Jonathan C P Birch teaches in the School of Critical Studies at the University of Glasgow, UK. He is an intellectual historian who specialises in biblical interpretation and Western philosophy.

Chapter One: Introduction.- Chapter Two: Imagining Enlightenment - The Historical and Historiographical Context.- Chapter Three: Overture to a Moral Messiah - God, Goodness, and the Heretical Tendency.- Chapter Four: Material Messiah - Hobbes, Heresy, and a Kingdom Not of This World.- Chapter Five: 'No Spirit No God' - From the Light of Christ to the Age of Enlightenment.- Chapter Six: What Would Jesus Tolerate? - Reason and Revelation in Spinoza, Locke, and Bayle.- Chapter Seven: The Unity of God and the Wisdom of Christ - The Religious Enlightenments of Joseph Priestley and Thomas Jefferson .- Chapter Eight: Postscript and Conclusion.