jesus's God

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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 the the Jesus Jesus ]esus who was crucified and raised up, who led the earliest church of the New Testament records, who inspired the persecuted church in the first three centuries. This Radical Jesus got taken over: by the State and the State-supporting church when Christianity became the religion of the Roman empire after AD 312. 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 J esus. Or we tried to. But now the true, original Jesus, the Radical Jesus, is breaking out again.