I will let you all know when the talks & music from that gathering are posted, and where, as is the intention of the organizers. In brief, here's what I regarded as interesting and important about the Philly conference (I'm debriefing out loud, so bear with me):
- Every one of the some 150 participants (except the "elders" I invited, a couple from Reba Place and a couple of local Quakers) was under 35 years of age. That in itself seems significant.
- There was a spectrum of views. I would characterize three groupings (excluding us older folk), who roughly constituted a third each of the whole:
a) "anarcho-primitivist veterans," most of whom are coming from either Catholic Worker-type or post-evangelical experiences, with the weight on the latter. I sensed a mix of class backgrounds, both working class and suburban middle class.
b) local & regional progressive Christians involved in everything from inner city justice work to urban gardening/permaculture (e.g. some folk from Simple Way, the Center for Transformation in Camden, and the Alternative Seminary)
c) "civilization-skeptic-curious" from around the region (including some folk from Cookman United Methodist Church locally).
The thing to note is that they all seemed very interested in this conversation. - Of the veterans, most of them knew each other and were from the midwest, southeast and northeast. They follow each other's bands on the road, and have built social networks the old school way (several are completely off the grid so don't do the electronic thing). Music is very important to them. It’s an eclectic mix of ethnic, punk, folk, drumming, gospel, etc.; very loud and trancey (I don't know, how would you describe it Charlie?). The Sat. night dance-rave-worship was for me the most revealing window into their subculture. I found it really engaging, if hard on the ears. Felt my age—but I’d love to work with Psalters sometime. I dig their groove, and Jay Beck (who did most of the organizing of this conference) is really passionate about this, and has a beautiful spirit.
- Underneath the tattoos, piercings and dreads (which seem to represent a ubiquitous "uniform" in their circles), however, I perceived a strong substratum of old non-denominational, evangelical subculture, from theological preconception to praise-music expressionism. So there are real biblical and political literacy issues, but also much enthusiasm and sincere commitment. At several moments we challenged the group that no matter how “radical” the A-P analytical framework might be, it didn’t relieve participants from doing their race, class and gender work, and learning from movement history. Of particular help here was Nekeisha Alexis-Baker of the Jesus Radicals website, an African American, who kept stressing that as important as personal lifestyle liberation may be, “your tattoos do nothing to liberate me.” Good perspectives on native culture and the problem of expropriation and solidarity were raised both by Jim Perkinson and Lily Mendosa (who did a fabulous job grounding the analysis in the struggle against empire), as well as Jenn LeBlanc, a young Miq’maq from Ontario, Canada, and an emerging leader in the indigenous Christian movement. Andrea Feyrich of the Center for Transformation, an urban garden/greenhouse/ retreat center in Camden also impressed me with her deep grasp of permaculture and theology.
- There was real interest in the biblical material (I gave an overview of the Genesis 1-11 material as well as Luke 12 and Rom 5). I had the impression that folk couldn’t get enough of it, which further attests to their evangelical background. Most of the material we presented was pretty basic, and many are eager to get deeper into other texts and to explore A-P readings of scripture, theology, history, culture, etc. Significantly, Andy Lewis (who is probably the most passionate ideologue of this circle) reckons that at this point in the U.S. scene, most of those espousing or interested in Anarcho-Primitivism are Christians! This trend is of course extremely annoying to hard core secular anarchists, but it seems to be dawning on a central proponent, John Zerzan, who keeps talking about it on his radio show. (To wit, he’s on tonight, 10/27, and will be discussing the Philly conference. You can listen live at 7 pm PDT at the KWVA 88.1 web site; the call-in # is 541-346-0645 if you want to participate).
- The handful of serious practitioners of so-called “primitive skills” were really impressive. It's cool to see young adults so deeply committed to learning old arts, from spinning & weaving to herbalism & foraging to skinning & tanning—and so eager to share their skills. Passing on these arts is the centerpiece of the "rewilding" workshops that have taken place in various places, and we older folk who haven’t gone too feral have a lot to learn from them. It helps keep "real" ideas that can easily otherwise remain romantic and rhetorical. Daniel Baker would be interested to know that one couple who are way off the grid see Corbett’s Goatwalking as their bible, and are actually practicing it. They in turn were thrilled to meet persons who actually knew Jim (I urged them to get to Cascabel to see you Daniel).
- All the “elders” did a great job of listening, dialoguing, and being present. Jim and Lily made great presentations, and Liz McAlister, Will O’Brien, Gordon Oyer, Charlie King, Ed Nakawatese, Jeff Dietrich and Ms. Wilimina from Cookman all helped with ritual, prayer and feedback. Their presence was invaluable, and I think most enjoyed seeing this slice of the movement.
- What did this conference mean to me personally? First, it was quite enjoyable, if somewhat chaotic. Second, I’ve been having theological conversations about A-P perspectives “offline” (as Kazi Joshua puts it) with many of you over the last 15 years, and it is delightful that suddenly there is a wider community of interest that is passionate about figuring out what it might mean to embody these views. At the same time, there are sectarian, drop-out and survivalist tendencies in some of these circles that are all too familiar, and I feel a certain responsibility to try to keep these young radicals engaged in the deep, long-term traditions of faith-based resistance and renewal. To me this means that some of us are going to have to “come out of the closet” more publicly concerning our convictions on these matters, which are obviously on the extreme feral edge of theological and political discourse.
There's more to say, but enough for now; apologies for the length of this post. On balance, it’s still hard to discern as yet where and how the A-P subculture will fit into the overall picture of contemporary radical Christian thought and practice. But it’s an important enough question to me that I will continue to stay in conversation with these folks. How about you?
