United Kingdom

In recent years there have been four conferences focusing on Christianity and anarchism in the UK as far as we can tell (Leeds 2006, Bradford 2007, Sheffield 2008, Greater London 2010). Others have expressed an interest in doing the similar elsewhere and any such will be put up on here in the future.

Spread over these four conferences there have been about 150 people although few came to more than one. Yet still others read the magazine ‘A Pinch of Salt: Christianity and anarchism in conversation and action’ but haven’t been to any of the conferences. And more still have no association with other Christian anarchists.

Christian anarchism has a great history in Britain: John Ball (fourteenth century Greenwich), Abiezer Coppe (seventeenth century Oxford), William Blake (eighteenth century London), Gresham Kirby (twentieth century London), to name but a few. As this list might hint, in Britiain, Christian anarchism remains a predominantly white male political language as does anarchism more broadly.

Today there are many movements that dovetail with the anarchist movement: Peace News, CND, Transition Towns, and the Anti-capitalist movement. Christians have been, and continue to be, key participants in all of these. There is also the group ASIRA, ‘Academics and Students interested in Religious Anarchism’ part of the Anarchist Studies Network, and Tolstoyans (UK) based in Kent.