the 'mystical anarchism' of Landauer and Voegelin in tandem reveals common threads in their vision of an 'anti-political community', in which the self is both a 'primary reality' and the starting point 'in the struggle for change'.
In this spirit of novel comparisons, the sixth chapter, written by Simon Podmore, unites the Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the first thinker to wear the label of 'anarchist' as a badge of honour rather than a term of abuse. Podmore's paper reflects on the affinities between the two thinkers' negation of God and their paradoxical assertions about God implicit in that negation. Their anti-theism is thus compared and contrasted, showing that where Proudhon settles on the need to insist on the negation of the idea of 'God' in order to achieve justice, Kierkegaard's negation of God leads him to a theological affirmation of freedom. Juxtaposing these rather different thinkers therefore exposes interesting philosophical and theological parallels and differences.
Finally, Hugo Strandberg looks to another familiar figure in the anarchist pantheon, the German individualist Max Stirner, and uses his ideas to ponder the issue of whether religious belief demands servitude. He argues that, on reflection, it is egoism rather than religion which forces self-denial, because the egoist must harden their heart and renounce any social concern for others to submit to Stirner's ideal, whereas religion does not necessarily require servitude in submission to God, and can in principle be understood to affirm a kind of freedom primary to any political or religious institutions.
As this selection of papers demonstrates, there is an astounding intellectual vibrancy at the heart of contemporary scholarship on anarchism and religion. The range of perspectives encompassed in these contributions, their inherent interdisciplinarity, and the rich variety of thinkers, movements and ideas examined, all highlight the health of the field. Editing these papers and the many more to come in future volumes was both an intellectually stimulating and pleasurable experience, and we hope that readers will gain as much from them as we have.
Matthew S. Adams, September 2016
