Holy Anarchy

Graham Adams

Description

Perhaps, after all, the decolonising agenda isn’t extra baggage the church needs to carry on top of everything else. Perhaps, instead, it is the very heart of what the church should be about – disrupting, uncomfortable, and bringing about a kind of ‘holy anarchy’. In Holy Anarchy, Graham Adams points to a realm in which all dynamics of domination, not least in the church, are subverted. It cuts across the loyalties and boundaries of religion and fosters the greatest possible solidarity amongst the different. Urgent and timely, the book weaves together themes around Empire, liberation and decolonial practice with an exploration of the nature and scope of church community, interreligious engagement, mission, and worship.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Missions
• Christian Ministry
• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd
• Date de parution: 31 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780334061922
• Langue: English

Extrait

Holy Anarchy
Dismantling Domination, Embodying Community, Loving Strangeness
Graham Adams






© Graham Adams 2022
Published in 2022 by SCM Press
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Permission is granted by the author and publisher for the hymns and Appendix material to be used in non-commercial group performance and accompanying printed hymn and service sheets. Due acknowledgement must be made to this book as the source publication.
For all other material, all rights reserved. No part may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, SCM Press.
The Author has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the Author of this Work
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
978-0-334-06190-8
Typeset by Regent Typesetting
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd




Contents
Foreword by Professor Anthony G. Reddie
Acknowledgements
Part 1: Introductions
1. Holy Anarchy is Close at Hand
2. Handling Truth and the Other God
Part 2: Do Justice – Dismantle Domination
3. Structures of Dominion and the Untame God
4. Awesome Weakness and God the Child
Part 3: Walk Humbly – Embody Community
5. Structures of Purity and the Unfinished God
6. Awkward Community and the Unfitting God
Part 4: Love Kindness – Befriend Strangeness
7. Structures of Closure and the Stranger God
8. Awe in the Garden and the Horizonal God

Conclusion
Appendix: Worship Materials
Gathering up the fragments
Under the nose and under the skin




To Sheryl and Bethan for their love and inspiration,
tolerating the anarchy which happens around me and encouraging me to believe in what can be.



Foreword
I remember the day like it was yesterday. I was driving my younger brother to London as he was going to study at the London Metropolitan University for a degree in Caribbean Studies. All had gone very smoothly driving down the M1 motorway until we got to the outskirts of London. Then, suddenly, in London we got into a furious argument. I remember shouting at my brother: ‘What is wrong with you? Can’t you see where we should be going?’ We had set off at the crack of dawn in order to beat the worst of the traffic, travelling from Bradford in West Yorkshire all the way down to the ‘great smoke’ that was London. Neither of us knew the way to the university but, armed with a detailed road map that my brother was reading and two keen pairs of eyes, we felt we could not go wrong. But, sadly, go wrong we did, and in spectacular style! When you find yourself going down a one-way street in the wrong direction, with a cacophony of blaring horns and flashing headlights serenading your path, you know that you are lost and big time!
My brother and I had the map in front of us and the street signs ahead, and yet we still got lost. The central problem we had was that the real, three-dimensional, concrete landscape of London did not look anything like the flat, uncomplicated world of the road map. All this was before the days of Sat Navs that talk you through the complications of road navigation.
On the map it all looked very simple. There were no cars to interrupt or impede one’s progress or blow their horns at these slow, dim-witted youths from ‘the provinces’. Suffice it to say that on such occasions, friendships and filial bonds are stretched to the limit, as trying to match theory to practice becomes a painful and sometimes nerve-wracking experience. This was October 1988.
I have retold this story because reading Holy Anarchy reminded me of the incredulous moment my brother and I surveyed the flat road map unable to figure out how to match it to the three-dimensional world in front of us.
Holy Anarchy is a brilliant text that seeks to help us interpret the world differently. Christianity has traditionally used resources such as the Bible, allied with the continuum of Christian tradition, to assist us in navigating our way on the spiritual journey towards the alternative reality that is God’s reign. But much like the physical journey my brother and I undertook over 30 years ago, trying to navigate one’s way to the desired destination is not as straightforward as one imagines. Graham Adams’ book provides a compelling set of metaphors, theories, ideas and reflections that seek to help readers navigate the treacherous terrain towards the destination that we believe God has fashioned for the whole of creation.
Holy Anarchy wrestles with the multifarious nature of empire and how its nefarious tentacles have shaped our collective imaginations in what we see as reality. Using the metaphor of a journey, Holy Anarchy invites us to rethink what we see and what direction of travel we should take.
Many of us who have grown up in church will know the temptations of assuming there is a natural clear-cut journey of A–Z. Such unambiguous map readings rarely turn out to be as ‘obvious’ as one imagines. And the more complicated the terrain becomes – due to constant changes in physical features such as metaphorical road works and detours – the greater the difficulty in navigation.
Holy Anarchy is a gift that seeks to help us untangle the diversions, roadblocks and poor signage that has often prevented many of us from seeing the correct direction we should be taking. The book offers no easy answers or false panaceas. Rather, via critical analysis, robust theological reflections and poetry-hymnody, Adams has fashioned a text that offers alternative ways of seeing and different ways of possible navigation. Given the continued complexities with which we are living, Holy Anarchy is a refreshingly honest and insightful vision for a journey that is compelling, joyous and inclusive, one in which all persons are supported and loved and no one is considered inconsequential or irrelevant to the community of fellow travellers.
Holy Anarchy demonstrates that there are no perfect metaphors for understanding the truth of God’s ways in the world, and will, I am sure, become an indispensable resource for fellow travellers as we journey ahead in the years to come! Thank you, Graham, for writing this important book!
Anthony G. Reddie,
Director of the Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture,
Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford



Acknowledgements
I am hugely grateful to all those whose support has enabled me to give shape to this book. Firstly, over nearly 20 years, the insights, inspiration and encouragement of Andrew Shanks have been instrumental. This has been further enriched through teaching – so I am also thankful to the theological students who allowed me to imagine possibilities with them, asked probing questions and urged me to develop my angle on things. I hope they don’t regret it!
I am indebted to the Council for World Mission for enabling me to participate in several theological consultations concerning ‘Empire’. This deepened my appreciation of my dissenting Christian heritage, sharpening my readiness to be critical of the tradition to which I belong and enlivening the hope of anti-domination.
Of course, my teaching colleagues at Northern College (United Reformed and Congregational) and the wider Luther King Centre partnership, in Manchester have been integral to this process. At the risk of overlooking some, I must nevertheless name Noel Irwin, Glen Marshall, Rosalind Selby, Graham Sparkes and Kim Wasey for ongoing conversations and support. Thanks, too, go to Jason Boyd and Mike Walsh for valuable encouragement. And over many years, the wisdom of Andrew Pratt and Janet Wootton has been crucial in helping me to develop my hymn-writing.
As the material for the book was developing, particular people kindly read drafts of it – Clare Nutbrown-Hughes, Noel again, and my friends Janet Lees and Bob Warwicker, who also meandered with me in what we called spiritual (mis)direction.
Many thanks, too, to David Shervington, Linda Crosby and all at SCM for responding so helpfully to my questions or anxieties and walking alongside me.
Huge thanks to Anthony Reddie for his generous Foreword, which really captures what I was aiming to do, without my ever knowing for sure whether I was actually achieving it!



Using the hymns and Appendix material
Permission is granted for the hymns and Appendix material to be used in non-commercial group performance and accompanying printed hymn or service sheets. Due acknowledgement must be made to this book as the source publication.



Part 1: Introductions
Jesus told us about ‘the kingdom of God’. It seemed to be his central concern. He invited us to compare it with things and images in our world. It is a realm that does not play by the rules of business-as-usual. It defies expectations of what a kingdom ought to be. It is coming. It is here. It is within us. But at the same time it is elusive, seemingly out of reach