Books by Mark Lewis Taylor

The Executed God is a searing indictment of the structures of Lockdown America and a visionary statement of hope. Outlining a theatrics of state terror, Taylor documents the instrumentsmass incarceration, militarized police tactics, surveillance, torture, immigrant suppression, and capital punishmentthrough which Lockdown America enforces global neoliberal economic and political imperialism. Against this, Taylor proposes a counter-theatricsthe way of the crossthat unmasks the powers of state control and enacts an adversarial politics of resistance and dramatic actiona Christian politics of remembering the Jesus executed by empire.

Princeton theologian Mark Taylor here looks at the influence and stance of the right-wing Christian movement in the U.S. He questions its religious authenticity, its claim to be called Christian, and the ethical stands it has taken in national politics of the last ten years. The heart of Taylor's argument is Jesus himself. Using the latest New Testament scholarship on the historical Jesus and his tactic in relation to the Roman Empire, Taylor argues that Jesus' life and work and message are inherently political and driven by the need to show God's love for the poor, condemnation of the oppressor, and search for a reign of justice. These Christian hallmarks, Taylor asserts, stand as a critical corrective to a distorted Christianity that often dominates the U.S. political scene today.