Anarcho-pantelism

While Anarcho-pantelists believe in acquiring capital to steward over (capital meaning tools or physical possessions), we don’t believe in acquiring anything through debt or loans from others. We’re firm believers that one can’t serve two kings, and debt is shown to lead to problems in the future as you’re enslaved to the person or group you have borrowed from.

Borrowing
So what is an anarcho-pantelist to do when they need to purchase something that they can’t afford, such as a house or a car? The obvious answer is to change your mindset about what you need today. Why would you give up a good portion of your future just to acquire something today?

For most families, the biggest burden on their futures financially is the home, followed by the car (or cars, in many cases). We venture forth from our own parents’ home (which is usually still borrowed on!) and then take on our own debt to acquire our own home. For many families today, the length of a typical home loan is much greater than 30 years — in some cases, families will have to pay a mortgage for 40+ years once you consider the multiple refinances that happen over the life of the loan. When you look at a typical Christian congregation, you see family after family struggling to make their mortgage payments, forcing both parents into the work environment. These debts are destructive to the family, and they are also destructive to the individual — they take up valuable time that can be better spent living simply and using their extra time to love those around them.

The best solution — possibly the only Biblical one — is to not fear living with others while you save your earnings to purchase a simple home in the future. Consider that the typical family of 4 lives in a home that costs them, on average, about 6 times their annual income. But it doesn’t take 6 years to pay off, it takes 30-40 years to pay down that 6-year cost! If two or three families were able to ignore the socially negative idea of cohabitation with one another, they would be all able to afford a simple home in a short matter of time — 7 to 11 years. Instead of splurging on worthless possessions in your early 20s, many families could save more than the cost of a basic home in that same period of time, ending up with a nice home by the age of 30, but without an additional 30 years of debt to be enslaved to.

Cohabitational living is not easy, but neither is 40 years of debt taking over 50% or more of your net income. It also gives families the opportunity to share in the raising of any children, plus it gives families the ability to focus on the needs of others within the home. We’re not talking about huge communities of families living together, just a small 2-4 family community within a single structure.

Is it easy? Definitely not. But as we have seen in recent times (with the increased rate of foreclosure and bankruptcy), neither is borrowing from the future to buy a home now. By living together in a simple home, you also learn exactly how much home you will need in the future, and when you’re ready to buy, you’ll be buying something significantly smaller than your friends do, because you will be paying cash for the house rather than splurging on a large home with future earnings.

Loaning

While borrowing from another puts you in the debt/servitude of another, loaning has a similar negative effect on relationships and individuals. The loving individual may think that loaning someone else money or tools can have a benefit in that other person’s life, but in reality it just puts them into the same situation we were trying to avoid in the first part of this article: servitude to others. The best action a loving faith believer can perform is granting another person a share of your tools or savings. If you can afford to loan someone capital, you can also afford to give it away — and you should. The New Testament shows time and again Christ telling others to give to others what they need, and even give away your possessions if you are unable to understand the policy of true love. Since Anarcho-pantelists don’t believe in stewarding over more property, tools and savings that we can handle, it makes perfect sense to give away your excess to others in need. Many of us earn more income than we need to survive on, and this extra income would be a perfect love offering to those who have made the decision to live in debt and servitude to others. By helping those in your community extricate themselves from their debtors, you will be able to share the Love that Christ professed and demonstrated to us in the New Testament.

When granting a portion of your wealth or tools to another, though, we need to be careful not to judge what that capital is spent on or how it is used. It is the unconditional offering that is important in Spirit, and we must be careful not to make decisions based on what we think is best for others — others should be free to do as they please, even if they lose or squander or waste your gift. “It’s the thought that counts” is very important to understand here.