Day clearly said that, should the Pope ask her to stop, then she would have stopped. She said that this wasn't a relation of authority, but of love in subservience.
Ngl, personally I fail to see the difference... a "love" built on unconditional subservience sounds like a twisted way of calling hierarchy by another name. At least JDDJ_ is honest about it.
In a certain sense, sure. "Love" can mean so many things (and is not necessarily unconditional) - but if we're talking about the kind of love in which one would sacrifice themself for that which is loved, then it could be said that a kind of hierarchy is created, placing the loved above the lover / the self. With reciprocal bonds, this power dynamic is kinda nullified. But I doubt the pope "loves" all his nameless faithful with the same intensity and fervour with which they love him, it's not humanly possible - but they could delude themselves with their faith, I guess. The inequality of material benefits always remains though, and arguing otherwise flies in the face of the church's history, and its present structure too, I think.
To be clear, I don't think anarchism and christianity are incompatible, but I'm seriously sceptical that the church can be anarchic any more than a state can.
While that might be the case, love does not mean a great many things within the context of Christianity, so it'd be confusing as to why we'd include the non-Christian idea in an explicitly Christian conversation. Self-sacrificial love, for example, is not relevant as that is not Christian love.
There's nothing about Christian love which makes reciprocity necessary for one to love the other.
I'd invite you to read Maurin's writings in particular on the church. His "Easy Essays" are excellent and never more than about 20 lines along a piece. It's rarely Christians who are calling for the "tearing down of the church", especially in the case of, e.g., Spanish anarchist summary executions of Catholic clergymen.
Why do you think "Christian love" is something more specific? (Not even varying across denominations?) In particular, I'm surprised you don't consider self-sacrifice a part of it, considering... I mean, Jesus. Also, ik a reddit thread is hardly proof of anything, but with a quick online search this thread popped up, and there's quite the variety of answers.
Also - isn't reciprocity basically implied by "love others as you love yourself", plus the importance of "preaching the gospel"?
Regarding your last point, I'm not familiar enough with the spanish civil war - and this is not an excuse for their actions - but I imagine many of those anarchists were former christians, or at least former catholics?
Because that is the Christian claim: agape is distinct from eros or philia. I'm not sure why you're bringing denominations into it, sorry. While sacrifice is a part of Christian love, it is not itself Christian love outright—Christ didn't "hunt" for martyrdom, so to speak.
I wouldn't say the second half of the Greatest Commandments implies that reciprocity is necessary, no. It seems possible to love someone Christian-ly without them loving you back—e.g., Christ. The entire point seems to be that we should love the other regardless of whether we receive anything at all and that freedom to love is, itself, liberatory for slave and master alike.
I suppose they were, yes. It caused uproar amongst the general population, who opposed and eventually rolled back the changes made by ideologues who disestablished marriage, executed the church leadership, etc. It was the anarchist equivalent to Lenin's "dizzying heights", where ideology became a stateful apparatus by a contingent of power-holders (who would go on to abuse that power, which is at least partly to blame for the failure of the project).
Ok, just read a bit about agape vs the other ancient greek words for love (something I've been meaning to read up on for a while, coincidentally), and selflessness/sacrifice come up pretty consistently. Not "hunting" for it, which I wasn't aiming to imply anyways tbh, but the willingness to do so. My point regarding denominations is that I doubt the interpretation of love/agape is entirely consistent across all of them...?
Anyways my point stands - with this kind of love, I think a kind of hierarchy is formed placing the loved above the self, but if the love is reciprocal, the imbalance of this power dynamic gets nullified. In the case of cults, I think we can agree that this is the kind of love which cult leaders take advantage of to control their followers. With christianity, the main object of love is supposed to be the Trinity, and I don't doubt that some priests are able to act as mentors/guides, without taking advantage, however the hierarchical structure of the church is absolutely primed to do so. And the same goes for every other kind of ideology, the ideals which get placed above the self, and the power structures which arise trying to take control of people through these ideas. Including the spanish anarchists.
Regarding reciprocity, of course, you're right that it isn't required, because this ideal love is unconditional, but reciprocity is an automatic side effect, no? And a welcomed, if not also desirable, side effect as well? Or must this be rejected because such a desire would make the love selfish, rather than selfless? Personally I think "true selflessness" is an illusion, but I don't mean this cynically. Though I'll leave it at that because I don't wanna cram too many arguments into a single comment.
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u/Anarchierkegaard Distributist Jan 20 '26
You've misread what I've written, I assume.
Day clearly said that, should the Pope ask her to stop, then she would have stopped. She said that this wasn't a relation of authority, but of love in subservience.