Prisons of Law and Brothels of Religion: William Blake’s Christian Anarchism

In this essay I highlight how Blake can be understood as a Christian anarchist by interpreting the significance of key beliefs and arguments found in his work. I do this by exploring how Blake was opposed to both judicial and moral law thus questioning the authority and rule of king and priest. However, given the theme of this essay I tend to focus more on the moral and priestly angle. To this end my essay consists of two sections. I begin by exploring Blake’s complete mistrust of institutional state religion, along with its establishment of priests who, he maintained, cruelly bound and thus enslaved believers with moral law. And in the next section I examine Blake’s view of Jesus as a transgressor of this law, through the latter’s unique insight concerning the mutual forgiveness of sins that places love and liberty above all else.