Blake was the first, what shall I say, genius, the imagination, whatever we want to call him, to discover what I call the apocalyptic Jesus, the Jesus who proclaimed and enacted the Kingdom of God. Blake discovered that it wasn’t known in his own time. Also, Blake was the first one to enact the death of God, and he enacted the death of the absolutely sovereign God, the God who is ruler, the God who is Lord. He enacts the death of God, the death of that God to make possible the renewal of Jesus and the renewal of an apocalypse which Jesus embodied. William Blake does this. So, he’s an extraordinarily important figure. I just think there’s no question about that. So, Blake is in a sense my god. That’s — of course, I don’t mean that literally, but nevertheless I am a Blakean.

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