Sunday 28 June 2009

Christian anarchists?


I haven't been blogging for a while, finishing off a paper for a conference, more about that later, but will now be catching up, at least with some notes on some of my reading.

Tripp York's Living on Hope while Living In Babylon: The Christian Anarchists of the 20th Century (Wipf @ Stock, 2009) provides an interesting take on some well covered ground on Christianity, theology and politics.

Tripp York places the telling of some stories of Christian political witness in the 20th century, Dorothy Day and the Catholic worker movement, Clarence Jordan and Koinonia Farm and the Berrigan brothers within the context of a discussion of anarchism and Christian apocalyptic politics.

To those who want a fuller account of the lives and witness of these movements within a theological there is some great reading available that takes you further than is possible in York's brief account. York is helpful in locating the life and witness of these dangerous and disturbing Christians within the context of anarchist thought and Christian apocalyptic politics.

York is developing an argument about what it means to be in the world but not of the world. Such a life is anarchical but is different from the anarchists.

The difference according to York ... lies in the conviction that a Jew from Galilee was raised from the dead in that God's creation might know God. They wanted to share in its resurrection and they wanted to share in it while they were still alive. For it is in Jesus' resurrection that we find hope in the midst of Babylon. (109)

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