Page Text: Peter E Harter
· June 12, 2019
E. P. Thompson’s Witness Against the Beast is a very important book for anyone trying to practice Blake’s Christianity (which is the real kind), and understand his tradition. His tradition is the English tradition of Dissent. Dissent is distinct from protest, and to be a dissident is different than being merely protestant. Blake’s Christianity is not different from that practiced by John Bunyan. They belong to the same tradition. He was an advocate for the apostolic simplicity of Christianity and practiced Christianity as a system of ethics instead of as a dogmatic set of rituals. Blake was not a bible purist. The real Christianity predates the bible. The bible may contain distortions that Christ did not intend. Blake read the Bible in what he called its diabolical sense, and so should we.