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Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire
written by Rita Nakashima Brock, Rebecca Ann Parker
Studio : Beacon Press
by Beacon Press
Publisher : Beacon Press
Released : 2008-07-15
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780807067505
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 11 reviews)
List Price : $34.95
Our Price : $19.92
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Product Description |
When 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! |
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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 2009books.com price, same as the hardbound paper edition.
The notes are so extensive that even an attempt to bookmark/highlight them myself proved too time-consuming and tedious.
I regret I bought the Kindle edition as at this price I probably won't go ahead and buy the paper version after paying[...] for a crippled e version. Shame on the publisher and amazon both for allowing this kind of problem edition to be sold; it can only damage the Kindle & 2009books reputation.
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What Really Happened to Christianity's Message of Love & Compassion |
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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 us to delve into at will. Yet, they structured their book in a way that fully allows us to absorb and reflect on its vast implications as more is revealed. They bring us directly into the re-tracking of a journey gone off-course hundreds of years ago, the result of which has affected every generation since and continues to affect all of us every day. For anyone who has ever struggled with so many incongruencies between compassionate love and the justifications of a modern world that acts against it that glorifies suffering and death, and yet does all this in the same name, this book will bring tremendous relief and healing. Paradise has a local zip code, no matter where you are . . . what a concept! (Better late than never.) My indebted thanks to Brock and Parker for an astoundingly important work. |
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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. |
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Provocative and Original |
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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 through the life-engaging praxis of Jesus (paradise)is what we need to reclaim, and in doing so Christianity is likely to come alive in a whole new way, one which hopefully will contribute to peace and reconciliation in our world, rather than the redemptive violence it has too often generated in the past. |
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Toward Paradise regained |
Normally, I read an entire book before posting about it. But, I am over halfway through reading a fascinating new book, Saving Paradise -- subtitled, How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire, by Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker. You need to read this book. Brock and Parker offer some of the freshest, most exciting insights into the transformation of the Christian church over the past 2,000 years.
Paradise, the authors contend, was the focus of the early church. Paradise was where humanity was created in the image of God. Paradise was the destiny of the people of God -- the land flowing with milk and honey. The psalmists wrote of paradise; and the prophets described the renewed land as paradise restored. The church was the "portal to paradise" and baptism the rite that ushered new converts back into the paradise that sin had lost.
The book overflows with first-through-fourth century historical vignettes depicting how the early church spoke of and anticipated paradise here and in eternity. One of the most fascinating chapters titled, "So Great a Cloud" describes how the early church held sacred dinners at the entrance to the burial places of Christians who had died. They placed a single lit candle in an empty chair, signifying the presence of the deceased in their midst. Based on the Hebrews 12 image of "a great cloud of witnesses" the early church believed that the dead were present with and helped those Christians still in this life. They believed that the resurrection defeated death immediately, not just in the future, and that the veil between this world and the world to come was much thinner than we believe now.
The tone of the book is positive, hopeful, and points us back to a time when the church took seriously and practically the life-giving power of the resurrection. Paradise was the narrative that gave coherence to creation, even in all its sin and short-coming. Paradise, the garden of God, is not only the goal, but the present reality of followers of Christ.
I read a lot of books, as I am sure many of you do. Most books are rehashes of old ideas, maybe with some good stories or clever twists. But, Saving Paradise presents a unique perspective, a fresh encounter with the early church. If the second half of this thick volume (over 500 pages) is as good as the first, then I'm in for a treat for the next couple of days. I'll let you know. - Amicus Dei |
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