Radical Prophet - The Mystics, Subversives Visionaries Who Foretold End of World

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.

About the author

Christopher Rowland is the Dean Ireland Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture, Queen's College, Oxford.

Product details

• Authors: Christopher Rowland, Christopher Rowland, Rowland Christopher
• Publisher: Tauris, I.B.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.09.2017
• EAN: 9781784532659
• ISBN: 978-1-78453-265-9
• No. of pages: 256
• Dimensions: 142 mm x 218 mm x 20 mm
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; History of Ideas, HISTORY / World, RELIGION / Christianity / General, RELIGION / Cults, Religion: general, Christianity, Literary studies: general, General and world history, Mind, body, spirit: thought and practice, Revolutionary groups and movements, Christian and quasi-Christian cults and sects, HISTORY / Revolutions, Uprisings & Rebellions, Religious and theocratic ideologies and movements