Great Courses Review: American Religious History

I was very pleased with this series as I began listening to it. Despite what Peirs Morgan says Americans love foreign accents and I really loved listening to Dr. Allit's accent. Religious history is something of a hobby of mine, and I've listened to a lot of the religion and history courses offered by The Great Courses. I was excited when Dr. Allit gave his history about how impressed he was with the religiosity of the US when he came here as a student, and especially when he said he was one of the few observant people in England.

As I said, I do a lot of reading about Christian History. One of my favorite authors on the subject is Rodney Stark. He claims that Christianity in America revitalized Christianity, and I have to agree with him. I was hoping that this might give me some more insight into that. For the first 7 lectures things sounded pretty good. Then he got to Onieda and Mormons.

Now I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints more commonly called Mormons. I don't expect Dr. Allit to know as much about Mormon history as I do because I read a lot about it, and he actually references one of my favorite Mormon authors Richard Bushman. And I know that it's OK to mock the Mormon religion, after all a big hit on Broadway was basically mocking our religion and no one really seemed to care. However, I expected more from a lecture series from The Great Courses.

The LDS Church has an official account of Joseph Smith's First Vision that is considered scripture.  I as a well read in the history of Mormonism know that there are other accounts as well. However, I wondered why Dr. Allit chose not to use the official version, or to at least point out that he was not using the official account. That was a small point but it seems to set the tone. He says that there were rumors of polygamy were being practiced in the Missouri period. Something I've never heard before, and don't think it's true. Then he said a sentence that can only be construed as misleading. He said 6 of the 11 witnesses of the Golden Plates left the Church, and immediately launched into the account of John C. Bennett. The way he said it "I" thought John C. Bennett was one of the witnesses of the Golden Plates. I had to go back an re-listen to the account to make sure I'd heard it right it was such an egregious implication. John C. Bennett is a problem for Mormon history but this presentation was ridiculous. So the main thing about the Mormons is polygamy, and just to make sure that everyone gets the point he reads from Mark Twain's account of the Mormons in "Roughing It". Now I have now problem with Mark Twain's account and it is funny, but I do have a problem when it is used in a lecture course for mocking purposes. I realized that that was how it was being used as I heard his audience laughing at the account. Nothing was said to put it in context. Dr. Allit's point was that some American Religions had strange sexual practices and Onieda and the Mormons were two of them.

OK fair enough I'm used to that. After all I'm a Mormon and I've been on a mission. I've been abused for my religion. I was going to ignore it.

Then he talked about Aimee Semple McPherson as part of the Fundamentalist movement. After he talked about her I thought she was simply a scam artist who was involved sex scandal. The way Dr. Allit talked about it I was sure she was hypocrite. However, since I never had heard of her, I decided to do some research my self. Dr. Allit said that she'd ran away with a technician and was in a love nest with him on the coast of California, while Aimee said she'd been kidnapped and held in Mexico. He didn't say it was alleged that that was what happened but that that was what had happened. I thought she was a scamming slut. However, it turns out that Dr. Allit apparently just likes to present the most salacious case possible religious figures. My research was not in depth, but I did learn that Aimee went to trial twice and was found not guilty over this event. I also found out that the technician she was supposedly with said that he was never with her, and that he turned down a great deal of money that he could have gotten from the tabloids of the time had he said it. He always spoke highly of her. Also, after this event Aimee continued to have a successful ministry. I don't know what Dr. Allit was trying to do with Aimee McPherson but his presentation of her in this lecture was abominable.

After I found that out I just had to let people know just how bad these two presentation were. I don't really have the time to research everything that Dr. Allit says but with these two statements my thoughts are that he is very prejudicial against religious beliefes he doesn't agree with like Mormons and Pentecostals.

Book Review: The Meaning of Jesus

This is a book that is co-written by Marcus Borg and Bishop N. T. Wright. I found it on scribd and was very excited to read it. Marcus Borg is probably my favorite liberal theologian. I disagree with just about everything that he says about Jesus and the Bible, but really like the way that he says we should live our lives as Christians. Bishop N. T. Wright is my favorite conservative Christian theologian. I've read a number of his books.

In the introduction of the book describes how Bishop Wright read a book by Marcus called "Conflict, Holiness, and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus". Bishop Wright sought out Marcus to congratulate him on as well as to explore some "matters arising" and to ask why the book ended as it did rather than in certain other possible ways. A friendship arose out of the fascinating study of Jesus within his historical context. The result of that friendship is this book. It is a book that discusses the different ways that they see Jesus. The book is not meant to be scholarly, and both writers refer readers to other books it the reader is interested.

I first learned about Bishop Wright a few years ago when I learned about NPP, or the New Perspective on Paul. Bishop Wright wrote a book about that called "Paul: In Fresh Perspective." I liked that book and then found that Bishop Wright was a part of the so called "Third Wave of Historical Jesus Studies." Strangely enough Bishop Wright defends the Bible and interprets the historical Jesus as if they Gospels are historically accurate. Reading his interpretation was like a breath of fresh air. Also, his thoughts were deep and his arguments well thought out, not like the general popular treatments, like the execrable books by Lee Strobel.  Although if you like his books I'm not saying that I think they're wrong, just that they're not very scholarly and they make what I feel are stupid arguments.

Basically Marcus takes the general scholarly interpretation of the Gospels and Jesus. In fact Marcus is part of the Jesus Seminar. As far as I can tell the Jesus Seminar thinks that Jesus was a historical figure, but that he didn't perform any miracles and all the miracle stories were made up about him by his followers. They try to go a little more in depth than that, but that's the gist of it, and this is the idea that Marcus defends. He talks about a pre-Easter Jesus and a post-Easter Jesus. He feels by careful study of the Gospel sources, which include the Synoptic Gospels but not John, the so called Q document and the Gospel of Thomas that he can tell what Jesus really did and said, which he calls history remembered, and what his followers made up about Jesus which he calls history metaphorized. However, while I totally disagree with what he says about Jesus and the way the Gospels were created, I really like the way that he teaches that we should live the Christian life.

So here's a great example about what I mean. Marcus doesn't think that there was an empty tomb on Easter morning. The resurrections accounts are history metophorized (made up). However, quoting "My position is that experiences of the risen Christ as a continuing presence generated the claim that 'Jesus lives and is Lord'". Marcus sees the resurrection as a metaphor for the fact that Christ's presence, or resurrection, ought to be a continuing presence in our lives. I agree that Christ's presence should be an ongoing experience in every Christians life, but I also think that it's important that there was an empty tomb.

Because I consider myself a conservative Christian I tend to agree more with Bishop Wright's portrayal of the historic Jesus than I do Marcus'. In fact I think that the ideas that Marcus shares is the reason that the mainline Christian denominations are losing members in droves. However, since Bishop Wright is an Anglican Bishop it's hard to account for him.  It seems to me, as an outsider of the Anglican confession, I think there is a fight for the soul of the Anglican Confession between conservatives and liberal Christians. At least that was the view that I got when the controversy over gay clergy erupted a few years ago. I guess if it's true then Bishop Wright must be in the camp of the conservatives camp.

That being said I enjoyed both of the wrap up chapters that talk about the way that the ideas that were shared should effect the Christian Church and Christian life. That has always been the thing that amazes me about Marcus, I disagree with everything he says except about the way he says that a Christian should live. I guess I could disagree with a few points that he has but overall I very much like what he has to say about living the Christian life.

Marcus agrees with the findings of the critical scholars for the last 200 years as he constantly refrains. He also claims to want to find a Jesus that is able to fit in with the modern world. The question I always wonder about this is does he realize that if he were alive 100 years ago, or 50 years ago the findings of the critical scholars were very much different/mistaken about a lot of things.  Does that mean Marcus would have different views about Jesus depending upon the most current ideas about Jesus Scholarship? That's just something that I can't countenance, a  changeable Jesus, and that is all that critical scholarship gives you is changes.

Here is the state of critical Jesus Scholarship as I understand it. The Gospel of Mark came first. It's the shortest and seems to make the least amounts of claims for Jesus' divinity. Matthew used Mark as a source and expanded it to beef up Jesus' credentials. Luke used Mark and Matthew to again beef up Jesus' credentials. So here's what they're asking people to swallow.

1) Jesus was just another great teacher, or healer or whatever.

2)After he died his followers got together and make up stories so that he would appear to be more fantastic and people would believe that he was the divine Son of God.

However, what these people never answer, and Bishop Wright asks this question, is why would the followers of Jesus ever make this decision? That's not how any other messianic movement, or any other movement, ever works. When the leader is killed after making fantastic claims he is dropped as a movement leader and the followers look for other leaders or disband. Sometimes a leader that accomplishes a lot during his or her lifetime he is honored after their death, but they have to accomplish something, and usually they have many years of leadership under their belt. One recent example of this might be Ronald Reagan who is now a conservative political icon (and probably looks much better in retrospect than he actually was), but he was in politics for over 30 years and rose to the pinnacle of his profession and did things like spearhead an economic resurgence, and rebuilt the military and restored their honor.  Buddha was a religious leader for 30 years and had created a following of monks called the sangha that followed and recorded his teachings.  Mohammad, if he existed, was a military, political leader, and prophets for over 30 years and built up the ummah to follow after him and they recorded his life and teachings. Jesus didn't do anything like that. According to the synoptic gospels he was active for about a year, and in John he was active for maybe 3 years, then he was killed by the Romans as a traitor, by crucifixion the worst thing that could happen to a Jew. Why in the world would anyone follow such a person, especially when, by their own admission, they all scattered after Jesus' death, which is the natural thing to do and to be expected? There is no reason: unless there was a real resurrection, and other miracles to testify of Christ's divinity. Of course since there is no answer, except the obvious that Jesus really was the Son of God and a miracle worker, no one tries to answer it, they just come up with things that could possibly have happened and say this is the best idea that we can come up with and leave it at that.

This is a good book and I would recommend it to anyone interested in two divergent views of Jesus.