Customer Reviews

Saving Jesus From Those Who Are Right

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Heywood offers compelling arguments that dramatic changes in dogma, worship, and social action are needed to keep the church (and Jesus) alive. Writing from a feminist, liberation theology perspective, she suggests that authentic Christianity must abandon outdated patriarchal moral codes that alienate large groups of people. She spares no one in her attacks on those who distort the image of Christ to support their own political agenda. She is especially critical of the Christian right and neoorthodox evangelicals, but also recognizes that liberal Christianity can be a victim of distorted views of Jesus as the moralist. Her Jesus is a reconciler, a healer, and a lover. This book should encourage those of us who are tempted to be self-satisfied to become more willing to fight for people who are different from us and to experiment with ways of knowing God that are new to us.

I read this during seminary along with all of Heyward's other books and a few of her journal articles and sermons. What was surprising to me, taken as a whole and considered within the context of contemporary Anglican theological work in the West, is that peeling back the layers of this highly contextual theology reveals a refreshing contemporary orthodoxy missing in so much liberal and conservative work these days. Distortions of classic Christian doctrines encouraged by the Jesus Seminar, for instance, as well as conservative and fundamentalist distortions fed by narrow boundaries drawn on a socio-political as well as dogmatic basis damage the Church's ability to witness effectively to particular societies and the world. You cannot judge the work of a theologian as controversial and complicated as Heyward by one or two of her works. Invest some time if you're willing to be challenged (and you will be) and you may find yourself encouraged to grow, however painfully, in your spiritual journey.

In stepping beyond the tradition of male-oriented, straight-oriented, white anglo-oriented thinking, Ms Heyward promptly induces a feeling in the reader of not-knowing-where-we-are -- a response to be welcomed, to be encouraged, to be deepened. In opposing "right-thinking", Ms Heyward does the Church, indeed all of us, a great service. In opposing "ruled-thinking", Ms Heyward actually may open the Church, and all of us, to the power and presence of God.

but my critical thinking got the better of me. I agree with Heyward's stance on inclusiveness within the church, and the importance of not letting our concepts of Christ get the better of us, but she seems to have left Christianity entirely behind, or worse, used isolated Christian terms for their cultural weight while reinventing them to suit her own personal agenda. Her Christianity relates not to church or the story of Jesus, even in an allegorical sense, but to the wispy New Age mysticism that reduces religion to nonsensical abstract terms with no reality or practicality to them at all. Her spirit is fluffy and her flesh is entirely absent.

Christianity is so rethought here that there's nothing left. Scripture's too patriarchal. The Eucharist is too traditional. The Book of Common Prayer is too Eurocentric. What is left is a series of vaguely leftist bumper stickers. Even the four virtues seem to have collapsed!

A note to browsers.....this book does not represent the views of the faithful in the Episcopal Church, of which Ms. Heyward is a member of the clergy. Rather than a biblically revealed doctrine of Jesus Christ, it is an exercise in Panentheism and imaginative pseudo-theology. I give it one star only because zero stars was not an option offered.