| Subject: Re: Books for Religious Liberals |
Author:
XOX
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Date Posted: 12:47:58 08/04/04 Wed
In reply to:
Liberal
's message, "Books for Religious Liberals" on 04:10:02 07/08/04 Thu
Stealing Jesus : How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity
by BRUCE BAWER
ISBN: 0609802224
Review:
In 300-odd pages, Bruce Bawer has opened a floodgate of incisive religious criticism that will reverberate across the American political scene. He has put into eloquent and decisive language what many mainline Christians and non-Christians have quietly suspected but been unable to verbalize--namely that Fundamentalist Christianity is barely Christian at all. A Baptist theologian says he is "not interested in who Jesus was." Pat Robertson argues the Golden Rule as Jesus's justification that "individual self-interest is being a very real part of the human makeup, and something not necessarily bad or sinful." In page after page, Bawer reveals a so-called Fundamentalist movement that readily displays a blatant disregard for the most salient message of the Gospels: selfless love and service to all. As for the significance of this revelation in the face of the ballooning presence of Fundamentalist Christians in American politics, readers will have to decide for themselves.
Customer review:
If you are a Christian, what do you believe? There are as many different answers to this as there are Christians. Personally, I've long felt that, to call yourself a Christian, all you really need to subscribe to are the Apostles' Creed and the Ten Commandments, and even certain points within those are open to debate. (Even such a straightforward commandment as, "Thou shalt not kill"; does that include soldiers during wartime? Quakers, Jehovah's Witnesses and the Amish think so, but most other denominations disagree.) But as Bruce Bawer warns us, there are always those who would try to dictate what all Christians should believe, and in America today such people--as represented by what Bawer calls "legalistic" Christians, of the ilk of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and James Dobson--are in the ascendant. In "Stealing Jesus," a bracing and compulsively readable book, Bawer demonstrates that fundamentalist doctrines--which its adherents claim are traditional Christianity in its purest form--in fact were not formulated until the early 19th century, or codified until publication of the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909. The Scofield Reference Bible, for those unfamiliar with it, emphasizes and annotates those portions of Scripture that fundamentalists interpret as setting forth the coming of the End Times, the Rapture and specific prescriptions for personal salvation. Those passages stressing Christ's message of love, community and selfless service to others are pointedly ignored. As Bawer sees it, the spiritual war in America is one between the Church of Law, which stresses salvation for the few true believers and damnation for everyone else, and the Church of Love, which stresses the need to follow Christ's teachings and emulate His example. Bawer shows in convincing detail that through vicious political inflghting, the Church of Law has gained such ascendancy in the U.S. today that when the mass media refer to Christianity, they always mean fundamentalism. Even worse, the agenda of the fundamentalists often has little or nothing to do with faith, and often is shockingly racist, misogynistic and homophobic. "Stealing Jesus" sounds an important warning to those Christians who don't want the world to think Pat Robertson speaks for them. Even more, it challenges lukewarm and devout Christians alike to think about their faiths, clarify their own beliefs and stand up for them; it may also serve to show some secular humanists that it's possible to give your heart to Jesus without sacrificing your mind.
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