I read this because it was so incredibly influential in the life of Mahatma Gandhi and I wanted to learn more about his spiritual life. And I definitely did, because nonviolent resistance seems crucial to Tolstoys Christian beliefs. I had no idea that Tolstoy was a Christian anarchist. In his mind, things must be taken to the extreme or else you are a hypocrite. While I don’t agree with everything he writes here, I envy the passion with which Tolstoy write about his beliefs. It’s a cohesive, well thought out system of beliefs that I think I have a lot to learn from.

La vie de Tolstoi est passionnante, mais je ne suis pas convaincue que le contexte duquel il écrit légitimise son brassage d'arguments très divers et ses accusations peu nuancées que ce soit contre la Tradition ou les traditions chrétiennes en ce qui concerne paix et guerre.

I think this book has a lot of great merits, yet I cannot rate something such as this higher when it has so strange a premise:

Tolstoy postulates that Christ didn't live, that we don't need a living Savior, and that Christianity is two-thirds deception, and then he says that the principles which Christ taught are going to save the world.

It's a remarkable example of throwing the baby out with the bath water.

If there is any reason to live the gospel of Christ at all, it is because Christ lived, and that what he taught is so completely non-fiction that we ought to spend our entire lives developing faith and understanding in it.

Tolstoy had a penchant for rejecting everyone and everything. From my limited impression of his work, there's not a thing in the world he accepted other than his own--and self-proclaimed as ever insufficient--perspective on truth.

Now, all that being said, I think his application of Christian virtues is beautiful. He gives strong encouragement to his reader to chose to live the gospel "right now," to recognize that all of the accomplishments of man can and are washed away in the blink of an eye, and to focus on developing compassion.

The book also was one of Gandhi's most influential sources for the development of Non-Violence, and when you read this book you will notice the massive foundation it laid for Gandhi.

It was not well-received when it was written--being banned by Russia and, when Germany printed it, it never sold very heavily--and I believe that was because of the fact that he let go of Christ's hand in his writing in order to have more room to hold onto Christ's lesson scrolls, but it's definitely worth the read if you have the time.

You can listen to it on MP3 for free on Librivox.org, and the reading is pretty good:
http://librivox.org/the-kingdom-of-go...

Never mind the cover. This book is amazing!

One of the most important books I've ever read...

Read the description; I think it's pretty right on.

If you've ever called yourself a Christian, this is a must read. If you think Christians are misguided or even dangerous, you should read this book. If you like certain aspects of Christianity but think that organized religion is a crock, you should read this book. If you think war is a necessary evil, read this book. If you think Gandhi was on to something, you should read this book. If you consider yourself an anarchist, you should read this book. If you think anarchists are ridiculous, you should read this book. If you haven't read this book, you should read this book.

William James called Tolstoy a "primitive oak of a man," writing: "though not many of us can imitate Tolstoy, [. . .] most of us may at least feel as if it might be better for us if we could."

And I do like this old gnarled tree of a human. I like the intensity of his quest for right-living. I like his ruthless examination of the authorities.

But I think I love Tolstoy's stories more than his ideas. Like how I love the complicated person who is Anna Karenina more than the moral Tolstoy was trying to make about the wrongness of adultery. I would take any Tolstoy novel over a book like this of Tolstoy ideas.

The best part of this book is the final chapter. In it, he displays the evils perpetrated by the State, and takes to task anyone who has carried out the State's biddings. A primitive oak of a man shouting down the insanity of war and the police, and a fine stand-alone read.

The earlier chapters are winding and redundant, and shot through with a massive flaw: Tolstoy tries to do anthropology. He creates a schema of human history. "Primitive man" was only concerned with himself and maybe his family. "Pagan man" has allegiance to a tribe. "Christian man" loves all humankind. It's a new spin on the Hobbesian myth of a nasty-brutish-short past. But neither Tolstoy nor Hobbes did the actual fieldwork to decipher how our ancestors lived (or how hunter-gatherers and non-christians continue to live). If they had, I warrant they would have seen that our species has never been so atomized and ego-driven as it is now.

Maybe this would have shaken Tolstoy's faith in perpetual improvement, his faith that we're on the cusp of something, that we're finally figuring out Christianity and just about to realize the Kingdom of God on Earth. But I think that old oak tree could have branched into more interesting ideas from there.

A simple, poetic, and truth-filled analysis of the authentic Christian life as it relates to the State and institutions of the world. Quickly has become one of my favorite books, and something I think everyone (especially Christians) should read.

Reader beware: Leo Tolstoy is no joke. The Kingdom of God is Within You is a scathing critique of the present evil age, just as applicable now as it was when Tolstoy wrote in the late 1800's. Don't come to this book as you might come to War & Peace, expecting a shrill of literary beauty, or you will most certainly be disappointed. This is hard, cold argument, the kind you might expect if you were listening to Tolstoy lecture and persuade a disobedient child, only the child in view here is humanity and our disobedience is the blind allegiance we give to the temporal powers who enslave and rule people by violence and threat of force. The only hope of a better way, Tolstoy argues, is found in the teaching and spirit of Jesus--in particular the nonviolent resistance to evil he spoke about in the Sermon on the Mount. Tolstoy hammers home this point from almost every imaginable angle, and his arguments leave no room for indifference. Make no mistake about it, this book will leave you reeling long after you put it down.

ظللت أبحث عن هذا الكتاب لأكثر من عامأ بعنوان "مملكة الرب بداخلك" حتى وجدته بالعنوان الصحيح "ملكوت الله فى داخلكم"، وما زادنى شغفا لقرائته تأثيره القوى فى فكر و حياة كلاً من "مارتن لوثر كينج" و " المهاتما غاندى" من خلال تمسكهم بفكرة "اللاعنف" و "التغيير السلمى".

الكتاب دسم جدا و إعتقدت ذى بدء أنه كتاب سياسى حتى وصلت إلى نصفه و للأسف ما إستطعت إستكماله لأنه كتاب فلسفى عميق يناقش جدلا فى الدين المسيحى و قضايا عقائدية بين طوائف الأرثوذوكس و الكاثوليك و البروتستانت و يكشف بعض الزيف بين مطرانيات و كنائس أوروبا الشرقية و الغربية و كيف إستطاع القياصرة و الأباطرة إنتقاء نصوص ما و تحييد نصوص أخرى بغرض أهداف سياسية و سلطوية و إسقاط الضوء على نفس المنهجية السياسية فى روسيا (موطن توليستوى)، و أهم النقاط الخلافية التى ناقشها "ليو تولستوى" هى تفسير ما ورد بما يسمى "موعظة الجبل" ليسوع و كيف كان تفسيرها بين المطرانيات و الطوائف المسيحية و هل بالفعل أمر يسوع أن يواجه العنف بالعنف أم أن يواجه العنف بالسلم ؟

و هذا ما تبناه عقائديا "غاندى" أمام الإحتلال البريطانى للهند و تبعه بعد ذلك "مارتن لوثر كينج" فى مواجهة العنصرية ضد أصحاب البشرة السوداء و الزنوج فى أميريكا.

It is easy to rate this a 5/5. This should be required reading in every seminary. I've only said this about two books.

Convicting. This is one of those old books you read that helps you understand the present. Leo Tolstoy brings so many insights to the table. Insights that need to be wrestled with just as fiercely today as in his day (and likely much earlier). A Christian must oppose many things we are currently desensitized on. Your heart will not remain neutral.

I've been reading this off and on for months, but finally finished the other day and it is life-changing. I am not totally persuaded by all of Tolstoy's arguments, but his general contention for a Christianity rooted in the Sermon on the Mount and the fairly straightforward reading of it is quite persuasive. I find his description of a pacifist, anarchist Christianity compelling and enlightening and need to do more reading and thinking and writing to sort through all of my own evolving, deepening thoughts on the subject.

The writing style may not be for everyone and I'd love to engage with a critical edition of Tolstoy's text that comments on some of the historical and prophetic assertions that abound to fully dig into the context that Tolstoy was in.

Anyway. Transformative reading about what it means to be a Christian.

Like so many other books I've read recently, I found it to be about something entirely different than I had hoped by the title, but it was still interesting nonetheless. It was a bit of a slog because the book kind of rehashes the same points over and over again, but they are significant points. Tolstoy asks Christians to consider why our societies (governments) don't reflect some of the more fundamental teachings of Jesus, particularly the teaching of non-resistance to evil by force. He shows how societal constraints quite often make it nearly impossible to fully and completely follow Christ's teachings, and that if we truly followed them, societies would truly be revolutionized. I don't completely agree with everything he says, but I wholeheartedly agree with the point hinted at in the title ("The Kingdom of God is Within You"). In other words, the power of positive societal change comes from within each of us. When we change who we are and seek to align our inner and outer lives more fully with the teachings of Christ, we become the catalyst for change.

Many of the book's examples are probably more relevant to Czarist Russia (the time and place he was writing from), but his points still have application to our time, albeit in a more subtle way. Perhaps most interesting is that he predicts all of the major conflicts of the 20th century and their outcomes from the revolution in his own Russia to the World Wars.

Now that I've finished this book, I can put aside what seemed like a sweeping dismissal of certain religious traditions that, frankly, I feel he misunderstood. His opinions were, of course, influenced by the toxic conjoining of church support and state crimes in his time and place.

These misunderstandings are understandable, and mostly just silly (his argument against calling a priest "father" stands out as particularly shallow), and he doesn't exactly bring these arguments back, at least not specifically.

I do tend to be impulsive, but I have been curious about Christian Anarchism for a long time, and I feel like I just read a foundational text for that movement. Tolstoy is right on target in his criticism of the government machine, legalized violence and injustice, the brainwashing of entire populations, and the paradox of why sincerely principled people abandon their principles when the state (or the tyrant) tells them it's necessary to do so.

That's why the five stars: in spite of a few minor things, this book is very convincing, and I'd happily advocate that it be taught in schools, or at least more widely canonized in college curriculums.