To Each According to their Needs: Anarchist Praxis as a Resource for Byzantine Theological Ethics
Emma Brown Dewhurst
Chapter from the book: Christoyannopoulos A. & Adams M. 2018. Essays in Anarchism and Religion: Volume II.
Part of
Chapter from the book: Christoyannopoulos A. & Adams M. 2018. Essays in Anarchism and Religion: Volume II.
I argue that anarchist ideas for organising human communities could be a useful practical resource for Christian ethics. I demonstrate this firstly by introducing the main theological ideas underlying Maximus the Confessor’s ethics, a theologian respected and important in a number of Christian denominations. I compare practical similarities in the way in which ‘love’ and ‘well-being’ are interpreted as the telos of Maximus and Peter Kropotkin’s ethics respectively. I further highlight these similarities by demonstrating them in action when it comes attitudes towards property. I consequently suggest that there are enough similarities in practical aims, for Kropotkin’s ideas for human organising to be useful to Christian ethicists.
Brown Dewhurst, E. 2018. To Each According to their Needs: Anarchist Praxis as a Resource for Byzantine Theological Ethics. In: Christoyannopoulos A. & Adams M (eds.), Essays in Anarchism and Religion. Stockholm: Stockholm University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16993/bas.c
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Published on Sept. 26, 2018