Seditious Theology

Mark Johnson’s study on Jesus and Punk, and how each can inform our understanding of the other, has finally been issued in paperback and I was delighted to be able to get hold of a copy recently.

Although Punk has never been something I am drawn to musically (my taste is much more for its 1970s contemporary, prog), it is a phenomenon I am interested to discover more about, and Johnson’s book (subtitled “Punk and the Ministry of Jesus”) seemed a fascinating way in.

Especially timely in this fortieth anniversary period of Punk, Johnsons bring together cultural studies and New Testament studies and offers what is perhaps the first major theological engagement with Punk.   As yet I am only at the beginning of the book, but I will report back as I read on.

Early on, Johnson points out the similarities between what Punk was seeking to do and what the Situationists had before them.  Both were concerned to shock women and men out of “common sense” assumptions and understandings of the world.   This is the reason behind Punk iconography, and Johnson spends some time discussing the (in)famous “God Save the Queen” image, which “acted as a signpost that pointed to the existence of a parallel place, ‘another England not mentioned in the worldwide media coverage of the Jubilee jamboree’ ” – Johnson, p. 41, citing Reid & Savage, Up They Rise (Faber, 1987), p. 65.

As Adam Ant recalls, referring to his own artworks,  ” ‘ the whole idea was to shock, the idea of taking recent history that we’d all grown up with … and not hiding from it but turning it upside down’ ” – Johnson, p. 47, citing Crimlis & Turner, Cult Rock Posters (Aurum, 2006), p. 115.   Punk art represented what might be termed a “graphic language of resistance” (Johnson, p.46).   “Punk took things and deconstructed their meaning, before representing the altered items back to society in a while that would challenge the way in which people perceived them.” (Johnson, p. 49).

It is clear to me already where Johnson is going in his study, as the parables of Jesus are also about shocking us out of our complacency and “common sense” assumptions about God and the world.  The problem for us is that they have lost their ability to shock, which is why Punk (which certainly did shock in its time and retains a certain shock value even today) offers such a promising way into reflection on the Subversive message of Jesus of Nazareth.

In an earlier post I reflected on Gramsci’s idea of “cultural hegemony”, and how Jesus embodies, in his life and teaching, an example of a counter-hegemonic culture.   Perhaps Punk can offer some insights into how the shock-value of Jesus life and teaching can be rediscovered for the twenty-first century.

Mark Johnson, Seditious Theology: Punk and the Ministry of Jesus (Routledge)