Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1500 Years, by Philip Jenkins (HarperCollins, 2010).
Philip Jenkins opens a window on the early church and its controversies. He focuses on the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and the councils that led to it, as well as the conflict that followed it. The bishops at Chalcedon, near modern day Istanbul, defined the identity of Christ as one person in two natures, divine and human. This pleased the western churches in Italy, Gaul, and Spain, but it angered the eastern churches in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine, who viewed Christ as having one divine nature. From then on, political rulers favored either the orthodox faith set out at Chalcedon or the Monophysite (one nature) faith. When the rulers finally settled on the orthodox faith, this left the church in the east under a hostile government. This conflict, Jenkins says, weakened the east so much over time that it made it all the easier for Muslim Arabs to conquer the region in the seventh century. Over the ensuing centuries, the churches in the east withered away under the weight of Muslim culture.
The theological controversies Jenkins describes were awful things, full of violence and a naked struggle for power. Apparently, no one had read the Beatitudes. Jenkins says these actions rose out of a premodern mentality: “the largest single mental marker separating the premodern or medieval world from our own was the belief that earthly error had cosmic implications.” Wrong beliefs meant not only that the believer would be lost eternally, but also that an angry God would visit the land with plague, famine and war. A liberal mind, a tolerant disposition, and a sense of the natural causes of things lay well in the future. Jenkins tries to soften the story at the end by saying that when the church stops arguing about its beliefs it will enjoy only ‘the peace of the grave.’ This notion, though true, is too small a blanket to cover the body. The story Jenkins tells is an ugly thing, painful to read.
When Presbyterians today say, “We trust in Jesus Christ, fully human, fully God,” they follow a line of thought that traces back to the Council of Chalcedon. Actually, a two-natures view of Christ seems naturally to flow from the four canonical Gospels, which portray Christ as a divine-human figure. I affirm this view. Still, after reading the sad account in this book, I sympathize with contemporary writers like Harvey Cox who say the early church erred when it began to stress beliefs at the expense of faith. The bishops of the early church could have focused less on defining the identity of Christ, and more on following the way of Christ — the way of mercy, meekness and love.
My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ (3 out of 4)
…this book looks really interesting….i will look for it in my local library..Thanks!..i love it when the cloak of secrecy and silence is pulled back for us less historically uneducated ones and the raw truth of christian history is exposed for what it was/is..very iconoclastic in a good way i think….
We make a different mistake today. We equate faith and morality or ethics. Cox is an example. The “way of Christ” is a name for such morality.
Mike, I am interested in how other historians portray the same events Jenkins talks about. There is probably more than one way to read the story.
Ken, the way of Christ includes ethics, but it is not wholly reducible to ethics. It is more comprehensive. It involves words, attitudes and lifestyle.
I think Christ had very little to do with ethics. He was the messiah, not a divine moralist.
In modernity, when we became unable to believe in God, it was thought that we could salvage religion as an ethic. We can’t.
An ethic has become the fundamental of the PCUSA and the other old protestant denominations. Not faith alone. Not scripture alone. An ethic alone.
The Christ who gave us the Sermon on the Mount (however it was compiled by the Gospel writer) seemed very interested in ethics, that is, practices of a particular way of life. The Christian religion is not reducible to ethics, but it is also not separate from them.
The last time the Presbyterian Church USA confessed its faith, the result was the Brief Statement of Faith (1991), which this post links to. Faith and scripture are part of the activity of the Spirit in our lives, according to the statement.
Christians who emphasize ethics see the sermon on the mount as morality, and, for that matter, emphasize the sermon on the mount as if it were the heart of the gospel or definitive of Christianity. I don’t see it that way. The beatitudes, for example, seem to be reassurances to Christians who were persecuted, or Jews who had been oppressed for centuries. I don’t think the beatitudes pertain to morality, nor do I think the rest of the sermon on the mount pertains to morality. It only looks like morality to those whose fundamental tenet for Christianity is ethics. The sermon on the mount was a messianic speech, an assurance to those who were waiting for God, for the messiah.
…i just picked-up my copy of “Jesus Wars” from the library..im excited to get it…i understand that this is Phillip Jenkins ‘view’ of History and that others may disagree as to the ‘facts’..i suppose anyone who has undertaken the effort to compose such a book would have developed an opinion or slant long ago as to their version of church history..its interesting how History becomes pliable when the Noble virtue of Honor interferes… im sure you’ve heard the old russian saying that goes: “it is hard to predict History”…i’ve already formed my opinion as to the facts of christian history..im just looking to pickup some juicy morsel that i didnt know before…
…This book is great!!! im really enjoying reading it…thanks chris
Re: the Sermon on the Mount, ethics, etc, I would echo what Chris has said: “the way of Christ includes ethics, but it is not wholly reducible to ethics. It is more comprehensive.” There is no reason why the Beatitudes could not be both a reassurance to persecuted Christians/oppressed Jews AND ethical exhortations. And the “blessed are you when’s” are located within the same sermon as the “you have heard it said… but I say to you’s.” Assurance, ethical instruction, encouragement, challenge. All of the above (and probably more), it seems to me. Instead of either/or, why not both/and?