6.3 Crossan (2007)
Crossan, John Dominic (2007) God & Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now. New York: HarperSanFrancisco.
Quick Look
Author
John Dominic Crossan is professor emeritus at De Paul University. He is widely regarded as the foremost historical Jesus scholar of our time. In the last forty years he has written twenty-five books on the historical Jesus, earliest Christianity, and the historical Paul. Five of them have been national religious bestsellers for a combined total of twenty-four months. The scholarly core of his work is the trilogy from The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (1991) through The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Jesus (1998), to In Search of Paul: How Jesus’s Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom, co-authored with the archaeologist Jonathan L. Reed (2004). His work has also been translated into twelve foreign languages, including Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Russian. He is served as President of the Society of Biblical Literature for 2011-2012. I've also reviewed on this site Crossan's Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts (2001) (see 4.2), The Greatest Prayer: Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of the Lord's Prayer (2010) (see 6.8),The Challenge of Jesus (DVD Set and Resource Guide) (2011) (see 4.14), The Power of Parable: How Fiction By Jesus Became Fiction About Jesus (2012) (see 4.12), How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian: Struggling With Divine Violence From Genesis Through Revelation (2015) (see 4.18). |
This Resource’s Key Interpretations and Insights Related to the Purposes of This Website
Crossan provides a Christian utopian grounding for healthy politics, a major paradigm shift in how to view the healthy and unhealthy aspect of the Bible and a Christian critique of the American Empire.
Many consider John Dominic Crossan to be the premiere historical Jesus scholar of his generation. I consider this book by this postmodern liberal/progressive biblical scholar to be the best guide to his comparison and critique of the Roman and American empires and (what I take to be) his utopian vision of Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom of God as an alternative.
Crossan provides a Christian utopian grounding for healthy politics, a major paradigm shift in how to view the healthy and unhealthy aspect of the Bible and a Christian critique of the American Empire.
Many consider John Dominic Crossan to be the premiere historical Jesus scholar of his generation. I consider this book by this postmodern liberal/progressive biblical scholar to be the best guide to his comparison and critique of the Roman and American empires and (what I take to be) his utopian vision of Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom of God as an alternative.
- Crossan explains why it's impossible to understand the historical Jesus and his Kingdom of God movement without a good grasp of what he calls the "matrix" (not the "context") within which they are closely interwoven.
- Crossan provides a biblically grounded Christian utopian vision that provides a deep faith foundation for healthy social, economic, and political thought and actions. For me, this theological vision would be strengthened by the addition of a good philosophical understanding of the interrelationship between utopias and ideologies as well as an acceptance of Just War Theory as part of a valid Christian justification of limited uses of violence as history moves closer to the utopian goal.
- The author argues for a striking paradigm shift in biblical interpretation, which better explains both the healthy and unhealthy influences the Christian Bible has had on our nation and the world.
- This book is a powerful Christian theological critique of the American Empire. For me, this critique would be stronger if it included an account of the healthy, secular republican virtues which still inspire many Americans politically.
- Crossan uses two helpful sets of distinctions of various kinds of power in his critique of empires. For me, recognition of a few more kinds of power are necessary to adequately differentiate between healthy and unhealthy faith and politics.
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Quotes from Text
"In the challenge of Christian faith, we are called to cooperate in establishing the Kingdom of God in a transformed earth." (242)
"Again and again throughout the biblical tradition, God's radical vision for nonviolent justice is offered, and again and again we manage to mute it back into the normalcy of violent injustice...that struggle is depicted inside the Bible itself. That is its integrity and its authority. If the Bible were only about peace through victory, we would not need it. If it were only about peace through justice, we would not believe it." (94)
"Justice without love is brutality. Love without justice is banality." (190)
"In the challenge of Christian faith, we are called to cooperate in establishing the Kingdom of God in a transformed earth." (242)
"Again and again throughout the biblical tradition, God's radical vision for nonviolent justice is offered, and again and again we manage to mute it back into the normalcy of violent injustice...that struggle is depicted inside the Bible itself. That is its integrity and its authority. If the Bible were only about peace through victory, we would not need it. If it were only about peace through justice, we would not believe it." (94)
"Justice without love is brutality. Love without justice is banality." (190)
Endorsements
This quote on the hardback book jacket by Jon Meacham (author of American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the making of a Nation) points out the significant and timely topics dealt with in this book: “Whether one agrees or disagrees with Crossan’s argument, there is no disputing that he has raised essential questions provocatively and clearly. This is an import book, for it touches on themes that are, as Augustine said, ‘ever ancient, ever new’: the connection between religion and politics, between spiritual faith and temporal power, between our best and our worst instincts.” (my emphases)
This quote on the hardback book jacket by Jon Meacham (author of American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the making of a Nation) points out the significant and timely topics dealt with in this book: “Whether one agrees or disagrees with Crossan’s argument, there is no disputing that he has raised essential questions provocatively and clearly. This is an import book, for it touches on themes that are, as Augustine said, ‘ever ancient, ever new’: the connection between religion and politics, between spiritual faith and temporal power, between our best and our worst instincts.” (my emphases)
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