In 1831, Nat Turner launched a violent slave insurrection in Southampton County, Virginia. In his confession, Turner recounted a spiritual world of revelation, visions, scripture, and signs which led him to revolt against slavery. This book explores the theological principles which created the rebellion in conversation with Old Testament views of prophetic violence and Jesus' politics of violence in the New Testament, proposing that Turner's uniquely Christian violence of the oppressed was also prophetic violence that conformed to the values of freedom, justice, liberation, and equality associated with the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven.

In this unique volume, Lampley analyzes the theology of Nat Turner's violent slave rebellion in juxtaposition with Old Testament views of prophetic violence and Jesus' politics of violence in the New Testament and in consideration of the history of Christian violence and the violence embedded in traditional Christian theology.