Subversive Orthodoxy: Traditional Faith and Radical Commitment

A.J. Pell is rector of Holy Trinity Cathedral in the Diocese of New
Westminster, British Columbia.

The Divinity Associates of Trinity College, Toronto, invited Kenneth
Leech, the noted English Anglican pastor and theologian, to address
their annual conference in May 1991. The three lectures he gave at that
conference make up this small but challenging book.

Subversive Orthodoxy is more than just the title of the volume—it
describes a life of faith for both individual Christians and communities
or congregations of believers. Such a life is “subversive,” Leech
writes, because Christians are called into a critical engagement with
the culture around them; it is “orthodox” because it is rooted in
scripture and sacrament, transcendence and immanence, incarnation and
the mystery of faith in Jesus Christ.

Leech develops his argument against the concrete reality of racism in
British society, particularly London’s East End. He outlines the
various responses to this form of injustice, including legislation that
drastically reduced visible-minority immigration and “social curias”
in the church who belatedly study the issue from afar. Critical of these
inadequate and/or inappropriate responses, he proposes a worldly
spirituality for an unjust society—worldly because it takes injustice
and suffering seriously in practical ways, and spiritual because it
recognizes prayer and sacraments as incarnational sources of and support
for practical action. While initially addressed to Christians within the
Anglican tradition, his message is appropriate for members of all
churches, both as a prod to thinking and as a starting point for
discussion on the role of faith and faithfulness in our changing human
community.