"The Kingdom of God is Within You": Christianity Not as a Mystic Religion But as a New Theory of Life
- ISBN-10
- 1597344478
- ISBN-13
- 9781597344470
- Pages
- 368
- Language
- English
- Published
- 1894
- Publisher
- W. Heinemann
- Author
- graf Leo Tolstoy
Description
Originally banned in Tolstoy's home country of Russia, "The Kingdom of God is Within You" is a summation of three decades of religious and political thinking. Taking its title from Luke 17:21, the book outlines Tolstoy's principles of non-violent resistance and simple living based on a literal interpretation of the teachings of Jesus. Tolstoy believed that the institutions of Orthodox Russian Christianity had become nothing more than an appendage of the Russian Empire. Tolstoy takes the admonition to "turn the other cheek" seriously and refutes millennia of Christian justifications for state-sponsored violence. Tolstoy's theories of nonviolent resistance would go on to inspire such 20th-century activists as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
