7830ae5e-2677-48a2-8ff0-2ae3270cafef20260427145547Depositor Namedepositor_email@address.comRUA Metadata Exporter2002-4606AlexandreChristoyannopoulosLoughborough Universityhttps://ror.org/04vg4w365Politics, History and International Relationshttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-5133-3268Matthew S.AdamsLoughborough Universityhttps://ror.org/04vg4w365Politics, History and International Relationshttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-5440-4866Volume IIAnarchism and religion have historically had an uneasy relationship. Indeed, representatives of both sides have regularly insisted on the fundamental incompatibility of anarchist and religious ideas and practices. Yet, ever since the emergence of anarchism as an intellectual and political movement, a considerable number of religious anarchists have insisted that their religious tradition necessarily implies an anarchist political stance.Reflecting both a rise of interest in anarchist ideas and activism on the one hand, and the revival of religious ideas and movements in the political sphere on the other, this multi-volume collection examines congruities and contestations between the two from a diverse range of academic perspectives.The second volume of Essays in Anarchism & Religion includes essays covering themes such as Yiddish radicalism, Byzantine theology, First Peter, William Blake, the role of violence in anarchism and in Christian anarchism, Spanish anarchist-themed film, and the Occult features of anarchism.In a world where political ideas increasingly matter once more, and religion is an increasingly visible aspect of global political life, these essays offer scholarly analysis of overlooked activists, ideas and movements, and as such reveal the possibility of a powerful critique of contemporary global society.Anarchism and religion have historically had an uneasy relationship. Indeed, representatives of both sides have regularly insisted on the fundamental incompatibility of anarchist and religious ideas and practices. Yet, ever since the emergence of anarchism as an intellectual and political movement, a considerable number of religious anarchists have insisted that their religious tradition necessarily implies an anarchist political stance.Reflecting both a rise of interest in anarchist ideas and activism on the one hand, and the revival of religious ideas and movements in the political sphere on the other, this multi-volume collection examines congruities and contestations between the two from a diverse range of academic perspectives.The second volume of Essays in Anarchism & Religion includes essays covering themes such as Yiddish radicalism, Byzantine theology, First Peter, William Blake, the role of violence in anarchism and in Christian anarchism, Spanish anarchist-themed film, and the Occult features of anarchism.In a world where political ideas increasingly matter once more, and religion is an increasingly visible aspect of global political life, these essays offer scholarly analysis of overlooked activists, ideas and movements, and as such reveal the possibility of a powerful critique of contemporary global society.09262018978-91-7635-075-1978-91-7635-072-0978-91-7635-073-7978-91-7635-074-4Stockholm University PressStockholmhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/10.16993/bashttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/books/e/10.16993/bashttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/books/36/files/c0a165fb-5c76-4599-9afa-d939891e4ea7.pdfhttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/books/36/files/c0a165fb-5c76-4599-9afa-d939891e4ea7.pdfAlexandreChristoyannopoulosLoughborough Universityhttps://ror.org/04vg4w365Politics and International Studieshttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-5133-3268Matthew S.AdamsLoughborough Universityhttps://ror.org/04vg4w365Politics and International Studies0926201810.16993/bas.ahttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/chapters/e/10.16993/bas.ahttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/books/36/files/c64b047c-a035-4a58-9e32-e59d78a30f66.pdfLilianTürkHamburg Universityhttps://ror.org/00g30e956https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4849-6597JesseCohnPurdue University Northwesthttps://ror.org/04keq6987Department of Englishhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-2255-5616“Anarchism” and “religion” are categories of belonging that serve as tools for identification – both of oneself and of others. Yiddish-speaking anarchism is overwhelmingly remembered as an antireligious movement, a characterization drawn from its early experiences in the immigrant communities of the U.S. (circa 1880–1919). However, this obscures the presence of competing definitions of both religion and anarchism within the Jewish anarchist milieu and fails to take into account the social character of processes of identification unfolding over time. A generation after its circulation peaked, in a context of declining Jewish anarchist “groupness” (1937–1945), the Yiddish anarchist newspaper Fraye Arbeter Shtime hosted debates over religion which reveal a far broader spectrum of interpretations than were apparent in the earlier period. Examining these debates demonstrates the subversive fluidity more than the rigidly bounded character of anarchist and religious identities alike, as an emergent consensus among Jewish anarchists names domination rather than religion per se as the common enemy.0926201810.16993/bas.bhttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/chapters/e/10.16993/bas.bhttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/books/36/files/27a910ce-859a-411b-a911-e3dfce33284e.pdfEmmaBrown DewhurstDurham Universityhttps://ror.org/01v29qb04Theology and Religionhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-4231-0088I argue that anarchist ideas for organising human communities could be a useful practical resource for Christian ethics. I demonstrate this firstly by introducing the main theological ideas underlying Maximus the Confessor’s ethics, a theologian respected and important in a number of Christian denominations. I compare practical similarities in the way in which ‘love’ and ‘well-being’ are interpreted as the telos of Maximus and Peter Kropotkin’s ethics respectively. I further highlight these similarities by demonstrating them in action when it comes attitudes towards property. I consequently suggest that there are enough similarities in practical aims, for Kropotkin’s ideas for human organising to be useful to Christian ethicists.0926201810.16993/bas.chttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/chapters/e/10.16993/bas.chttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/books/36/files/a32eabb1-b0eb-40a9-b9ba-9c79fb28ede2.pdfPedroGarcía-GuiraoKing’s College Londonhttps://ror.org/0220mzb33https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8207-4182This essay explores the portrayal of Catholicism in eight Spanish anarchist-themed films. The first part discusses negative representations of the Catholic religion rehearsed in these films, set as they are mainly in the context of the Spanish Civil War. Among those representations are: the political and economic purpose of the Catholic Church’s control of education in Spain; the breaking of the religious vows of poverty and chastity, and the recourse to praising the vow of obedience when under scrutiny; and the breaking of the seal of the confessional. In the second part, the essay shows that those films also portray a Christianity which can be more solidary, revolutionary and attached to a different idealization of Christ, unlike the Church consisting of high-ranking members of the clergy. This second part also considers the notion of “secularization” and the extent to which anarchism has become an alternative religion in these films. The essay also reflects on the reliability of films as historical sources.0926201810.16993/bas.dhttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/chapters/e/10.16993/bas.dhttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/books/36/files/975aed59-e064-466d-a679-3eb5cb16c1ca.pdfJustinBronson BarringerSouthern Methodist Universityhttps://ror.org/042tdr378https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5243-9320First Peter seems an unlikely place to look for anarchist inspiration. In fact, at first glance it seems to offer support for the very sorts of domination that anarchists so adamantly oppose: governments over citizens, masters over slaves, and husbands over wives. Drawing on Petrine scholarship, historical insights, political philosophy, theology, and biblical exegesis, this paper will argue that, in fact, First Peter contains several anarchist themes. The paper shows that Peter advocates non-coercion, voluntary association, equality of all persons, and subversion of the powers that be. By examining some key debates in Petrine scholarship, the essay examines some relevant points of contention like debates over the meaning of Peter’s use of the haustafeln tradition and proper translations of key Greek words related to government and submission/subordination before showing that the best interpretations point to something at least akin to anarchism in this text. Peter’s concerns are moral and ethical as well as political and this essay weaves together all of those areas on inquiry to put forward a reading that offers a Christian anarchist ethic and political theology. Two millennia after it was written, Peter’s epistle still offers a compelling vision for an alternative society, a society that embraces anarchist values and works to subvert the powers intent on maintaining their perceived control of the world.0926201810.16993/bas.ehttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/chapters/e/10.16993/bas.ehttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/books/36/files/aa68ba40-1887-4b9b-80df-17df67c33fef.pdfChristosIliopoulosIndependent ScholarThis chapter approaches the issue of activism through the prism of the pacifism/violence debate within Christian anarchist circles. Based on two philosophical critiques – Friedrich Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity and Walter Benjamin’s critique of violence – I challenge the main anarcho-Christian theses that favour a pacifist/passive model of action, providing an alternative context for the interpretation of the relevant biblical passages and, ultimately, offering a restored version of anarcho-Christian activism, beyond dogmatic pacifism and fetishistic violence. The first critique looks at those Christian features that have turned Christianity into self-negation, and promotes an affirmative life stance. The second critique presents a qualitative approach to violence, distinguishing between two types – mythical and divine – out of which the latter revises the role of violence in Christian anarchist practices. Resistance to evil and secular authority can now acquire a new meaning, affirmative and active instead of passive and resentful.0926201810.16993/bas.fhttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/chapters/e/10.16993/bas.fhttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/books/36/files/665da51d-0093-48fb-b698-6b34a7dc5cae.pdfSamUnderwoodMemorial University of Newfoundlandhttps://ror.org/04haebc03PhilosophyAlthough Christian anarchists are typically committed to pacifism, in the broader anarchist literature pacifism is a decidedly minoritarian position. It may be argued on this basis that Christian anarchists are pacifists on account of their Christianity rather than their anarchism, and that non-Christian anarchists, in not sharing Christians’ commitment to following Jesus, have no similar reason to accept pacifism. However, this paper argues that the radical nonviolence defended by Christian anarchists is as consistently anarchist as it is Christian, for in Christian nonviolence we find anarchistic commitments to mutual aid, prefiguration, and attention to ‘the least of these’. The paper therefore also suggests that the criticisms of violence articulated by Christian anarchists might actually speak to non-Christian anarchists too, and that nonviolence is in fact a central element of anarchist prefiguration.0926201810.16993/bas.ghttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/chapters/e/10.16993/bas.ghttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/books/36/files/1fa5c5c5-db79-4182-9131-116d72e6f1b3.pdfDuaneWilliamsLiverpool Hope Universityhttps://ror.org/03ctjbj91Theology, Philosophy, and Religious Studieshttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-4269-121XThis chapter demonstrates how both anarchistic and religious tendencies are fused in William Blake’s work. While acknowledging biographical and historical approaches to Blake scholarship, the methodological approach is foremost hermeneutical. Highlighting how Blake can be understood as a Christian anarchist by interpreting the significance of key beliefs and arguments found in his work, the chapter also explores Blake’s opposition to both judicial and moral law, which underpins his questioning of the authority and rule of king and priest. The chapter consists of two sections. First it analyses Blake’s complete mistrust of institutional state religion, along with its establishment of priests who, Blake maintained, cruelly bound and thus enslaved believers with moral law, then it examines Blake’s view of Jesus as a transgressor of this law, through his unique insight concerning the mutual forgiveness of sins that places love and liberty above all else.0926201810.16993/bas.hhttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/chapters/e/10.16993/bas.hhttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/books/36/files/9609a563-4df4-4ef8-8220-bfdee652c8ff.pdfEricaLagalisseLondon School of Economicshttps://ror.org/0090zs177International Inequalities InstituteBy exploring the hidden correspondences between classical anarchism, Renaissance magic and occult philosophy, this chapter advances the critical study of Left-political attachment to the ‘secular’, wherein Western anarchist and socialist cosmologies have been mystified. By historicizing Western anarchism and ‘the revolution’, it highlights the development of Left theory and praxis within clandestine masculine ‘public’ spheres of the radical Enlightenment, and how this genesis proceeds to inflect anarchist understandings of the ‘political’. Inspired by ethnographic research among contemporary anarchist social movements in the Americas, this essay questions anarchist ‘atheism’ insofar as it has posed practical challenges for current anarchist-indigenous coalition politics. Moreover, in its treatment of ‘secret societies’ this essay has pedagogical utility for today’s political activists as well as scholars of anarchism. Where popular fear of ‘secret societies’ is widespread, charting the construction of the secret society in European history has practical political importance. By attending to this history, we also witness the co-evolution of modern masculinity and secularized social movements as a textured historical process, and observe the privatization of both gender and religion in the praxes of radical counter-culture, which develops in complex dialectic with the “privatization” of gender and religion by the modern nation-state.0926201810.16993/bas.ihttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/chapters/e/10.16993/bas.ihttps://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/books/36/files/01196462-e1b2-4f8c-8930-e84e8f72edeb.pdf