Anarchism and Religion: Mapping an Increasingly Fruitful Landscape
Alexandre Christoyannopoulos & Matthew S. Adams
Loughborough University, UK
Both anarchism and religion have enjoyed renewed academic attention since the end of the twentieth century: religion has been an increasingly visible aspect of political life; and anarchist ideas have suffused recent social and political movements to a striking degree. Scholars have therefore increasingly turned their attention to both of these trends, seeking to illuminate the causes of their resurgence, and the underlying debates that have informed this renewed prominence.1 In line with these trends, the overlap between anarchism and religion has also attracted new interest.2 In print, on social media, in the streets and in religious communities, religious anarchist analysis, and the analysis of religious anarchists, is gaining traction.3
Yet anarchism and religion have historically had an uneasy relationship. There are defined tensions between the two camps that are freighted with historical pedigree: many anarchists insist that religion is fundamentally incompatible with anarchism, while many religious adherents have grown suspicious of anarchists given a strain of anticlericalism that has sometimes sparked shocking violence.4 At the same time, religious anarchists insist that their religious tradition embodies (or at least has the potential to embody) the very values that have historically accorded anarchism its unique place in the family of political ideologies.5 Their religious beliefs, they argue, imply a rejection of the state, call for an economy of mutual aid, present a denunciation of oppressive authorities that often includes religious institutions, and embody
How to cite this book chapter:
Christoyannopoulos, A. and Adams, M. S. 2017. Anarchism and Religion: Mapping an Increasingly Fruitful Landscape. In: Christoyannopoulos, A. and Adams, M. S. (eds.) Essays in Anarchism and Religion: Volume 1. Pp. 1–17. Stockholm: Stockholm University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16993/bak.a. License: CC-BY
