TY  - BOOK
AU  - Rowland,Christopher
TI  - Radical prophet: the mystics, subversives and visionaries who strove for heaven on Earth 
SN  - 9781784532659
AV  - BR115.P7 R83 2017
U1  - 261.7 R796R 23
PY  - 2017///
CY  - London
PB  - I.B. Tauris
KW  - Radicalism
KW  - Religious aspects
KW  - Christianity
KW  - Christianity and politics
KW  - Levellers
KW  - Great Britain
KW  - History
KW  - 17th century
KW  - Commonwealth and Protectorate, 1649-1660
N1  - Includes bibliographical references (pages 197-213) and indexes; Part 1. The roots of Christian radicalism -- 'Would to God that all the Lords people were prophets' -- Heaven on earth: the roots of Christian radicalism in the New Testament -- Part 2. Kairos: the unique moment and apocalyptic discernment -- Human actors in the divine drama -- Subversive apocalypse -- Part 3. Contrasting radical prophets: Gerrard Winstanley and William Blake -- Gerrard Winstanley: responding to a kairos moment in English history -- 'From impulse not from rules': William Blake's apocalyptic pedagogy -- Part 4. Christian radicalism in modernity: an example and a neglected perspective -- Liberation theology: how to proclaim God in a world that is inhumane -- Apocalypticism and millenarian eschatology: recovering neglected strands -- Epilogue: '... And here I end': concluding reflections
N2  - "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"--Book jacket
ER  -