Tolstoy: The Kingdom of God Is within You [Christian Anarchism] (1894)

"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him." ~ The Kingdom of God is Within You, Leo Tolstoy (1894)

First published in Germany in 1894, after being banned in Russia, The Kingdom of God Is within You reveals Tolstoy’s world outlook after his conversion to Christianity. He argues that the kingdom of God is within reach of all.

The core of the book deals with his non-resistance to evil, a principle Tolstoy passionately advocated. Gandhi was won over by the book. Tolstoy clearly describes the hazards that bullying governments and false beliefs produced. "The situation of the Christian part of humanity-with its prisons, forced labour, gallows, saloons, brothels, constantly increasing armaments, and millions of confused people ready like trained hounds to attack anyone against whom their masters set them—this situation would be terrible if it were the product of coercion, but it is above all the product of public opinion."

Abhorring the violence of revolution, Tolstoy calls on Christians to remember that the only guide for their actions is to be found in the divine principle dwelling within them, which in no sense can be checked or governed by anyone or anything else.

Delving Depper
The Kingdom of God Is Within You is the non-fiction magnum opus of Leo Tolstoy and was first published in Germany in 1894, after being banned in his home country of Russia. It is the culmination of thirty years of Tolstoy's Christian anarchist thinking, and lays out a new organization for society based on a literal Christian interpretation.

Reasoning
The title of the book is taken from Luke 17:21. In the book Tolstoy speaks of the principle of non-violent resistance when confronted by violence, as taught by Jesus (see Christian pacifism). Tolstoy sought to separate Orthodox Russian Christianity (which was merged with the state) from what he believed was the true gospel of Jesus Christ specifically the Sermon on the Mount.

Tolstoy takes the viewpoint that all governments who wage war are an affront to Christian principles. When Christ says to turn the other cheek, Tolstoy asserts that he means simply that and rejects the interpretations of Roman and medieval scholars who attempted to limit its scope, writing:

"How can you kill people, when it is written in God's commandment: 'Thou shalt not murder'?"

Tolstoy presented excerpts from magazines and newspapers relating various personal experiences, and gave keen insight into the history of non-resistance as being professed by a minority of believers from the very foundation of Christianity. In particular, he confronts those who argue that such a change to a non-violent society would be disastrous with the following recourse:

"That this social order with its pauperism, famines, prisons, gallows, armies, and wars is necessary to society; that still greater disaster would ensue if this organization were destroyed; all this is said only by those who profit by this organization, while those who suffer from it – and they are ten times as numerous – think and say quite the contrary."

Tolstoy recounted challenges by people of all classes that his views on non-resistance were wrong, but argued that no matter how the challengers tried to attack the doctrine, its essence could not be overcome. He advocated non-violence as a solution to nationalist woes and as a means for seeing the hypocrisy of the church. In reading Jesus' words in the Gospels, Tolstoy notes that the modern church is a heretical creation:

"Nowhere nor in anything, except in the assertion of the Church, can we find that God or Christ founded anything like what churchmen understand by the Church."

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Other File Versions: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4602
Online Version: http://www.kingdomnow.org/withinyou.html

Complete free audiobook version at project LibriVox:
http://www.archive.org/details/kingdom_of_god_1004_librivox

More Info (beginners info):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kingdom_of_God_Is_Within_You
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_anarchism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_pacifism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolstoyan
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