The Book Report — What Lies Within
Howdy, folks! Welcome back to The Book Report.
Count Lyev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828–1910) is generally considered to be one of the world’s greatest novelists. His two biggest contributions, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, represent the peak of realist fiction. His writing led to worldwide fame and fortune, though as he grew older it left him more and more dissatisfied. He was a devout Christian, and he struggled mightily with how he might become a good Christian. In 1910, at the age of 82, Tolstoy renounced his possessions and his marriage in his quest for Truth, and died of pneumonia at the Astapovo train station.

Only known color photograph of Tolstoy, taken in 1908.
One lesser known novel Tolstoy wrote, in 1893, was The Kingdom of God is Within You. After its completion in 1893 the book was promptly banned in Russia, so the first publication date was not until 1894 in Germany. The religious influence of the novel is obvious, but for non-religious readers of The Book Report I encourage you to stick with me. The book became, in Ghandi’s own words, one of the three most influential books of his life, inspiring his movement of non-violent protest which turned a nation on its head. The book also inspired Martin Luther King, Jr. as the Civil Rights Movement started shuffling forward. Because of its influence on two of the greatest world-changing protests of the twentieth century, I believe the book is worth a read whether you adhere to a particular religion or not.
If you are religious (especially Christian-based), be forewarned. Tolstoy is highly critical of the Church in this book. As I said before, he was a devout Christian struggling to become a good Christian, and he could find very little good Christianity in the Church. After a close examination of Jesus’s words in the Gospels he notes, “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.” Hence, the title of the book is not The Kingdom of God is Within the Church.
“Neither shall they say see here or see there, for behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20).
The crux of the book deals with The Sermon on the Mount, how most Christian religions marginalize or ignore it even though it’s the most direct contribution Jesus made to how Christians should act, and most specifically the idea of non-violent resistance to evil: When Jesus said “turn the other cheek” he actually meant it. He also includes in this idea of Christian pacifism a rejection of war, and all governments who wage war show their rejection of basic Christian principles.

Who’s the white guy?
Tolstoy also deals with how Christians and secular philosophers may reply to the command by Jesus to “resist not evil”.
The first reply is “The Use of Force is not Opposed to Christianity.” Coupled with this reply is any number of obscure Old and New Testament verses, usually by Christians in position of political power, which could possibly be interpreted as justification for cruelty so that “a Christian government is not in the least bound to be guided by the spirit of peace, forgiveness of injuries, and love for enemies.” His rejection of this reply is brief and simple, concluding, “If all men were to learn that the Church professes to believe in a Christ of punishment and warfare, not of forgiveness, no one would believe in the Church.”
The second reply is “The Use of Force Necessary to Restrain Evil Doers.” This reply is fairly common: Wicked people exist, and they will take advantage of good people if good people do not use force to restrain them. Tolstoy’s response to this is three-fold. First, he argues that Jesus taught that everyone is a child of God and equally loved in his sight, and to view someone as intrinsically wicked is a rejection of this teaching. Second, he argues that even if Jesus had not prohibited using force against the wicked, there is no perfect standard to define goodness, so what results is that individuals and societies view their neighbors as wicked with chaos and global war as the conclusion (which is pretty much what happens now). Finally, he argues that even if there were a perfect standard to define the wicked, no Christian would be able to punish them and still call themselves a Christian since Jesus expressly commanded to use no force against the wicked.
The third reply is “The Duty of Using Force in Defense of One’s Neighbor.” This reply equivocates that the commandment of Jesus was to resist no evil done to yourself, but you have a duty to resist evil done to your neighbor. Tolstoy rejects this argument, first by pointing out that it is a complete assumption supported by nothing in the teachings of Jesus and generally acts in contradiction to them, and second by concluding, “If every man has the right to have recourse to force in face of a danger threatening an other, the question of the use of force is reduced to a question of the definition of danger for another. If my private judgment is to decide the question of what is danger for another, there is no occasion for the use of force which could not be justified on the ground of danger threatening some other man.” Yet Jesus specifically rejects this line of reasoning, shown in the Book of Matthew, Chapter 26, verse 52. When Jesus is arrested at the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter draws a sword to defend Jesus. Jesus reproves him immediately, saying “He who takes up the sword shall die by the sword.“

The fourth reply is “The Breach of the Command of Nonresistance is Regarded Simply as a Weakness.” This is a situation where a person admits the command of Jesus to “resist not evil” just like any other commandment, but failure to follow a commandment due to personal weakness does not mean a person suddenly stops being a Christian. This argument seeks to turn a conscious deliberate act of disobedience into a casual breach, which Tolstoy condemns as “a very skillful device, and many people who wish to be deceived are easily deceived by it.” His response to such an argument is to compare other “sins”, such as fornication (or to use a contemporary example, homosexuality), and how unbending the church can be regarding such transgressions yet how willing they make excuses for resisting evil by force. Clearly, then, they do not rate this commandment the same as any other and by preaching exceptions they are guilty of hypocrisy.
The fifth reply is to evade the issue “By Making Believe that the Question has long been Decided.” This is an argument which subtly tries to evade the whole issue by securus judicat orbis terrarum (“the world judges right”). This is basically a “majority rules” type of argument, where if all the churches teach allowances to the idea of non-resistance to evil than obviously those allowances, securus judicat orbis terrarum, are supposed to be there. Furthermore, they might argue, since this issue was decided long ago it is a waste of time to bring it up now. This type of argument, Tolstoy says, “At once begins the series of long, clever, ingenious, and solemn speeches and writings, which deal with questions nearly related to the subject, but skillfully avoid touching the subject itself.”
He concludes,
Those who justify themselves by the first method, directly, crudely asserting that Christ sanctioned violence, wars, and murder, repudiate Christ’s doctrine directly; those who find their defense in the second, the third, or the fourth method are confused and can easily be convicted of error; but this last class, who do not argue, who do not condescend to argue about it, but take shelter behind their own grandeur, and make a show of all this having been decided by them or at least by someone long ago, and no longer offering a possibility of doubt to anyone–they seem safe from attack, and will be beyond attack till men come to realize that they are under the narcotic influence exerted on them by governments and churches, and are no longer affected by it.

Tolstoy clearly condemns organized religion in his book. The fact that every denomination of Christianity claims to have exclusive hold on the truth proves their uselessness. He writes, “A man of the present day need only buy a Gospel for three copecks and read through the plain words, admitting of no misinterpretation, that Christ said to the Samaritan woman “that the Father seeketh not worshipers at Jerusalem, nor in this mountain nor in that, but worshipers in spirit and in truth,” or the saying that “the Christian must not pray like the heathen, nor for show, but secretly, that is, in his closet,” or that Christ’s
follower must call no man master or father–he need only read these words to be thoroughly convinced that the Church pastors, who call themselves teachers in opposition to Christ’s precept, and dispute among themselves, constitute no kind of authority, and that what the Churchmen teach us is not Christianity.“
Tolstoy shows that a man calling himself Christian is left with a choice: to accept either the Nicene Creed (the organization of the Church) or The Sermon on the Mount (the direct words of Jesus).
While The Kingdom of God Is Within You remains more of a clarion call for believers, I think it deserves equal study from non-believers as well, given how effective the non-resistance to evil worked for Ghandi and India, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement, and more recently to a lesser extent in Egypt (and also, I think we’re seeing, in Madison Wisconsin).
I hope the bits I’ve shared has piqued your interest. Because of its publication date, free copies are available on the internet in such places as Project Gutenberg.
Until next time,
Still paddlin’ the old knew…
_-Akatzen-_





























