About

Welcome!

This is a blog about Christianity and politics… mostly.

It comes partly out of the realisation that my long-suffering friends have had to deal with being the sole sounding board for my opinions for far too long, and partly because when said opinions manage to miraculously find their way into another publication, they are invariably edited for brevity.  When I started this blog in 2016, I had written a few pieces for the Student Christian Movement, an organisation of which I remain a proud member.  It was they who encouraged me to write more, and they who suggested I start my own blog as somewhere to publish the full versions.  That eventually became this blog.

I write as someone still figuring things out.  I see things as I am, as a straight, white, working-class, cisgender, autistic, dyslexic, EDS, Anglican, anarchist, man.  There’s so much I don’t understand and so much I still get wrong.  I am, in many ways, very privileged, but life is a complicated thing and I have faced, and continue to face, my fair share of challenges.  I don’t pretend to know what it’s like to be someone I am not, but I know how important it is to empathise. Forgive me, please, for those inevitable times when I fall short on this count.

As the name might suggest, I write as a Christian and as a communist. Some who read this will be excited by this prospect, others will be confused or even angry. It’s worth giving a little bit of a clarification for those who find themselves in these latter categories.  As a Christian, I believe it is my religious duty to pursue justice and equality, and like many Christians before me, this has caused me to adopt a posture of scepticism towards money, state and hierarchy.  When I talk about communism, I am, therefore, not talking about the USSR, China, Vietnam, and so on, but a society where the means of production, distribution, and exchange are collectively owned by all people and decisions are made collectively through direct democratic means.

It’s true that such a vision may not come about anytime soon.  Perhaps it may even be true, as some say,  that it is a utopia, an unachievable ideal.  I don’t believe that though.  I believe in the power of the Kingdom of God, the inherent dignity of life, and that even in the face of overwhelming odds, truth must be spoken.  Capitalism, the pursuit of Mammon, of wealth, of greed, is not compatible with the gospel of Jesus Christ.  The Kingdom of God is at hand if we are willing to hope and work for it.