God and Empire
by John Dominic Crossan
This book explains how, once Jesus comes into the story, the temptation to violence reasserts itself. Crossan gives us the Christian elaboration of the Jewish faith, but also shows how, especially once the Empire embraces Christianity, the Christian faith betrays itself.
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“The tragedy, and the manifestation that Jerusalem is always the place where violence comes back, is that the followers of Jesus embraced their own violence against the Jewish people. Coming out of the revelation of Christianity, we have a religion of peace that immediately begins to violently scapegoat the Jewish people. That is the original sin of Christianity. It plants the horrible seeds of anti-Semitism, which will ultimately, across the centuries, lead to savage violence against the Jewish people, often in the name of Jesus. Which is a profound betrayal of Jesus himself, who was, of course, always and only a Jew. So Crossan’s book gives us the Christian elaboration of the Jewish faith, but also shows how, especially once the Empire embraces Christianity, the Christian faith betrays itself.” Read more...
James Carroll, Memoirist
