The Anarchist Jesus

by Heathcote Williams

71 pages, Paperback

About the author

John Henley Jasper Heathcote-Williams was an English poet, actor and award-winning playwright. He was also an intermittent painter, sculptor and long-time conjuror. After his schooldays at Eton, he hacksawed his surname's double-barrel to become Heathcote Williams, a moniker more in keeping perhaps with his new-found persona. His father, also named Heathcote Williams, was a lawyer. He is perhaps best known for the book-length polemical poem Whale Nation, which in 1988 became "the most powerful argument for the newly instigated worldwide ban on whaling." In the early 1970s his agitational graffiti were a feature on the walls of the then low-rent end of London's Notting Hill district. From his early twenties, Williams has enjoyed a minor cult following. His first book, The Speakers (1964), a virtuoso close-focus account of life at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, was greeted with unanimous critical acclaim. In 1974 it was successfully adapted for the stage by the Joint Stock Theatre Company.

Reviews

[Josie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A+, an early candidate for best book read this year. I recommend it to all anarchists and Christians.

[Jim Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this up at a hardcore show last night (Earth Crisis, One King Down and others, if you need to know; 30th anniversary of the Earth Crisis "Firestorm" 7 inch). I had to have it because, I mean, come on, the title is "The Anarchist Jesus." I think there's a rule that if you find a book at a show and the title is "The Anarchist Jesus" then you have to buy it.

Woke up early this morning, had the chance to drink some coffee and do some reading and so I of course I went straight to this. It's just over 70 pages, but it's a poem, so they are quick pages. I didn't finish the book before I finished my cup of coffee, but it was fairly close.

I love this.

It's a 70 page poem about Jesus. About the Jesus that's actually depicted in the Bible. Not Republican Jesus, not ultra-turbo-end-of-times-revenge Jesus, not the Jesus of many of the churches I've been in, not the Jesus of the "I believe every word of the Bible is literally true but I actually haven't read the Bible and don't know what it says" evangelical set. This is a poem about Bible Jesus.

This is a poem about hanging-out-with-hookers-Jesus and driving-the-money-people-out-of-the-Temple-with-a-whip-Jesus. This is a poem about Jesus who knew that there were more important things than status, about the really-into-sharing-and-communal-living-Jesus. The Peter-put-away-your-sword-Jesus.

It's a poem about the Jesus who doesn't actually have many followers left in this world, the Jesus who was kicked out of his own religion a few hundred years after his death. The Jesus that conservative Christians would call "libtard," whom the DeSantises of the world would point to as a boogey man to justify their "anti-woke" laws, whom the Trumps of the world would step and sneer at while on their way to another look-at-me-holding-my-Bible photo shoot.

It's not a great poem, but it's about great stuff.

It doesn't flow like the greats, but it has as much soul as the greatest.

It isn't even quite finished. Heathcote Williams died before it was done. The last few pages are still in draft, ideas that he had put to paper but hadn't quite finished yet.

Doesn't matter.

The real stuff of the world is never finished, right? So maybe it's best that there's more to be written here, more to be said.

It's beautiful, and I'm glad I stumbled upon this.

You should stumble upon it too.

[Gabe · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun, easy read! Definitely an enjoyable poetic rendering of the relationship between anarchy and Christology/Theology, but at least in my copy, there were several grammatical mistakes that made reading this a little less that fully pleasurable. Overall, good book!