The Transition Movement for Churches: A prophetic imperative for today

By Timothy Gorringe

The Transition Town Movement is a fast growing social movement with hundreds of local groups which aims to prepare communities for the impact of peak oil and climate change. Many Christians are involved already, but this is the first book to equip local churches to engage with the movement towards greater simplicity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Canterbury Press
• Release date: Nov 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781848255296

Book preview

Transition Movement for Churches

Transition Movement for Churches

Tim Gorringe

and

Rosie Beckham

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© Tim Gorringe and Rosie Beckham 2013

First published in 2013 by the Canterbury Press Norwich

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, Canterbury Press.

The Authors have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this Work

Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1946, 1952 and 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

978 1 84825 507 4

Typeset by Regent Typesetting, London

Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon

Contents

Foreword

List of Illustrations

1. Transition Towns

2. The NAME

3. The Way

4. Serving Creation

5. The Human One

6. A Domination Free Order

7. The Long Road to Freedom

8. Praise

9. Hope and Despair

Resources

Foreword

This book is one of the outcomes of a two-year Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded research project on ‘the values which support constructive social change’. We are grateful to the Research Council, as to our local Transition groups – Exeter, Ottery St Mary and Crediton – for their help in the project. Readers familiar with Ton Veerkamp’s work will recognize how indebted we are to him, and we gladly acknowledge that.

Tim Gorringe

Rosie Beckham

List of Illustrations

The publisher and authors acknowledge with thanks permission to use copyright owners’ photographs. Every effort has been made to contact the sources of photographs and we would be grateful to be informed of any omissions. Wikimedia Commons images are used by a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licence.

In order of appearance:

Transition Wilmslow: orchard volunteers planting.

http://bethechange2012.com.

Tooting Transition poster by Susan Rentoul Designs.

The Atmos Project, Totnes. Transition Totnes is seeking to redevelop a derelict site as a hub for firms that give priority to technologies that reduce carbon emissions and aim to source their products and services from the local economy. ‘Atmos’ is taken from Brunel’s atmospheric railway, which originally ran to Totnes. Photo by David Pearson.

The Real Food Store, Exeter’s first community-owned food store. Photo by Fleur Colvile.

Solar panels on the church roof of St Mary’s in Hinckley, Leicestershire.

‘Broadland Winter Afternoon’ by Carry Akroyd, www.carryakroyd.co.uk.

Taunton Transition Town. Photo by Victoria Briggs, Creative Commons.

Community garden in Oakland, California, the Christian Science Monitor.

www.verticalveg.co.uk. Photo by Sarah Cuttle.

Transition Worthing.

Transition Crystal Palace. Photo by Guy Milnes.

Transition India.

Transition Westcliff-on-Sea.

Transition Canterbury poster by [e-mail].

St Vincent de Paul with the poor at table, http://sustainabledepaul.blogspot.co.uk.

Transition Pittsburgh.

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1. Transition Towns

The slogan of the World Social Forum for the past decade has been ‘Another World is Possible’. The Indian novelist Arundhati Roy says of this, ‘Not only is it possible, I can already hear it growing …’¹

The World Social Forum networks the movements of almost 1,500 people and NGOs from around the world. It represents the hopes, aspirations and protests of what anthropologist David Graeber calls ‘the 99%’. The Transition Town Movement is part of this great movement for hope and change, which seeks to articulate and realize another vision of the world than that proposed by the World Bank, the IMF, the great corporations, and most governments.

The Transition Town Movement now has nearly 400 initiatives in Britain and more than 900 worldwide, based in cities, towns and villages in 34 countries including the United States, Australasia and Japan. All over the world Transition groups are organizing practical projects to grow food, start renewable energy projects, build local homes, and re-think local economies. Examples are the Community Energy project in Lewes, East Sussex, which has covered the roof of the local brewery with photo voltaics (Solar PV), and will plough back profits into more renewable energy; and the Bath and West Community Energy group, which has done the same to local schools and is raising £5 million for more projects. Among groups working on food is a Community Supported Agriculture project in Norwich, growing food locally for local people; and the community-owned local food shop in Slaithwaite, West Yorkshire, which aims to ‘declare independence from the global food system’. And in terms of the economy, there is the introduction of local currencies in Brixton, London and Bristol, which helps keep cash in the local economy, instead of leaching out to the big corporations, to be invested in tax havens.

The Transition story started in Kinsale in Ireland, when Rob Hopkins, a permaculture teacher, showed his students a film called ‘The End of Suburbia’, which