Fascinating review of a book that shows how Jesus has been used -- not just today -- but for centuries, to suit the purposes of the times.
http://www.theooze.com/articles/article.cfm?id=974American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon Prothero is the chair of the Department of Religion at Boston University and his book, subtitled "How the Son of God Became A National Icon," is a fascinating study of how the identity of Jesus has morphed through American history. As a scholar and historian, Protheros' painstaking research paints an often hilarious, sometimes painfully convicting picture of how our nation has sliced, diced, molded and re-shaped God the Son into everything but the savior of sinful man.
The book begins with a scathing chapter on Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and architect of the First Amendment. Any casual reading of Jefferson and his writings reveal that he was not a Christian but a deist. He viewed Jesus as "the first of human Sages" and labels the writers of the four gospels as "the most unlettered and ignorant of men." Jefferson took it upon himself to discover the true historical Jesus. It was his mission to wade through the tenets of the faith that had been corrupted, in his mind, by "the metaphysical abstractions of Athanasius and the maniac ravings of Calvin" to discover the true teachings of Jesus. He did this by taking a razor to the King James Version of the New Testament eliminating anything that he thought reeked of corruption. The result of his hatchet job was a Jesus who was a great moral teacher and example but definitely not God. Many of the founding fathers apparently shared his opinion of Jesus being less than deity. In today's political climate of culture wars, family values, republicans vs. democrats, red states and blue states one has to wonder if all the current talk of "re-claiming America for Christ" and the view that "America was founded a Christian nation" is a reality or a foolish pipe dream. Could it possibly be that many who identify with what is today labeled the religious right are longing for an era that never existed? Regardless of your presuppositions or conclusions, this chapter is a compelling read.
What follows in Prothero's book is a systematic analysis of how Jesus has become a modern day version of the Greek god Proteus, conveniently morphing and changing into whatever image is created for him. The Great Awakening and the influence of revivalist preachers like John Wesley re-scripted Jesus as more of a "friend" and less "the crucified and risen Lord." The God-fearing Calvinist Puritans, obsessed (in Prothero's words) with being God-fearing rather than Jesus-loving, were replaced by Arminian pietists who viewed Christ as more loving than wrathful and angry. Through this time, religion became more individualistic and less corporate. Theologically strong hymns like "Before Jehovah's Awful Throne" (1719) were replaced by more tender hymns like "What A Friend We Have in Jesus" (1855).
The natural response to this softer effeminate Jesus was a push for a more masculine Jesus.
Christianity was viewed, for the most part, as a religion for women. In the late 19th-century, church membership was only 28 percent male. By 1910, U.S. churches were only one-third male. In The Virility of Christ , published in 1915, author Warren Conant protested against artists who "subjoin a silky, curly beard to a woman's face and hair and label it 'The Christ'" Instead he offered a vision of a "Fighting Christ" with "big lung capacity" and the "free swinging stride of the mountaineer." Men of the industrial age would "demand a strenuous Christ." Prothero's examination of this battle for the male/female Christ is fascinating in light of the church's continuing struggle and failure to proclaim the distinctly masculine God revealed in the scriptures. In the wake of the radical feminism of the 1960's and 70's the church is still scrambling to figure out how to define roles of the sexes and how to faithfully proclaim God as a male.
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