Anarchism and Religion: Mapping an
Increasingly Fruitful Landscape
Alexandre Christoyannopoulos & Matthew S. Adams
Loughborough University, UK
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
Both anarchism and religion have enjoyed renewed academic at-
tention 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 re-
newed 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, reli-
gious 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 giv-
en 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 em-
body) the very values that have historically accorded anarchism
its unique place in the family of political ideologies.^5 Their reli-
gious 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