Empire Baptized: How the Church Embraced What Jesus Rejected (Second-Fifth Centuries) - Softcover

Howard-Brook, Wes

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1626981949 ISBN 13: 9781626981942

Publisher: Orbis Books, 2016

Synopsis

Through a study of the writers of the post-New Testament period, this book shows how "Christianity" was forged as "the religion of empire," undermining the New Testament's proclamation of Jesus as upholder of the "religion of creation," two categories laid out in Howard-Brook's earlier volume, "Come Out, My People": God's Call Out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond (Orbis 2010). Using writers from Alexandria (Clement, Origen, and Athanasius) and North Africa (Tertullian, Cyprian and Augustine) as test cases, Howard-Brook traces how Platonic and Stoic philosophy on the one hand, and Roman imperial culture, on the other, were taken for granted by these writers in creating"Christianity." Using a wide range of recent scholarship, Howard-Brook seeks in this book to separate the anti-imperial, earthly and earthy "Good News" of Jesus from the imperial, anti-creation, misogynist and anti-Jewish "Christianity" that has largely replaced the Gospel.

About this title

About the Author:

Wes Howard-Brook teaches at Seattle University. He is the author of several Orbis books, including "Come Out, My People," Unveiling Empire, The Church Before Christianity, Becoming Children of God, and co-editor of The New Testament: Introducing the Way of Discipleship. He and his wife, Sue Ferguson Johnson, collaborate in the ministry, Abide in Me, which seeks to lead people and communities into deeper integration of the inner and outer paths that empowers people to "come out" of empire.

Review:

Wes Howard-Brook has performed a great service with Empire Baptized. He explains how the transition in Christianity from Jesus's way of peace to the coercive ways of Christendom happened. An enormously enlightening account that helps us better understand our present dilemmas.- Ted Grimsrud, author of The Good War That Wasn't--And Why It Matters: The Moral Legacy of World War II; Senior Professor of Peace Theology, Eastern Mennonite University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Orbis Books
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1626981949
• ISBN 13: 9781626981942
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368