The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Excellent book A real good read recommended highly

An excellent summary of this book's content is contained in the title itself: _The Kingdom of God Is Within You: Christianity Not as a Mystic Religion but as a New Theory of Life_. A more detailed summary, spanning several pages, is found in Chapter IV, "Christianity Misunderstood by Men of Science." In this chapter, Tolstoy tells us that "Life, according to the Christian religion, is a progress toward the divine perfection. ... The fulfillment of Christ's teaching consists in moving away from self toward God. ... The Christian precepts (the commandment of love is not a precept in the strict sense of the word, but the expression of the very essence of the religion) are the five commandments of the Sermon on the Mount - all negative in character." (These are found in Matthew 5:21-42.)1. "The ideal is not to desire to do ill to anyone, not to provoke ill will, to love all men. The precept, showing the level below which we cannot fall in the attainment of this ideal, is the prohibition of evil speaking."2. "The ideal is perfect chastity, even in thought. The precept, showing the level below which we cannot fall in the attainment of this ideal, is that of purity of married life, avoidance of debauchery."3. "The ideal is to take no thought for the future, to live in the present moment. The precept, showing the level below which we cannot fall, is the prohibition of swearing, of promising anything in the future."4. "The ideal is never for any purpose to use force. The precept, showing the level below which we cannot fall is that of returning good for evil, being patient under wrong, giving the cloak also."5. "The ideal is to love the enemies who hate us. The precept, showing the level below which we cannot fall, is not to do evil to our enemies, to speak well of them, and to make no difference between them and our neighbors."These ideals or requirements seem utopian, and many people who consider themselves to be Christians have looked for ways to accommodate them to temporal concerns like the amassing of treasure and the pursuit of personal advantage. Tolstoy professes himself to be shocked by these attempts: for him, these are straightforward, plainly worded rules of conduct that all Christians must follow. He is fully aware of their radical nature, and he embraces the revolutionary implications of Christ's message. He imagines an objection: "Civilization, art, science, culture will disappear!" but answers it by saying that "Only what is false in them will be destroyed: all the truth there was in them will only be stronger and more flourishing." Indeed, Tolstoy thirsts for the day - not far off, he thinks - when an inequitable social order, maintained by violence, will collapse and real Christians will form a more just and egalitarian society.Tolstoy's interpretation of the "new law" from the Sermon on the Mount is compelling, but he sometimes runs into difficulties when he argues that these radical and otherworldly commandments should become the basis of public policy. For example, he advocates reform of criminals over punishment - a progressive and humane position - but in arguing this point he seems not to recognize that criminals have any motive other than need, or that criminals might be deterred by the threat of punishment. As another example, Tolstoy maintains that violence sanctioned by a state - as in war, or as punishment for a crime - is no different morally than the violence of one man against another. (As support, he cites a pamphlet by a contemporary that is cunningly titled "How Many Men Are Necessary To Change a Crime into a Virtue?) But are there not instances where state violence can acquire some degree of legitimacy from the consent of its citizens to a set of laws adhered to by all, or by what its citizens consider to be just? Are there not instances where state violence can prevent an even greater catastrophe from occurring? In other words, there are some fairly obvious objections to his line of argument that Tolstoy does not address. Still, a balanced assessment would conclude that Tolstoy's deep skepticism of states and state violence was mostly vindicated by subsequent events in Russia and the rest of the world throughout the twentieth century.I think that readers will be impressed by the vigor and sincerity of Tolstoy's thought and by many other idiosyncratic pleasures contained in this work. (This review is based on the Project Guttenberg version of _The Kingdom of God Is Within You_.)

A few years ago while I was in the process of reading War & Peace (it took me about as long to read it as it did for him to write it) I discovered a book by Tolstoy that I believe deeply informed his writing and offers the reader with the discernment that is necessary to more fully understand what he was trying to accomplish within his fiction. Tolstoy brings the sermon on the mount into a new light of understanding as far as the human mind can grasp it and rejects the teachings of human institutions that contradict it as the inner workings of the forces of darkness that seek to obscure the truth and bring men to into eternal perdition. "To injure another because he has injured us, even with the aim of overcoming evil, is doubling the harm for him and for oneself; it is begetting, or at least setting free and inciting, that evil spirit which we should wish to drive out. Satan can never be driven out by Satan. Error can never be corrected by error, and evil cannot be vanquished by evil. True non-resistance is the only real resistance to evil. It is crushing the serpent's head. It destroys and in the end extirpates the evil feeling." The Kingdom of God Is Within You takes a literal look at the teachings of Christ and what is involved with the process of transforming our hearts and minds to undertake it.

Guidance for life in following Jesus' call. The only freedom lies in facing the truth, which reveals the inequality and force and violence in our social world as unacceptable.

Reading this work was a mixed experience. It is both a classic and a volume of specious carnards. If you seek to read Russian literature, you must read this. If you enjoy 19th-century liturature, this should be included. But if you are looking for a work that will help you increase personal enlightenment regarding Christ's teaching, this isn't it.As a personal preface in my copy, I wrote the following: "Tolstoy is essentially a liberal postmillennialist, believing in a humanistic method of success to the divine intent for man. Tolstoy makes some important and undeniably true statements regarding government--both ecclesial and political. But when making application of his observations, mixing it with Biblical statements without any hermeneutical method except to pick and choose what he likes and doesn't like in the Bible, he exposes himself as a hermeneutical idiot. He is consistent in contradicting himself, sometimes before taking the next breath. Tolstoy denies the cardinal truths of historic Chrstianity, believing, for instance, that Christ didn't die to redeem, but to end all government."I add that Tolstoy repeatedly claims Jesus' teachings as the true teaching for mankind, yet denouncing and avoiding some of His teachings and actions, that is, Tolstoy condemns the cleansing of the temple and avoids Jesus' teachings in which He says He Himself will apply a rule of violence and restitution. Tolstoy believes that those who break the law, from the smallest to the most violent crime, should not be punished; the innocent and the guilty have equal rights of freedom, no repercussions for anything.Tolstoy certainly is a great writer, but while he wrote with great fervor, with maybe occasional tirades, he did not write with intelligent ratiocinations. Read the book as from a great 19th-century, classic writer, nothing more. Tolstoy should have stuck with novels.

Before setting off for Turkey for two weeks in the summer of 2012, I had discovered the writings of Count Leo Tolstoy, the famous Russian writer. I only knew of his work as small inspirational quotations used by various writers, but had never really been introduced to his work properly until i heard that he was a Christian Anarchist...then my ears perked up.I was to go on to find that Tolstoy shared many of my beliefs about how the Christian church had, over the millennia, moved away from the traditional teachings of Jesus Christ. Tolstoy's book "The Kingdom of God is within you", written well over a hundred years ago, is more relevant than ever for us today. First printed in 1894 in Germany, since it was banned in his native Russia, it is the culmination of thirty years of Tolstoy's Christian anarchist beliefs.Reading The Kingdom of Heaven is Within you below the cool shade of the palms trees outside my rented apartment in Western Turkey last year, the vision of Christ that Tolstoy put forth was the Christ I had known from my childhood, the same Christ the church rebuked me for believing in in later years. Tolstoy goes right for the jugular with his condemnation of the hypocritical church of his day, a church not unlike our own today.As is evident in the book, Tolstoy was a pacifist, and his teachings of "The Doctrine of Non Resistance to Evil by Force" is well explained throughout the book, an example of which can be seen here... "The Sermon on the Mount, or the Creed. One cannot believe in both. And Churchmen have chosen the latter. The Creed is taught and is read as a prayer in the churches, but the Sermon on the Mount is excluded even from the Gospel passages read in the churches, so that the congregation never hears it in church, except on those days when the whole of the Gospel is read. Indeed, it could not be otherwise. People who believe in a wicked and senseless God-- who has cursed the human race and devoted his own Son to sacrifice, and a part of mankind to eternal torment--cannot believe in the God of love."While written over a hundred years ago, the translator Constance Garnett has done an excellent job of translating this Russian masterpiece into English, to the point where one could be inclined to believe it had been written yesterday. Yet, it loses none of it's potency to deliver one of the finest works, in my view, concerned with the teachings of Christ and the exposing of the hypocrisy within the modern day church. Tolstoy continues... "But the Church is holy; the Church was founded by Christ. God could not leave men to interpret his teaching at random--therefore he founded the Church. All those statements are so utterly untrue and unfounded that one is ashamed to refute them. 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. In the Gospels there is a warning against the Church, as it is an external authority, a warning most clear and obvious in the passage where it is said that Christ's followers should "call no man master." But nowhere is anything said of the foundation of what Churchmen call the Church."The book opened my eyes to the strange irony that our "Christian" nations are the same ones who spend so much money on military armaments, often at the expense of health care, all the while claiming to follow the pacifist "love your enemies and bless those who curse you" Jesus.I could go on and on about this book.I would highly recommend this book to anyone, but especially to those who, having sensed something hypocritical in traditional Christianity's teachings, want a book to remind them of the difference between Christ's teachings and those of the Church. It would also be a very good book for those who are either thinking about eventually serving in the military who also consider themselves to be of a Christian standing, and also those who want material to convince their sons or daughters not to sign up for military life.

This is a good-value version of The Kingdom of God is Within You. I was a little disappointed with Tolstoy here though. I think he makes a good argument for pacifism but he does it in a way which almost alienates the reader. His arguments are well thought out and obviously this is a classic, but I was left unpersuaded simply because of Tolstoy's position within society (i.e. his wealth).It was a lot easier to embrace pacifism when you were in Tolstoy's privileged position. But he expects it of everyone and I think he is inconsiderate towards the personal circumstances of his readers.However he does makes some good, succinct and challenging points and this work is worth reading.

Two points: Had I known the print font was so small I would not have bought this article. Evidently some publishers try to keep costs down in this way, however the size of the print font should be stated for the purchaser. (Did I miss it?) As for the content: Tolstoy bewails Modern Times, wishes Christianity were meaningful but has no solutions to offer except to state that in his opinion the Kingdom of God is within us. So it is, but how do we reach it!! Tolstoy does not know. In the absence of any suggestions he goes on far too long, one almost senses the artistic pleasure he has in describing how bad things are and how desparately a good change is needed. Nonetheless he is in earnest, and passionate about what he finds wrong with western civilization.

Jesus spoke about non violence. He did not make exceptions to this for war and even self defence.The church is there to serve the church. Is distorts much of the message of Jesus for its own benefit.War is crazy. The cost of war financially and in terms of people is absurd.

Poor print quality, a pixelated image on the front, no book name on the spine it's just blank, the back is also blank. Inside the book the print is tiny even though there is a large amount of dead space where larger text could have gone? Why bother to throw a book together like this?