Christ Actually (James Carroll, 2014)

Between Zealot, How Jesus Became God, and now Christ Actually, I'm not sure I initially intended to read so much on the same topic over the past year. Each author, however, has a different background. Reza Aslan is a ex-evangelical Christian and current Muslim, Bart Ehrman is an ex-evangelical Christian and current agnostic and New Testament scholar, and James Carroll is an ex-Roman Catholic priest and current reform-minded Catholic. The lives of each of these three men had an impact on the tone and focus of each book.

Carroll has ruffled more than a few feathers in the past with his book Constantine's Sword, which shows the intimate relationship of anti-Semitism and the Catholic Church. In many ways, this book is a continuation of that discussion. Mid-twentieth century atrocities (Hiroshima, the Holocaust) that ushered in the "Secular Age" have forced Christianity to come to grips with its troubled history with Judaism. Carroll identifies the breaking point between Church and Synagogue as the Jewish Wars, a serious of Roman-Jewish conflicts in the first two centuries (AD/BCE - depending on how you roll). The Gospels were written during this cataclysmic backdrop of war and genocide and each Gospel is flavored by the events of the time. Carroll puts particular focus on Mark, which sometimes gets buried alongside Matthew and Luke under the cover of "synoptic". Carroll shows the far more apocalyptic tone of Mark compared to the others, and, as the earliest of the four Gospels, its closeness to Jesus as a Jew. Mark was also written nearly at the same time of the destruction of the second Temple, and surely this was on the Gospel author's mind. Out of a survival instinct the early Christians (the "Jesus People") distanced themselves from the other Jews and fell into the orbit of Rome.

There's a lot of strong medicine in this book and it's probably not the most comfortable read for those not ready to face the uncompromising nastiness of war. When we read "the city was sacked" in a history textbook, it is an antiseptic line covering up all the atrocities of rape, murder, and destruction. We nearly take for granted now that soldiers draw a salary, but back in the day plunder was their compensation, a devastating and humiliating punishment for the losers. However, for those concerned about how Christianity can continue in the present day, especially in the face of an overwhelmingly secular society, this makes for stimulating reading.