Abstract
This edited collection could be one of three different things. It could be, as per its introduction, ‘an attempt to relay the experience(s) of being the younger generation in British Church today’. It could be, as per the subtext of its subtitle, an attempt to speak to, or for, young people outside the Church. Anthony Reddie probably gets it right in his foreword when he says that it is ‘simply an important compendium of liberationist writings from an impressive younger generation of theologians and activists’.
No mean feat, in other words, but neither a representative picture of the youngsters who are in church nor the key to reaching the great majority who are not. This is the central question mark hanging over this book, and progressive appeals to ‘youth’ in general. For all the brio of the progressive contributors, they struggle to point to an example of a sufficiently ‘woke’ church that is succeeding in drawing anything like the number of millennials and Gen Zs that an HTB or a Nottingham Trent Vineyard does.
Furthermore, most of the contributors are drawn from a relatively small network active on social media. Many of them know one another personally and, while they demonstrate real erudition and talent, one wonders how realistic such a selection can be in their claim to represent the views of young Christians in general.
Nonetheless, this book has real strengths. Editor Victoria Turner has achieved the first collection of its kind and offers a decisive statement of intent from a new generation of liberal theologians. One strength is the authors’ willingness to own the term ‘woke’ itself. This has become the focus of infamy and much discourse, with some lately going so far as to claim that the term has never been a meaningful self-descriptor for progressives but only a slur by the right (see <www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/26/equality-woke-police-rightwing-minorities>). In this context, it is cheering to see a group of thinkers reclaim and wear the label for what it represents: an assortment of progressive arguments based on a common framework of identity politics and critical theory.
An interdenominational cast of friends cover a variety of issues, from race, sexuality and trans to the homeless, health and interfaith. The best contributions attempt a two-way conversation between ‘wokeness’ and theology. Liz Marsh’s essay on the climate crisis is a highlight in this respect. She provides a neat exploration of how green politics can disrupt the Church and inspire it into action, but of how Christianity might subvert wokeness (insofar as climate change is a ‘woke’ concern; it is not primarily rooted in critical theory) in return, by providing green activists with an eschatological framework based on hope. Weaker chapters do not offer much that readers won’t already have garnered from the work of Reni Eddo-Lodge or Audre Lorde.
Altogether, this volume offers an interesting engagement with a vocal subset of today’s Christian twentysomethings, and represents a significant marker thrown down by these new movers in public theology.