, ‘Is there a God? What does God want? How should we live?,’ get turned into legislation. Suddenly, we are no longer neighbors trying to understand one another. We are voting blocs fighting for control.

But what happens when we take political power out of the conversation?

How Disagreement Becomes a Weapon

Governments have always understood that divided people are easier to rule.

If we are fighting one another over religion, culture, and identity, we are less likely to look at the people collecting our money and expanding their power.

The process is simple.

First, pass a law about prayer in schools. Now Christians and atheists must fight over what other people’s children are allowed to hear.

Then pass laws that force one group to pay for choices the other group supports. Now private beliefs become public battles.

Finally, collect taxes from both groups while they blame each other for the conflict.

The state turns disagreement into a weapon and then sells us protection from the fight it helped create.

You may fear that your atheist neighbor wants to close your church. You may fear that your Christian neighbor wants to force you to follow her beliefs.

Maybe some people do want those things.

But they cannot force them on you without a government powerful enough to do it for them.

That is the real danger. We keep building a ring of power, then fighting over who gets to wear it.

What Happens When Nobody Gets to Rule?

The Bad Roman podcast has shown me that people with very different beliefs can sit together without trying to control one another.

We have talked with Christians, atheists, pastors, anarchists, libertarians, sheriffs, former political activists, and people who still participate in politics. Some guests would not enter a voting booth even if we offered them a lifetime supply of salsa.

We disagree.

Sometimes we disagree strongly.

We argue about God, morality, government, violence, and what happens after death. Then the recording ends, and nobody passes a law against the other person.

We shake hands. Sometimes we become friends. We remain neighbors.

Why?

Because there is no political prize on the table. Nobody gets to force the other person to bow after winning 51 percent of the vote.

All we have are our ideas, our words, and our willingness to listen.

That is not chaos. It is a conversation between human beings who are not trying to rule each other.

Where the Hatred Comes From

We have been trained to use the state as a missionary.

Christians are told that if we do not legislate morality, society will collapse.

Atheists are told that if they do not remove religion from public life, a theocracy will take over.

Both sides rush toward political power as if the next election is Armageddon.

But power does not care who controls it. It corrupts both sides.

That is why religious debates feel so threatening now. We are not only asking, “What do you believe?”

We are asking, “What will you do to me with the police once your side wins?”

Take away the power to force the other person, and the argument changes.

Now we are simply two people talking about whether God exists.

That conversation may be tense. It may never end in agreement. It may also become a friendship.

Put political force back into it, and the conversation becomes a war.

My Neighbor Is Not My Enemy

As a Christian, I believe Christ is King.

I also believe Jesus never asked Caesar to collect His tithe with a sword.

I have atheist friends who think I am wrong about the biggest question in the universe. They have still challenged me, sharpened my thinking, and made me better.

I may disagree with them about God, but I would still trust some of them with my house key and my cats.

Why?

Because Jesus did not tell me to build His Kingdom through tax codes, police, or political control. He told me to love my neighbor.

My neighbor does not need me to win a culture war. He needs me to tell the truth, keep my promises, respect his property, and listen when he speaks.

If your faith, or your lack of faith, needs the state to survive, it is no longer conviction. It is a subsidy.

Bad Roman does not exist to convert atheists by force or push Christians out of faith through law. It exists to show that we can have the argument without turning it into a cage match.

There Is a Third Option

The state tells us we have only two choices: dominate or be dominated.

Force your beliefs onto others, or wait for them to force theirs onto you.

That is a lie.

There is another option.

You do not rule me, and I do not rule you.

You can preach on a street corner. I can keep walking.

You can put up a billboard saying God is dead. I can disagree and drive past it.

You can raise your children according to your faith. Your neighbor can raise theirs according to a different belief.

We do not need permission from one another. We need to stop giving politicians the power to turn our disagreements into legal battles.

We can trade with one another. We can work together. We can argue over coffee instead of legislation. We can raise our children, bury our dead, and face God, or not, according to our own convictions.

Your atheist neighbor is not automatically your enemy.

Your Christian neighbor is not automatically your enemy.

The people who profit from making us fear one another need us to believe they are.

So stop attending the fight they arranged.

Go home. Share a meal. Start a podcast. Ask a question. Listen to the answer.

Love someone you disagree with.

Coexistence is not something the state creates for us. It is what we practice when we stop trying to rule one another.

Against Those Who Are Against the State

Antidisestablishmentarianism, an archaic word that is as hard to say as it is to understand, has its roots in the political and philosophical discourse of the 19th century, a time when questions regarding tradition and culture caused people to think about the merger of religious and government authorities. Though it has been removed from the Merriam-Webster dictionary, like other words in the English language, etymology can still provide its origin, meaning, and definition. 

To understand its full meaning, antidisestablishmentarianism needs to be broken down into parts.  The end of the word, with the letters (-ism), suggests that this is a framework, concept, or belief that people work in.  Words like despotism, republicanism, intellectualism, barbarism, and communism all denote a common doctrine or theory practiced by a group of people. The letters -arian denote a group of people themselves who believe in, or advocate for something; thus, words like libertarian, parliamentarian, and humanitarian suggest a commonality among people with similar beliefs. The -arian is the group, the -ism is the ideology.  An establishment, on the other hand, is something that has been initiated, created, or formed as an organization such as a public institution or government. Many people refer to the governing authority as The Establishment.  To disestablish something would consequently suggest that the organization be unorganized, broken apart, or altered from its current status.  The people who sought after the separation of church and state in England during the 19th century were known as Disestablishmentarians.   Those who were against this movement, of divorcing the religious and State authorities, also formed an ideology, known as antidisestablishmentarianism.  They were in essence against those who were against keeping the status quo. 

The history of this ideology begins with the story of a great schism in Christianity.  In the year 1533, Henry VIII, King of England fell in love with Anne Boleyn and sought Pope Clement VII to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.  Fearing retaliation from the Roman Emperor, Charles V, the Pope refused this annulment and threatened Henry VIII with ex-communication from the Roman Catholic Church should he pursue a second marriage.  Subsequently, Henry married six different wives over time and his disagreements with the Pope, coupled with his own ambition, led him to initiate the English Reformation giving birth to the Church of England which was separate from papal authority. Appointing himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England, Henry VIII dissolved convents and monasteries throughout his country. He made radical changes to the English Constitution and ushered in the theory of the “divine right of kings”, a theory that suggests that it is God’s mandate that a king is pre-destined to political legitimacy and absolute monarchy, subject only to God alone. This authoritarian regime set up the Church of England, an establishment that has stood since 1534 despite centuries of contention, an English civil war, and a Puritan exodus to America.  It was not until the mid-19th century that people started to question this order. Some people wanted to disestablish the Church of England as it was constituted and engage in their own form of faith and religion, but it was unclear if seeking freedom of religion would be possible under the current establishment. 

Across the Atlantic, in the newly formed United States of America, the conversation of religious freedom was held by the men responsible for creating this novel form of self-rule government.  When we look at the founding documents of the US, the “separation of church and state” is not explicitly stated, however,  in an 1802 letter from Thomas Jefferson to a Baptist minister, the ideology that government and religion be untwined was understood to be strongly held among Americans.  In the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads:

 “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”  

It was written with the intention that no denomination, nor specific dogma would be given preference over the people of the newly constituted republic. While it can be debated whether some or all the Founding Fathers were religious in practice, President George Washington, in his farewell address of 1796 stated, “…of all the dispositions and habits that lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports… ”.  Prior to this, Washington had also written a letter to a Hebrew congregation in which he said, “…everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid”  (www.founders.archives.gov, May 06, 2002).  This idea demonstrated an understanding that, in America, people of all faiths or those who subscribe to none are free to worship and practice their beliefs as they choose.  And, while it was maintained that a nation cannot stand but upon moral principles, it was made clear that the State shall not be a coercive force used to make people believe, or even behave, in a certain way.  

The ideals forged in the Bill of Rights were also echoed by men like Thomas Chalmers, a Scottish minister of the 18th and 19th centuries who argued in favor of non-intrusion ideology.  His thoughts on developing a Free Church suggested a similar principle--a desire to separate the church and the government. Yet, in his time, Chalmers faced people who thought it was unnecessary and even wrong to advocate that the Church should discontinue its patronage from the government.  Thus, both in America and in England we find people against the idea to separate or disestablish their faith from their subjection to the crown. 

From this thinking comes the long-held conservative belief that the traditions upheld by 18th and 19th-century peoples of Great Britain and the United States were largely biblically based, and that the laws corresponded to these faith traditions. The political framework known as conservatism is not as much a philosophy as it is an attitude. Historically associated with right-wing politics, the term “conservative” has now been consorted with a wide range of views, with traditionalism and hierarchy combing with “law and order” to make up many of its tenets. Those who identify as conservative often believe that morality needs to be regulated; their philosophy pertains to a belief that the correct values that society should adhere to are derived from a religious precept, and that they must be preserved in the community.  It is their contention that the government is responsible for, at a minimum,  laying the groundwork for appropriate behavior and that laws must be instituted to protect society from things deemed objectionable.  Policies regarding things such as same-sex marriage, drug usage, prostitution, and militant atheism need to be legislated or outlawed by the State. Conservatives believe that without the Establishment morality would cease to exist in society.  From this conviction, inferences have been made in the public square. In 1954 the phrase “One Nation Under God” was officially added to the United States Pledge of Allegiance.  Two years later, “In God, We Trust” became the motto of the United States under President Eisenhower, and that verbiage is now found on all currencies printed by the US Treasury.  Moreover, a general intolerance for different or dissenting viewpoints from traditional conservative values has grown, and those who may not call themselves “Christians” continue to be marginalized in various aspects of society, a modern demonstration of how the disestablishment crowd is mocked and scorned. 

Notwithstanding the right-wing injection of religion into State affairs, the left-wing political ideologies, often called liberalism or progressivism, have also found their own mergers with State authority and religious principles.  Those on the left who call themselves religious see the biblical commandment for charity to be something that must be orchestrated by the government.  They often invoke the “welfare clause” from Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution as a reason to tax and redistribute money to those they deem to be “in need” or “underprivileged”. They ridicule people who oppose  State-sponsored charities and claim moral superiority to those who feel that private organizations could do the job better. Liberal establishmentarians want to use government to force people to act in a way they feel God has called people to behave.  They supersede the council that was given by church authorities and demand that power be placed in the hands of civil government. 

Of course, there remain those who are fundamentally opposed to religion, they may be agnostic or atheist and fall anywhere on the political spectrum.  These people seldomly stand silent when issues such as prayer in public schools or the public display of religious texts arise, such as allowing the Ten Commandments to hang from municipal buildings because it offends some of them.  However, this understanding of the separation of Church and State is also flawed.  Rather than adhering to any faith-based religion, they replace the prophets and holy scripture with mandates and legislation. Their deity is not an omnipresent and omniscient higher authority, but instead, an elected official, democratically elected by the “voice of the people''. In turn, their religion becomes the State itself and, in some cases, it can become their goal to ensure its powers infiltrate every facet of humanity;  leaving them to fall prey to a distinct definition of the Establishment, whether they call it a church or not.  This secularism, an ideology that can be ascribed as the marriage of Church and State, demands no profession to any dogmatic institution or faith in which they give obedience. The result of this gospel is seen in contentious elections, oppressive laws against disenfranchised citizens, war, violence, and economic demise.  The left-wing ideologues and the right-wing zealots fight each other over whose philosophy will be inculcated throughout the nation.  Each incites their own morality on the other and when it is not recognized the division has a disastrous outcome, one that is comparative to the crusades of ancient Christendom and Islam. 

It goes without dispute that many atrocities throughout the history of the world have been committed in the name of religion. Much suffering has been realized in the name of God by the subjects of kings, magistrates, presidents, and worldly authorities who have exploited religion to conquer and pillage.  While sovereignties have collapsed and have been rebuilt according to religious precepts, immorality exists where principles do not. Perhaps it is part of the human condition that compels people to forcefully propagate their innate philosophies to those around them and, oftentimes, using the Establishment as their enforcement mechanism.  Still, religious freedom is considered a human right by millions world-wide, which suggests individuals have a desire to believe in something that serves a higher purpose than themselves. The Apostles of the New Testament taught that subjection to the governing powers was ineludible, as long as that subjection did not violate the higher, divine, law of God, which supersedes any temporal political jurisdiction.  At their core, the Apostles were disestablishmentarians, as were many of America’s founding fathers and their contemporaries overseas in Great Britain who argued against the established Church of England. 

For Christians, reason dictates that morality and religion do not derive from the same place, nor should they be upheld by the same authority. There should be no established State religion from which legislation is written. There should be no church that governs the actions of Man. Ideas come and go and philosophies develop and fade away just like words.  Antidisestablishmentarianism has vanished from the common vernacular, but the concept is very much alive, it lives on in modern political practice, but perhaps it is time it vanishes as well.