Pirate Theology: Raising Merry Hell & Other Acts of Cultural Heresy

Jesus was a pirate. And those that would follow him are called to a life of piracy as well. Welcome to Season 9 at Nexus, a 40-week odyssey adventure that will take us into the historical, sociological, psychological and theological significance of pirates and piracy!

For many, pirates are the stuff of legend and folklore, Halloween costumes and cheesy Hollywood blockbusters. But the history of actual pirates is more interesting than tales of stealing and burying treasure. The pirates we often think of were mutineers, rebelling against brutal and violent systems of oppression.

Beyond the pirates of the 'Golden Age,’ the spirit of piracy has been around for millennia. Kester Brewin writes, “Pirates emerge whenever economies become 'blocked.' To put it another way, wherever we see piracy we are looking at a system in trouble.” Piracy is about so much more than sailing the high seas and finding treasure. Piracy is about breaking through systems that are blocked; it is about subverting systems that have become hard to access.

Thought of this way, you start to see pirates everywhere in Scripture. In fact, one could argue that Scripture is the story of holy pirates raising merry hell across the ages. And so this season at Nexus is all about exploring the pirates of Scripture and the economies that often feel blocked and hard to access for us today.

Join us as we sail through Scripture, setting anchor briefly in Exodus, Leviticus, Job, Jonah, the lives of Jesus and Paul, as well as Revelation, in order to understand what it might mean for us to engage in holy piracy today. We will also explore specific economies that have become blocked for us: namely, the economies of the ordinary and extraordinary. We will go deep into the routines of our daily lives in order to help rescue the ordinary from the mundane and dreary. Our season will also have us pirating the extraordinary miracles we find in Jesus’ life that we are so often tempted to write off or ignore.

And so, welcome to Season 9. The time is now for the pirate voice of Scripture to stir us towards raising merry hell and other acts of cultural heresy.