Harnessing Chaos

Harnessing Chaos is an explanation of changes in dominant politicized assumptions about what the Bible 'really means' in English culture since the 1960s. James G. Crossley looks at how the social upheavals of the 1960s, and the economic shift from the post-war dominance of Keynesianism to the post-1970s dominance of neoliberalism, brought about certain emphases and nuances in the ways in which the Bible is popularly understood, particularly in relation to dominant political ideas. This book examines the decline of politically radical biblical interpretation in parliamentary politics and the victory of (a modified form of) Margaret Thatcher's re-reading of the liberal Bible tradition, following the normalisation of (a modified form of) Thatcherism more generally. The new paperback edition features an additional chapter on some of the remarkable and unexpected uses of the Bible that have arisen since first publication of the book in 2014.
These include: David Cameron giving a number of key speeches which intensified Thatcher's Bible, especially in relation to his government's decisions regarding foodbanks, austerity and ISIS; Ed Miliband engaging with Russell Brand's Radical Bible; and the non-predicted emergence of Jeremy Corbyn and his use of the Radical Bible. These developments are all vital to understanding the fate of the Bible in contemporary English politics, and Crossley's original conclusion musing on why politicians use the Bible at all is here expanded and revised to incorporate the new changes in the past eighteen months.