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This book aims to unpack the core message of the Labour Church and question the accepted views of the movement by pursuing an alternative way of analysing its history, significance and meaning. The religious influences on late-nineteenth/early-twentieth-century British Socialism are examined and placed within a wider context, highlighting a continuing theological imperative for the British Labour movement. The book argues that the most distinctive feature of the Labour Church was Theological Socialism. For its founder, John Trevor, Theological Socialism was the literal Religion of Socialism, a post-Christian prophecy announcing the dawn of a new utopian era explained in terms of the Kingdom of God on earth; for members of the Labour Church, who are referred to as Theological Socialists, Theological Socialism was an inclusive message about God working through the Labour movement. Challenging the historiography and reappraising the political significance of the Labour Church, this book will be of interest to students and scholars researching the intersection between religion and politics, as well as radical left history and politics more generally.

In recent years, more and more Christians have come to appreciate the Bible's teaching that the ultimate blessed hope for the believer is not an otherworldly heaven; instead, it is full-bodied participation in a new heaven and a new earth brought into fullness through the coming of God's kingdom. Drawing on the full sweep of the biblical narrative, J. Richard Middleton unpacks key Old Testament and New Testament texts to make a case for the new earth as the appropriate Christian hope. He suggests its ethical and ecclesial implications, exploring the difference a holistic eschatology can make for living in a broken world.