Andrew Bradstock – Faith in the Revolution, The Political Theologies of Müntzer and Winstanley
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Andrew Bradstock – Faith in the Revolution, The Political Theologies of Müntzer and Winstanley
[SPCK 1997] buy used at abebooks.co.uk If you use this link to purchase this item breviary stuff will receive 5% commission Voices echoing a revolutionary position have been audible on the margins of the Christian church in every generation. By listening to two of the most prominent revolutionaries in Christian history, Andrew Bradstock aims to discover whether there is any distinctive contribution which Christianity can be said to make to revolutionary theory and practice. His book proceeds by way of an analysis of the life an testimony of Thomas Müntzer (a preacher and pastor of the early Reformation period in Germany, who became embroiled in the Peasants' War of 1525) and of Gerrard Winstanley (leader and main theorist of the Digger Movement in England in the 1640s), who are selected in their capacity as paradigmatic figures. It emerges that not only were millenarian, apocalyptic and utopian concerns central to the thinking of both men, but both hinged the realization of their respective projects on the imminent return of Christ and the restoration of the world to something like a state of prelapsarian perfection. Whether Christianity's eschatological dimension renders it incapable of offering to politics anything other than fantastic, a-historical visions, or whether a more nuanced interpretation of the kingdom points towards a singular and contructive contribution, is the fundamental question which this book seeks to answer. Contents
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