Garry Wills - a Catholic American tells us about the Jesus he knows

just started reading this Garry Wills book, "What Jesus Meant." . He is a Catholic some of whose writings and other pronouncements are, in some part, a critique of American politics and American Christianity (including his own Catholic Church), and the unholy blending of the two.

This book is about Jesus and so far any criticism of the church is on the oblique side of the ledger. You may not like the portrait he paints but he is thought-provoking.


Garry Wills is professor emeritus of history at Northwestern University USA - follow this link to a site that will tell you more about him. "http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/wills_garry.html"


Some quotes from something he wrote that's on line a the New York Post.... (see link below)

"The Jesus of the Gospels is not a great ethical teacher like Socrates, our leading humanitarian. He is an apocalyptic figure who steps outside the boundaries of normal morality to signal that the Father's judgment is breaking into history. His miracles were not acts of charity but eschatological signs — accepting the unclean, promising heavenly rewards, making last things first."

"It was blasphemous to say... that God made George Bush president in 2000, when a majority of Americans did not vote for him. It would not remove the blasphemy for Democrats to imply that God wants Bush not to be president. Jesus should not be recruited as a campaign aide. To trivialize the mystery of Jesus is not to serve the Gospels."

"Some may think that removing Jesus from politics would mean removing morality from politics. They think we would all be better off if we took up the slogan *"What would Jesus do?"

"The institutional Jesus of the Republicans has no similarity to the Gospel figure. Neither will any institutional Jesus of the Democrats".


ref: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/opinion/09wills.html

or http://www.here-now.org/shows/2006/03/20060314_2.asp
(a radio interview with Gary Wills for which you will need realplayer (you can download it for free- just google it).

His book (and I've not read much of it yet) is very readable and an interesting perspective on Jesus. I don't get any great sense of Jesus' continuity with the O.T. and the prophets from Mr Wills as I have with NT Wright. Wills speaks of the historical Jesus as a construct, and then seems to put that Jesus aside, and then examines what the Gospels say about Jesus and what Jesus says within the Gospels. He makes no attempt to re-construct the construct though he does quote Wright in a couple of places.

His translations of the the Gospel passages he refers to are interesting, even arresting. He doesn't us any one of the translations available to we mere mortals, but rather does his own translations directly for the Greek (and Aramaic?).

Hope someone out there finds this interesting. Email me if you do! Maybe I'll feed you some more stuff about/from the book as I go.


Richard

*Emmylou Harris wants to promote "What would Bob (Dylan) Do?" especially among songwriters

Prayer as ... reflections on the journey thus far.

I have a couple of books to recommend. One I will talk about in this posting and the other in the next. The first is on prayer, and the second, on making a sanctuary for oneself in the midst of life, is by a British Benedictine abbot and has similar resonances to the first.

Donald Spoto's book, "In Silence - Why We Pray" has been my Lenten reading and so many weeks after Lent I'm still working through it, a little at a time. It's a library book, so I've had to renew it 2 or 3 times. I have, over Lent and Easter, been trying to kick-start my almost non-existent prayer life, and thought it would be good to reappraise my understandings of prayer. It is very quotable (both Mr Spoto and the folks he quotes are so quotable) and the most thought-provoking and encouraging book on the subject I have read. I must confess that I have not read too many books on prayer. Those I have have been a quite EPC (evangelical/pentecostal/charismatic). This book has some poetry to it, some sense of the utter mystery of God and of sacrament and metaphor which the EPC books don't.

let me quote:
"Prayer and love are really learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and your heart turns to stone" Thomas Merton

"In abandoning myself to God- in giving myself up completely to the dark mystery of his presence - I can enter into a new, open and freer territory than I have ever known. Thus liberated from the delusion of existential self reliance and the concomitant fear of annihilation, I can, with the psalmist, cast all my care on the Lord" Donald Spoto

"The divine compassion is not a matter of celestial paternalism - it is a matter of a profound affiliation between God and us. And that relationship is at the heart of prayer" Donald Spoto

"Into your hands I commend my spirit" Jesus ( no I'm not being cute - this is Richard speaking - its just that these last 3 quotes and the next few are from the chapter I'm currently in entitled 'Prayer as Abandonment')

"I abandoned and forgot myself. All things ceased. I went out of myself, leaving my cares. On the road to union with God, this night of faith guides me." John of the Cross

"We are often bored with the small happenings around us, yet it is these trivialities that would do marvels for us if only we did not despise them, for God speaks to every individual through what happens moment by moment. The events of each moment are stamped with the will of God. If we have abandoned ourselves to Him, there is really only one rule for us: the duty of the present moment." Jean-Pierre de Caussade.

"Why should I have any anxiety? It is not my business to think about myself. My business is to think about God. It is for God to think about me." Simone Weil

Finally from Donald Spoto the author of "In Silence - Why We Pray" again:
http://www.amazon.com/Silence-Why-We-Pray/dp/0670033472


"Life with God, which is just another way of describing the life of prayer, is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be experienced. By "mystery" we do not mean something esoteric and incomprehensible, but rather the depth of all reality. "Mysteries are not truths that lie beyond us" as the philosopher Gabriel Marcel memorably wrote. "Mysteries are truths that comprehend us." Through the habit of abandonment, that mystery and truth embrace us in the unimaginable but ineluctable reality of the divine compassion."

the book is published by Viking Compass who are part of the Penguin Group. ISBN 0-670-03347-2. Find it, buy it, you won't be disappointed!

And don't think for a moment I now live on some spiritual mountain-top, head in the cloud of unknowing, abandoned to God, my past life of science fiction, sex, chocolate and guitar picking a distant memory. Not so! Just another sinner like you looking for love and grace, beauty and meaning, believing the best chance of any of these things is as a disciple and companion of Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified and risen Messiah and Lord.

Any crumbs you would like to share with this hungry soul, please, do share. You can do that here. At the bottom of each 'posting' where it says '0 comments' (it may say '2 comments' if 2 brave souls have already made comments) click to open up a page where comments can be left regarding the blurb in question. Don't be shy. It would mean so much to me.

Richard

p.s. Tune this way later for my thoughts on and quotes from Abbot Christopher Jamison's "Finding Sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life".