Andrew Bradstock, Christopher Rowland - Radical Christian Writings: A Reader

Within the Christian church, a consistent radical and concurrently political strain was developed over the centuries. That strain has two chief characteristics: it centers on Jesus as understood by the New Testament authors and by the early church, and it criticizes the "false" religions in which faith gets thin while theater gets thick. This radical strain is also political in that it requires Christians to subject the practices of the world to the Politics of the Kingdom. Its followers and founders, who range from the apologist Justin to feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, produced a theology of plain speaking in their homes and on the streets rather than in the universities. Bradstock (United Reformed Church, London) and Rowland (Queen's Coll., Univ. of Oxford) have assembled the writings of 63 radical Christian authors from the second through the 20th centuries. Some are theologians of greater or lesser renown, others are social activists, still others are poets and essayists. Although many of the cited authors have appeared in other anthologies, the organization and diversity of this work make it fairly distinctive. Recommended for seminary and academic libraries.