hope like mad

Against Rome, Then and Now

January 5, 2009

God & Empire:  Jesus Against Rome, then and Now

by John Dominic Crossan

I find it is best to let the author ask the questions that he will be attempting to answer.  And in God & Empire, John Dominic Crossan raises and addresses three questions for the Christian American:

1. Since the Old Roman Empire crucified our Lord Jesus Christ, how can we be his followers in America as the New Roman Empire?

2. Is our Christian Bible violent or nonviolent - is it actually for or against Jesus’ nonviolent resistance to “this world”?

3. Is Bible-fed Christian violence supporting or even instigating our imperial violence as the New Roman Empire?

This is a strong book that unpacks Roman Imperial thought and what Crossan calls “the normalcy of civilization’s brutality” in the first chapter.  In the second chapter he proposes that “the Christian Bible presents the radicality of a just and nonviolent God repeatedly and relentlessly confronting the normalcy of an unjust and violent civilization.”

Chapter 3 then wrestles with the questions: “Why did Jesus happen when he happened?  Why then?  Why there?”  The answer  Crossan sums up is, “in Jesus, the radicality of God became incarnate, and the normalcy of civilization’s brutal violence (our sins, or better, Our Sin) executed him.”

Chapter 4 is Crossan’s take on Paul and how he took Jesus’ message and “rephrased” it in his own words for the wider world.  This chapter may push your thinking about what Paul’s message was,  but should not be ignored.  His  understanding of Paul’s take on gender, women and resurrection are worth the price of the book.

The section on the book of Revelation was the part I had the had the hardest time with.  Trying to make the great point that faith-based religion has been responsible for much of the violence of our day,  Crossan shows the book of Revelation to be the permission slip that allows for it… thus, rejecting the book.

Overall, it is a good read for anyone who would like to explore the radical nonviolent Jesus and the violent matrix in which he found himself in.  Crossan is well research and an enjoyable read.  However, I do not recommend it for those people who are not willing to think outside the conservative box that they find themselves in.

Favorite Quote:

My proposal is that justice and love are a dialectic - like two sides of a coin that can be distinguished but not separated.  We think of a coin that can be distiguished but not seperated.  We think ourselves as composed of body and soul, or flesh and spirit.  When they are seperated, we have a physical corpse.  Similarly with distributive justice and communal love.  Justice is the body of love, love the soul of justice.  Justice is the flesh of love, love is the spirit of justice.  When they are seperated, we have a moral corpse.  Justice without love is brutality.  Love without justice is banality.