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A revolutionary Bible? Thomas Muntzer and Gerrard Winstanley: Roland Boer writes on the Peasants' Revolt and the True Levellers.

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My guess is that most readers of this magazine would find a 'revolutionary Bible' an oxymoron, much like Christian communism or religious secularism. Surely you cannot put that textbook of repression and conservatism in a touching embrace with revolution? But that is exactly what I want to do, even to the point of suggesting that they have often been the closest of friends.

More than one revolutionary has drawn on the Bible for inspiration. Indeed, the list of such revolutionaries is a long one, running through to our own day with the grass roots 'base communities' of liberation theology in South America and Africa. But I will restrict myself to two of my favourite examples: Thomas Muntzer and the Peasants' Revolt in 16th-century Germany and Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers from 17th-century England.

By revolutionary movements I do not mean Christian social thought, the social gospel or social justice movements within religious institutions, nor even those who draw on the Bible for the deeper doctrines of social democracy. However much I regard them as somewhat distant allies on a common front, I would like to invoke the old distinction between reform and revolution. What strikes a deep chord for me are not the various efforts at tinkering with the system, no matter how salutary those efforts might be (William Wilberforce's campaign in the late 18th and early 19th century against slavery in the British Parliament is one of the most momentous achievements), but those movements for whom the Bible provides the motivation for and language of utter change, a sweeping away of the old and constructing the new; in short, revolution.

Thomas Muntzer and the Peasants' Revolt

One of the most famous of biblical revolutionaries would have to be the firebrand Thomas Muntzer, who was in operation for a few years in the early 16th century. I begin with a snippet from one of his sermons:

What a pretty spectacle we have before us now--all the eels and snakes coupling together immorally in one great heap! The priests and all the evil clerics are the snakes, as John, who baptised Jesus, called them, Matthew 3, and the secular lords and rulers are the eels, symbolised by the fishes in Leviticus 11 ... O, my dear lords, what a fine sight it will be when the Lord whirls his rod of iron among the old pots, Psalm 2.

The key biblical text was Daniel 2 with its vision of a massive image with the proverbial feet of clay: the image smashed by a huge stone that itself becomes a mountain. As far as Muntzer was concerned, the message was clear: God is bringing in a heavenly kingdom that will crush all earthly corrupt kingdoms. His audience contained the two princes of Saxony, and the sermon was delivered in Allstedt on 13 July 1524. Muntzer went on to proclaim: 'He to whom all power is given in heaven and on earth is taking the government into his own hands'. The princes, however, did not heed his call to become part of the heavenly kingdom of Daniel 2 and to 'seize the very roots of government, following the command of Christ', so he took things into his own hands, only to come to a grisly end after the fateful battle of Frankenhausen on 15 May 1525. Eight thousand peasants had lined up with him, expecting God to intervene and make their hoes and pitchforks invincible. They were to become the army of the kingdom that 'shall stand forever' (Daniel 2:44). Unfortunately, as is the way of these things, the heavy artillery and trained foot soldiers of the princes prevailed and the peasants were thoroughly routed. Muntzer literally lost his head on 27 May in Thuringia and his head and body were put on display as a warning to all such revolutionaries.

ROLAND BOER writes on the PEASANTS' REVOLT AND THE TRUE LEVELLERS

What is it about Muntzer that makes him a biblical revolutionary? For some he was a religious crackpot, while for others he was the first spark of the...