by Rita Nakashima Brock, Rebecca Ann Parker
from Beacon Press
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Editorial ReviewWhen Rita Brock and Rebecca Parker began traveling the Mediterranean world in search of art depicting the dead, crucified Jesus, they discovered something that traditional histories of Christianity and Christian art had underplayed or sought to explain away: it took Jesus Christ a thousand years to die.
During their first millennium, Christians filled their sanctuaries with images of Christ as a living presence in a vibrant world. He appears as a shepherd, a teacher, a healer, an enthroned god; he is an infant, a youth, and a bearded elder. But he is never dead. When he appears with the cross, he stands in front of it, serene, resurrected. The world around him is ablaze with beauty. These are images of paradise--paradise in this world, permeated and blessed by the presence of God.
But once Jesus perished, dying was virtually all he seemed able to do.
Saving Paradise offers a fascinating new lens on the history of Christianity, from its first centuries to the present day, and asks how its early vision of beauty evolved into one of torture. In tracing the changes in society and theology that marked the medieval emergence of images of Christ crucified, Saving Paradise exposes the imperial strategies embedded in theologies of redemptive violence and sheds new light on Christianity's turn to holy war. It reveals how the New World, established through Christian conquest and colonization, is haunted by the loss of a spiritual understanding of paradise here and now.
Brock and Parker reconstruct the idea that salvation is paradise in this world and in this life, and they offer a bold new theology for saving paradise. They ground justice and peace for humanity in love for the earth and open a new future for Christianity through a theology of redemptive beauty.
"Only rarely is a single book an event. This book is such a rarity. Rita Brock and Rebecca Parker show that solid scholarship can be expressed with passion and literary grace as they recover the beauty of an earth-loving Christianity lost for a thousand years beneath dry creeds and formulae and poisonous myths of sacralized violence."
--Professor Daniel C. Maguire, author of A Moral Creed For All Christians
"Every Christian theologian and preacher should read this book and be profoundly challenged."
--Professor James H. Cone, author of Malcolm & Martin & America
"Saving Paradise challenges us to recover an ancient world view which is life transforming and earth affirming. It reminds us of a biblical perspective which does not reserve paradise for the dead, but invites the living to find grace, justice, peace and compassion--here and now--amid the jangling discords of violence and war. It may mark the beginning of a paradigm shift in contemporary Christian understanding and interfaith dialogue."
--Reverend James A. Forbes, Jr., President and Founder of the Healing of the Nations Foundation, Senior Minister Emeritus of the Riverside Church of New York City
"The message of Early Christian art is about God's miraculous intervention in the daily lives of Christian believers. How then did Christianity become a religion of finitude and guilt rather than one of promise and celebration? Brock and Parker ran with the evidence, showing us the importance of art, ritual, devotional practices, and liturgical space for early Christians. This tangible past transformed their research and led them to see that paradise in this world lies at the heart of Christianity."
--Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, author of Dictionary of Christian Art
"This powerful, unprecedented, and compelling book brings real Christianity out of the shadows. It lights up the religious roots of American society at a time when progressives need to challenge conservative politicians who use Christianity as a false prop for their ideology."
--George Lakoff, author of Don't Think of an Elephant!
Customer Reviews:
- Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
- About the Kindle e-book edition
A worthwhile examination of violence and overemphasis on the afterlife as problems for Christianity. Recommended.
However, re: the Kindle edition
One quarter of this book is the extensive notes, and yet they are not hyperlinked in the Kindle edition. This is a major problem for an e-book, and especially one of this length for which you are being essentially charged full regular Amazon.com price, same as the hardbound paper edition.
The notes are so extensive that even an attempt to... more info
- What Really Happened to Christianity's Message of Love & Compassion
With all due respect to the reviewer, G. Hubbell, and certainly to his/her right to freely share his/her point of view, I am mystified how anyone living today, and especially in contemporary North America, could come away from "Saving Paradise" with anything short of its recognition as a masterwork. Opinions aside, Brock and Parker leave little room for question regarding the robustness and voracity of their research, making available citations and notes for all source materials at the back of the book for... more info
- Tedious
This book proves that ten thousand words can't make a picture.
I was captivated by the central thought, then perplexed when it got lost in ramblings and even outdated feminist rhetoric. Some of the tidbits are interesting, however.
I only recommend this book to readers who have sufficient time and willpower to dig through the chaff. I did. Nothing inspirational, though.
- Provocative and Original
This is one of the most original and thought-provoking books I have ever read. The research is thorough,insightful and original. It raises some enormous questions for Christian theology, with special implications for Atonement theories. So much emphasis has been put on salvation through the death of Jesus, and the greater the torture, the higher the reward. Brock and Parker invite us to a radically different viewpoint, one that clearly has historical rationale, as their research highlights. Salvation... more info
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