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This short book is written mainly as exegesis of the text but with particular points drawn out to comment on the exegetical approaches of amillennialism and premillennialism -both of which are explicitly critiqued. For the most part it seemed convincing and made a case for what the author calls 'new creation millennialism'. I tend towards finding amillennialism more convincing, and I think that this persuaded me to be more skeptical of it. Though I think that I was helped in this by seeing how the exegesis takes a sensible approach to intratextuality and intertextuality -"interpreting scripture by scripture" as the author puts it. I am convinced that we need to read Revelation recursively rather than linearly and Mealy shows well how this works. Mealy is clearly writing from and to a fairly conservative western audience, though in undermining premillenialism he is questioning a big chunk of what underpins USAmerican fundamentalist and dominionist approaches to enagagement with the world. The other thing I warmed to in this book was the way it takes creation seriously and not just the human world.

I found this both inspiring and frustrating. Inspiring to read of people understanding some of the cultural trends of their time and seeking to respond in a way that enables Christians to pray and work in a way that has integrity. My frustration is that the figures chosen clearly inhabited a milieu socially and culturally that is so alien. I don't mean that it is 70 or more years ago but that it is clearly that they come from 'moneyed' backgrounds; the kinds of financial struggles and working lives that characterise my family background are not in view. Though to be fair, at least a couple of the pioneers are somewhat attentive to this. That said, a theme coming through was that of being on the edge of the institutional church and another was of believing ordinary people are worthy of God and capable of relating to God mystically/contemplatively. There is also a theme of expecting discipleship (to use a term largely not used by them /the writers) to be exercised in the everyday and in attention to the poor and marginalised. These are helpful themes to take forward into a post modern age. I'm asking myself whether these pioneers have anything to say to those of us entering the anthropocene -that is the age of climate boiling and environmental collapse. I think that there are some things to take away from them that orient us helpfully. The willingness to attend to and even embrace the marginal, to be suspicious of the vested interests represented by the institutional churches, to recognise that discipleship needs to be whole life in scope. It is also important that they point to an activism rooted in cultivating a love of God and security in God's love. I found Dearmer's appreciation of the aesthetic also personally affirming though I would want to ask questions about how constrained this was, in his case, by an Anglo-Catholicism that might do well to critique its own assumptions about liturgy in the light of social and cultural change. Dearmer's proto-fairtrade approach is commendable -it would be good to add sustainability to his 'fairtrade' liturgical considerations. It would also be good, I think, to reconsider liturgical events in the light of the demands of sustainability and also of the need to recognise and value the natural world and ecosystems that sustain us. Can we not begin to conduct our collective worship in ways that encourage us to embrace creation and live in harmony with it? Will we not need to help people to navigate guilt, complicity, responsibility and frustration? And just as consciousness of sin informed so much of medieval and -in a different way- reformation spirituality, will we not need to respond at the level of catechesis, spiritual accompaniment and liturgy to this recognition of the socially reproduced dimension of wrong that the word 'complicity' serves as a placemarker for? Corporate sin and the way we are suborned or recruited into it -sometimes/often even before we can consent or not to it, will need to be something we can support people in navigating.

I found this in the concluding chapter to be helpful to consider further. "...we Christians are not so good at teaching people how to practise faith, by which I mean, prayer and contemplation, and the work in the world - love of neighbour, and commitment to community and justice - that flows from that foundation of prayer and adopting a rule of life" So, what kind of catechesis does this imply in the Anthropocene?

This is a book for people who are comfortable with learning new stuff, who would like to make and assess links between theology, climate and environmental emergencies and who aren't afraid to consider economic analyses which include socialist takes. All of those things float my boat, so it has been an interesting read for me. It is undertaken with a scholarly meticulousness which is reassuring and yet doesn't become boring. The task of thinking theologically about what is now emerging as a new world paradigm is vital if churches and Christians are to respond well and to be more likely to lean into God's agenda. The danger otherwise is that we will continue to be hoiked along by political and spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly realms.

I warmed to the fact that the title has 'capitalocene' rather than anthropocene. This because I think (as the book says itself in its opening sections) that we have to recognise that the determining force for planetary change over the last couple of hundred years has been driven by capital -that is profit-seeking, oppressive cost cutting and exploitative wage setting if not outright slavery and resource theft. (I keep using in my own head the term 'mammonist' to help ground it in scriptural discourse to some extent.)

I love the ambition of the book: to take in a global view of economics, environment and social conditions and bring these into dialogue with theology in such a way as to help us as Christians to navigate what is taking place. This is actually what we need to be doing to help shape the formative agenda for Christian discipleship for the next couple of generations (and probably/possibly beyond). In my book that latter is the second mark of mission in relation to the third, fourth and fifth and in tandem these enable approaches to the first mark which have a chance of credibility.

I don't think there are easy answers, and they are not offered here. But as a way to help us to analyse and relate to Christian theology, this is a useful book to read and reflect on. I think it will be appearing in some of my bibliographies.

Link-Love Theology in the Capitalocene on Bookshop Joerg Rieger’s Website Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice Website Homebrewed Christianity Interview

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