What does the future hold for the Bible? In this provocative and powerfully argued Manifesto, Roland Boer voices his fear that, unless action is taken, the Bible will become the sole preserve of the conservative political and religious groups who have appropriated this sacred text for their own ends. But it hasn't always been that way. Boer also traces the Bible's long history as a source of inspiration for radical and revolutionary movements and then issues a rallying call for contemporary radicals and revolutionaries to maintain and uphold that tradition. Only then, he argues, can the Bible be rescued from its most systematic abusers: the church, the synagogue and the state.

Roland Boer is Reader in the Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies at Monash University in Australia. He has written seven books on biblical, political and philosophical subjects.