On May 8, 1999, under the theme Revolution in Three Fronts, I said to a small group of anarchists and Christians in Mooca, São Paulo, that the mixture Christianity and anarchism would have in our society an effect similar to that oily liquid that it detonates for shock action or elevation of the temperature, that is used in the production of dynamite, i.e.: Christianity + Anarchism = Nitroglycerine.
Seems that it is confirming. In the beginning of this month, soon after the publication for the Periphery Project of the e-book Christian Communalism, a electronic version of Dr. Charles E. Haven book, St. Paul and the Gospel of Jesus, I received an official report via e-mail by Andy Baker (Jesus Radicals) on a Conference on June 21, 2003 in New York, whose theme would be Powers, Principalities and Church: Christianity and Anarchism, in Friends Meetinghouse with Andy Baker participation, Wayne Price of the Northeastern Federation of the Anarco-communist (NEFAC-USA), Fred Boehrer, of Syracuse Catholic Worker, Dennis Sullivan and Pete Mommsen. The closing of the encounter would be on Sunday with Rob Burns, student of the Theological Seminar of Westminster, in a cult with the Comrades Mennonites from Manhattan. Being increased it that historical conference facts as some Christian urban communities' anarchist current existence in France, the appearance in the net of important publications electronic anarco-Christians in the most varied languages, unassuming the nice letters and emails that we received from friends referring to that theme and Comunalismo of Kenneth Rexroth, (see the Ken Knab edition of Communalism) the conclusion could not be other, there is now, at least, a crescent interest in lathe of those subjects.
Seeking to still play more firewood in that bonfire and to elevate the level of the debate, I put with satisfaction to the people's disposition, especially those unprejudiced and that love and look for the freedom and the truth passionately, more two new ebooks, Cristianismo e Anarquismo, a collection of magnificent texts of Léon Tolstoi, and 'De Volta às Origens', A Igreja Caseira (for the time being just the first 5 chapters) of Jonh Dee, now linked to a missionary work in China. Based on the work Miller’s Church History, in countless biblical passages, and mainly in his personal experience, the author approaches in a way simple, courageous and direct not just the decadence of the Christian church in the last thousand and seven hundred years, as well as the myths that crystallized so much inside as out of her.
As much no-Christians as many sincere Christians don't get to deny that since the year 300 AD it happens something of very wrong in the Christian world. Where is that love that Paulo refers in 1 Corinthian 13? Why was the Christian communalism practically restricted the some areas of the United States and Canada? Which the origin and so that serves the Clergy? Why is the Church almost always positioned on the wrong side? So that serve Temples and Churches? Will it be that most of the bishops, popes, priests and shepherds, the clergy in general, with their high wages, their rich cathedrals, religious decorations, doctrines, mundanism and paganism, would it have returned to the same condition of the Scribes, Pharisees, Levites, the bosses of the Temple, that Jesus called whitewashed graves of white? Why those dozens of thousands Christian denominations? Why are so divided and most of the time done oppose amongst themselves? Why rulers, how Bush, member of the Methodist Church, do use Christ's name so much -- in the same way that Adolf Hitler did in the past -- to justify the practice of iniquities?
These and other subjects are approached in those publications. We are sure that the readers without prejudices will have a great explanation and advantage in his attempts reading.
São Paulo, May of 2003.
Railton Sousa Guedes
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