Young, Woke and Christian

Young, Woke and Christian: Words from a Missing Generation, edited by Victoria Turner, is a great collection of writings by younger Christian theologians and practitioners. It is certainly a challenging volume, but in a helpful and needed way. The Church needs to listen to its younger voices, and this book definitely helps us to do that. As Victoria Turner herself says, in her editing role: “Our desire is to make radically loving Christianity as well known as rigid, traditional, life-limiting, restrictive Christianity. The contributions here begin to outline what that Church might look like in the eyes of young leaders.” A lot of the pieces focus on issues of identity and inclusion, but a wide ranges of topics are covered, including climate change, homelessness, mental health and hope. I did like Sophie Mitchell’s reflection on leadership in which she says: “Luke 5.11 highlights the importance of developing unlikely leaders in and for our mission in the account of Jesus choosing his first disciple, Peter. It is interesting that Jesus’ first choice for his top team cabinet is a fisherman. Visiting the temple regularly for the annual festivals he would have seen the rabbis and leaders of the temple and could have sought to align himself with a political leader of power who would compound his influence, or even with the socialites of his day, yet he chooses a simple fisherman. I cannot imagine that he would have looked or smelled the part.” It is a volume that is well worth reading and, alongside the many legitimate challenges, sounds some equally important positive notes, like Nosayaba Idehen’s words on hope: “Hopelessness is not the only option, and we do not have to default to it. In this sense, hopelessness is a choice that we make, but then so too can we choose to open ourselves to hope. This choice does not require us to ignore our anxieties about what our collective future might hold. Hope does not require arrogance – a blithely optimistic assertion that everything is going to be OK. Grief and hope can exist together and they do not have to lead us into hopelessness. Hope is not the end-product but rather the beginning, an opening to possibility that allows us to go on in seemingly impossible circumstances.”