1
WHY THIS BOOKLET?
Radical J esus Manifesto may seem to be a pret+'y irrelevant booklet to produce in the 1980's. We admit that there are many pictures
of
Jesus
put by churches, politicians, clergy, which indeed are irrelevant. But not, we think, the Radical picture. The Radical Jesus is, we claim, the historical Jesus, the.lesus as he really was, the Jesus who was crucified and raised up, the Jesus who led the earliest church of the New Testament records, the ]esus who inspired the persecuted church in the first three centuries. Jesus got taken over: by the State and the State-supporting church when Christianity became the religion of the Roman empire after AD 312.
This Radical
When Jesus bccame
a supporter of lhe status quo rather than its critic a personal comfort rather than a radical challenge a prisoner of churches rather than a person for everyone a pious kindly adviser rather than an angry reforming leader
Christians domesticated Or we tried to.
J
esus.
But now the true, original the Radical Jesus,
is breaking out again.
Jesus,
