Jesus Wars

 

Jesus Wars – Philip Jenkins

The Jesus Wars was an incredibly satisfying read that managed to suck me deep into the narrative and history.  Strangely, if you were to give me a quiz on all of the people and events after I read this book, I would have failed miserably.  Imagine watching a movie with a lot of action.  Supposed that the movie is very good and well done.  There’s so much action that your inundated with explosions, crashes and other cacophonous elements.  Well, with so much turmoil going on, you the viewer might not be able to distinguish what is happening to whom, but if the story is told well, you’re likely to still be entertained.

That’s a bit how I felt reading this book. Sadly, reading about “Jesus Wars” isn’t necessarily a pleasant subject to read about, but I thought it was fascinating to learn about the times and the people, and how interfaith fighting certainly isn’t anything new.  This book mainly focuses on relevant events in 5^th century Christianity, and how none of the leaders could really agree on anything.  In fact, we see so much conflict that people are killed, alliances are formed and broken, and the church overall becomes weakened to foreign invaders.

We must remember that, unlike today, “Bible reading” wasn’t really in vogue.  Bibles themselves were incredibly rare, the official canon was still being constructed, and the mass majority of people couldn’t even read.  That’s not to say that having more Bible reading would have prevented the bickering.  Those in charge and in the know had the scriptures handy, and just like today, one can unintentionally manipulate the Bible to say whatever we want it to when we perform enough hermeneutical gymnastics.

The biggest conflicts that arise were around the nature of Jesus.  Was Jesus really God?  Or was he just a really neat obedient human?  Was he both? How was that possible?  If both, when did he become God? Was he always God?  If he was God, why did he cry out in pain during his crucifixion?   Now, MOST mainstream Christians today are in agreement on such things, but history shows us this isn’t always the case.  If you want to have some fun, next time you go to church, ask one of the pastors what their thoughts are on “homoousios” vs. “homoiousious”.   My guess is you’ll get a blank, confused stare.

I think this is a shame.  Sometimes I think instead of churches having “small groups” that meet for Bible study, they should meet instead and have “church history” study.  It’s all quite fascinating.  This book would make a great study source.  In fact, I honestly wish I would have spent a careful two months reading this as opposed to two weeks.   It really did warrant a much slower pace with all the people, places, and detail, but I have too many unread books on the shelf that I’m too eager to get to.  In other words, as much as I enjoyed this book, I would have enjoyed it much better with more time to digest the masses of information.  On that note, the author wisely includes a lot of helpful appendices and “casts of characters” to help the reader as they navigate through all the unfamiliarity.

As the subtitle of the book implies, it was several leaders (patriarchs, queens, and emperors) who essentially “decided” what the rest of us all now believe.  Although the author doesn’t spend too much time on the subject, it’s worth serious pondering to ask, does God really care how we look at Jesus?  Let’s say, for example, that Jesus didn’t become fully God until after his baptism as opposed to his birth in the manger.  Should it really matter?   Or was Mary the “mother of God”, or merely the “mother of Christ”.  I mean, Christ IS God; right?   Sadly, as was the case back then, it seems as though there’s too much hair splitting in the church with those pounding their fists insisting they know at all, and not enough love, compassion, and caring, which seems to be the gist of Jesus’s teaching. 

This was a great reading experience, and my hope is that more Christians knew a lot more about their history than what so many of the latter-day pop-culture prophets pontificate about on the various social media platforms.  Christianity really does has a very rich history.