James Crossley looks at how religion and violence are presented in contemporary English political discourse with reference to the recent controversial rejection of asylum based on the Bible
In America, apocalyptic and millenarian language is most prominently found on the political and Christian right. While hardly absent from the English right, such language is more likely to be utilised on the left. Indeed, the English radical tradition has had a long history of apocalyptic and millenarian thinking, if by those problematic terms we mean the recurring assumptions about dramatic overhaul of society.