Radical Prophet: The Mystics, Subversives and Visionaries who Strove for Heaven on Earth

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Christianity began with the conviction that the old order was finished. The mysterious, elusive and charismatic figure of Jesus proclaimed that a new era, the Kingdom of God, was dawning. Yet despite its success, and the conversion of the empire which had executed its founder, the religion he inspired was soon domesticated, its counter-cultural radicalism tamed, as the Church attempted to control both its doctrines and its followers. Christopher Rowland here shows that this was never the whole story. At the margins, around the edges, sometimes off the religious map, the apocalyptic flame of the New Testament continued to burn. In 1649 the Diggers occupied St George's Hill to put the egalitarianism of Christ into practice. 'You must break these men or they will break you', Oliver Cromwell declared of the 'lunaticks'. This book argues that such revolutionaries had divined the true intent of the enigma who threw over the tables of the money-changers: to summon a new epoch - strange, iconoclastic, uncomfortable and otherworldly. It gives full weight to a remarkable strain of radical religion that simply refuses to die. Front Cover Title Copyright Dedication Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Preface Part 1 The Roots of Christian Radicalism Chapter 1 ‘Would to God that all the Lords people were Prophets’ Chapter 2 Heaven on Earth The Roots of Christian Radicalismin the New Testament Part 2 Kairos The Unique Moment and Apocalyptic Discernment Chapter 3 Human Actors in the Divine Drama Chapter 4 Subversive Apocalypse Part 3 Contrasting Radical Prophets Gerrard Winstanley and William Blake Chapter 5 Gerrard Winstanley Responding to a Kairos Moment in English History Chapter 6 ‘From impulse not from rules’ William Blake’s Apocalyptic Pedagogy Part 4 Christian Radicalism in Modernity An Example and a Neglected Perspective Chapter 7 Liberation Theology How to Proclaim God in a World that is Inhumane Chapter 8 Apocalypticism and Millenarian Eschatology Recovering Neglected Strands Epilogue… ‘And here I end’ Concluding Reflections Notes Bibliography General Index Index of Hebrew Bible, Old Testament References and Other Ancient Jewish Sources Index of New Testament References and Other Ancient Christian Sources Back Cover