Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire

Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire
ISBN-10
0807097632
ISBN-13
9780807097632
Series
Saving Paradise
Category
Religion
Pages
576
Language
English
Published
2008-07-01
Publisher
Beacon Press
Authors
Rita Nakashima Brock, Rebecca Ann Parker

Description

One of Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2008 During their first millennium, Christians filled their sanctuaries with images of Christ as a living presence-as a shepherd, teacher, healer, or an enthroned god. He is serene and surrounded by lush scenes, depictions of this world as paradise. Yet once he appeared as crucified, dying was virtually all Jesus seemed able to do, and paradise disappeared from the earth. Saving Paradise turns a fascinating new lens on Christianity, from its first centuries to the present day, asking how its early vision of beauty evolved into a vision of torture, and what changes in society and theology marked that evolution. It also retrieves, for today, a life-affirming Christianity that the world sorely needs.

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