Leo Tolstoy - Christian Anarchist

Like the young, I too can learn something about history from the cinema. Ran into a movie about Leo Tolstoy's last days in the film The Last Station. Not high drama, a good soap opera though of everyday life in the life of a very famous man in his day. I am also a Helen Mirren fan.

The Last Station

Well anyway, I never heard of Tolstoy and his Christian Anarchy and non-violence advocacy. Tolstoy's socialist views were more than exceeded and abused after the Russian Revolution. But that is another story.

Christian anarchism

The Christian anarchy thing sounds areligionist. Tolstoy was no doubt repulsed by the state religion of Russia in those days. In a way his message is the message of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Tolstoy's book The Kingdom of God is Within You (Luke 17:21) is the basis of a non-violent reaction to business as usual regarding wars, social injustice etc.

Another interesting tangent regarding this book I was wholfully ignorant about is that it inspired a young Mahatma Ghandi to form his own ideas about passive resistance against the British in India. Ghandhi wrote to Tolstoy for permission to translate and reprint Tolstoy's A Letter to a Hindu in which Tolstoy advocates love and non-violence to overthrow the British in India. Tolstoy's last letter was to Ghandhi.

I am a student of history and know that Martin Luther King Jr. based his passive resistance program and efforts on those of Ghandhi. I am not a very good student of history to not know that Ghandhi based much of his political strategy on ideas put forth by the Christan Anarchist Leo Tolstoy.

The ripple effects of the Sermon on the Mount have an energy that seem to go on forever no matter what any official or sanctioned vested religion does to cloud the message of Jesus.

The Kingdom of God can be truly said to be within each one of us!

MLK Jr. National Memorial – A Dream nears Completion

I ran into a favorite blog of mine mentioning that today was the 40th anniversary of the May Day call from Apollo 13 as it approached the moon – “Houston. We have a problem”. The blog writer went on to say that anybody who could remember that event was “old”.

Well I am old by that standard but I through the electronic marvel of television can remember events of that era including Martin Luther King’s funeral. But better than that sad day, I remember the unbelievable charisma of Martin Luther King Jr. and his “I Have a Dream” speech delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963. I watched it on a black and white TV in our living room. Young as I was I did not think that the things being talked about that day would happen in my lifetime but they did happen and are happening.

A great historic figure stood before us and then he was gone.

I thought this year that MLK Day lacked something. Perhaps a very real part of his dream has to do with having an African American President in the White House. This year I kinda felt MLK was drifting into the background of history.

When they finish his monument in about two years in Washington D.C., that is something I would like to see in person. I love the symbolism in the design of the man bound to, and coming out of, and being at the same time A Rock to lean on.

One of those annual anniversaries is upon us, of his death in April 1968.

Build The Dream (buildthedream.org) is reaching out for donations big and small to help finish this great monument to reflect the great legacy of this man. Please watch this beautiful and inspirational computer rendering of the envisioned finished monument and its surroundings.




(click start arrow, then click on screen to expand image)

Pass the word along please. – buildthedream.org -