This brief note is a defense of Christian anarchism against the spirit of monarchism. An earlier article that briefly touched on this point is here.
Many right-wing paleo-libertarians (and paleo-conservatives), inclusive of some Hoppe and Curtis Yarvin (aka Mencius Moldbug) enthusiasts, inlcuding Yarvin himself, have seemingly gained a lot of recent traction among many who have hitherto been purist anarcho-capitalists/voluntaryists, as well as among many Christian anarchists. (Being a Christian anarchist, I consider myself a ancap/voluntaryist purist, since I see such a purist stance as being necessary for Christian anarchists.) This new spirit can be characterized as monarchist, neo-reactionary, neo-royalist or Carlylean, depending on whom you ask. Many of my own friends, within the Christian anarchist movement and in the wider Mises-affiliated community and elsewhere, self-identify with this spirit. The ironic thing about this is that Christian anarchists are the only true monarchists -- but, our monarchy is completely unlike the human monarchy that the monarchists insist upon!
In the rest of this discussion, I refer to this group using the words monarchists and they/them and I use the words us and we to refer to Christian anarchists.
Undoubtedly, the monarchists, like us, abhor and distance themselves from leftist libertarian socialists and from those libertarians who tolerate or kowtow to the political Left on non-libertarian issues. However, unlike us, their aim is to win politically, i.e. to win through the gaining and wielding of State/political power, which is anathema to Christian anarchists. (Note that power, per se, is not immoral for Christians -- in fact, the gaining and wielding of market power can be used for good. The point is that State power, which rests on a lie or a myth, is evil and its appropriation or use is never justifiable for a Christian. I will elaborate this point in a later article.)
The monarchists have resurrected some work from Burnham, who himself channels Machiavelli, which correctly states (even if not explicitly stating the implicit additional requirement of widespread belief in the myth of the legitimacy of the State), that there are only two ultimate power mechanisms in human society, under the implicit and unstated (perhaps, even unrecognized additional requirement) — the singular monarch, being the one, and the oligarchic elite nobility, being the other, and that democracy is merely a mirage that devolves into oligarchy. On this basis, they make their case : let us throw off the fetters of the nobility and install a monarch.
Now, there is an unnecessary and speculative attack against their position on the question of why the monarch would rule according to their (presumably, right-wing) values. There is no need for us to take this tack — let us grant that the great and glorious monarch will be the new Holy Emperor of Restored Christendom. Our attack against this new spirit must remain the same as our unchanging and unchangeable stance : we work to free people from their fundamental slavery, the slavery that exists in their own minds, the slavery of the belief in the mythical legitimacy of the State, which, in addition to being a slavery, is also an idolatry. This, and this alone, is the message we preach and the work we do, and that we will continue to preach and do, in Jesus’ name.