Harnessing Chaos: The Bible in English Political Discourse Since 1968 (2014) looked at the shifts in political understandings of the Bible in the aftermath of the social and economic changes of the 1960s. The book examined the decline of the Radical bible (i.e. the Bible roughly equated with socialism) in parliamentary politics and the victory of (a modified form of) Thatcher's re-reading of the Liberal Bible tradition, which equated the Bible with rule of law, democracy and tolerance. This showed how Thatcher's Bible was developed by politicians and the significance of Tony Blair's socially liberal qualifications, as well as the Radical Bible's survival outside Parliament and against the backdrop of emerging Thatcherism.

The new, revised edition of Harnessing Chaos includes an additional chapter/postscript on some of the remarkable and unexpected uses of the Bible that happened since 2014. These include David Cameron giving a number of key speeches which intensified Thatcher's Bible, particularly in his justification of his most controversial policy decisions surrounding foodbanks, austerity and ISIS, Ed Miliband engaging with Russell Brand's Radical Bible, and the unpredicted emergence of Jeremy Corbyn, which has seen him and his close allies explicitly use the Radical Bible, in direct disagreement with Thatcher, in his first major speeches. These developments have been, in varying degrees, unpredictable but also vital to understanding the fate of the Bible in contemporary English politics.

James G. Crossley is Professor of Bible, Culture and Politics in Department of Biblical Studies, University of Sheffield, UK. His most recent publications include Jesus in an Age of Neoliberalism: Quests, Scholarship and Ideology (2012).

Introduction
Chapter 1: 'Chaos is a Ladder': A Reception History of the Bible in English Politics

Part I: Experiencing Defeat
Chapter 2: Christopher Hill's World Turned Upside Down
Chapter 3: This Was England: The Similitudes of Enoch Powell

Part II: Thatcherism and the Harnessing of Chaos
Chapter 4: 'Your Arms Are Just Too Short to Box with God': Margaret Thatcher's Neoliberal Bible

Part III: Carriers of Cultural Change
Chapter 5: 'We're All Individuals': When Life of Brian Collided with Thatcherism
Chapter 6: Saving Margaret from the Guillotine: Independent Music in Manchester from the Rise of Thatcher to the Rise of Blair