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

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I LOVE Saving Paradise!! Brock and Parker provide a historical lens through Christian thought and practice that demonstrates that the earliest followers of Christ embraced a theology of hope, life, and living community as opposed to the emphasis on torture, suffering, and death. As a graduate student of church history, I found myself amazed in my own studies of even so-called `orthodox' Church Fathers including Justin Martyr, Ireneaus, and Origen that a theology of the cross was not highlighted. Instead, these thinkers, whose works are indicative of many early Christian communities, highlight the Incarnation of Christ as the crucial defining event--the coming of the Logos to the world as a human being. Even later thinkers (like Athanasius and Cyril) embroiled in the Christological controversies of Nicaea and later Constantinople, were concerned with the definition of the Logos-man--how God could come in the flesh. Again, it was the living incarnation of God in Christ that was the crucial defining event--that is, the LIFE that God brought to humanity through Christ, not the death and suffering of the crucifixion alone which is the pivotal event in Christology! Brock and Parker make this case convincingly by traveling through the annals of church history and showing that it was in the second millennium of Christian history, amidst the warring struggles of the tribes of Europe and later in the birth of the Holy Roman Empire, that the theology of the crucifixion rises to prominence. This book is a MUST for students of the bible, Christian thought, the history of Christianity, theology, or anyone interested in the way that Christian ideas and doctrine are transmitted through the church and other institutions! In addition, it is a DELIGHTFUL read! The text is comforting and enjoyable to peruse, and is very spiritual and healing in places, particularly in the description of early Christian rites and practices. There are portions of this text that I plan to read over and over again in the future for this reason. Persons who have questioned or even struggled with the focus of torture and suffering in the passion and crucifixion singly as the way to salvation in the Christian faith will find themselves blessed and encouraged by these authors' re-discovery of the beauty, light, community, and fellowship among early followers of Christ--paradise!!

Images of Jesus's crucifixion did not appear in churches until the tenth century. Why not? The crucified Christ is so important to Western Christianity, how could it be that images of his suffering and death were absent from early churches? With these questions began a five year pilgrimage for the authors. They were taught that the crucifixion of Jesus Christ saved the world and that this idea was the core of Christian faith. However, during extensive searching, they found that prior to the tenth century, Christian imagery portrayed Jesus alive teaching and healing, living in the paradise that is this world. All the images were of goodness and plenty, of gentleness and love; images that reflect the belief that creation is good and blessed by God's love, especially in the person of Jesus Christ. The foundation of Christianity is grounded on love of this world and a certainty that paradise permeates all of creation. The Eucharist was a sign of paradise and celebrated in gratitude and joy with Christ.

Brock and Parker take on the history of the subversion of the Christian message beginning with Charlemagne, who instituted the death penalty for conquered people who refused to convert to Christianity. After Charlemagne, the clergy introduced the dead body of Christ into the Eucharist. Killing, suffering and dying in the name of Christ began to represent the highest honor for Christians.

At 550 pages (including extensive notes and index) this book is not for the faint of heart. But, just like their first book Proverbs of Ashes, it is written in an approachable, conversational style. Consider reading and talking about it in a small group with people taking responsibility for one or two chapters, or bring it into a classroom and/or church setting.

SAVING PARADISE illuminates the origins of Christianity and the quest for human wholeness and shows how both got "hijacked" by imperial ambitions in the 9th. c., leading to the crusades and other forms of church sanctioned violence. From an Ameircan Studies studies standpoint, the last four chapters showing the connection among this dislocated Christianity, imperial ambitions, New World conquest, and the enslavement of African peoples are extremely valuable. The chapters shed suprizing light on familiar figures such as Edwards, Emerson and Thoreau by examining them within Christianity's cultural shift to redemptive violence. This is a book that calls us to struggle for justice and peace on this earth, rather than some imagined afterlife or 'new world.' For those who are willing to embrace it, this work frames a challenge to re-vision love for this world here and now as the necessary first step for creating a sustainable future. It transcends doctrine and denomination to elevate theoretical discourse and empower practical imagination, giving us both a history of how we got into our present situation and resources for finding our way out of it. A must read for intelligent persons of all persuasions in a world where truth is increasingly scarce and profound reconsiderations are imperative.

Where does new hope come from? Often from remembering what has been lost. As a work of Christian historical theology, this is one of the most important books of the current generation. It does what a great theologian once called 'epochal thinking' about how Christianity MUST, in an era of environmental crisis and religious conflict, recover the theological sensibility that marked the first thousand years of Christian faith -- when Christ was understood and depicted as opening the possibility again of human life together in an earthly paradise, and before that vision was replaced by one of Christian imperialism and salvation by violence. The prose here is sparkling. The research is thorough and well-documented. The thesis is challenging. The only weakness, in my view, is in the theological summary. When the co-authors call for us to embrace the good earth we have been given in gratitude, I'm with them. But when they emphasize present thanks by denigrating the temptations of both nostalgia and hope, I think they forget what they themselves teach about how lamentation is the necessary prelude to a resurrection,
and even the very arc of their own argument. They give us hope through their active nostalgia for a once dominant form of Christian thought and practice that we desperately need to recover today.

A worthwhile examination of violence and overemphasis on the afterlife as problems for Christianity. Recommended.

However, re: the Kindle edition

One quarter of this book is the extensive notes, and yet they are not hyperlinked in the Kindle edition. This is a major problem for an e-book, and especially one of this length for which you are being essentially charged full regular Amazon.com price, same as the hardbound paper edition.

The notes are so extensive that even an attempt to bookmark/highlight them myself proved too time-consuming and tedious.

I regret I bought the Kindle edition as at this price I probably won't go ahead and buy the paper version after paying[...] for a crippled e version. Shame on the publisher and amazon both for allowing this kind of problem edition to be sold; it can only damage the Kindle & Amazon reputation.

This book cannot easily fit into any one category -- it is historical, theological, artistic, biographical, and a wonderful narrative at the same time. It probes deep into the heart of a once-vibrant, subversive faith that through time has been corrupted by Empire, thus turning from Christianity into Christendom. The core problem is really sacrificial atonement and the violence associated with this theological mistake. By reclaiming paradise and eros-love for our earth and for our generation, Brock and Parker instill hope that is not delusional, but is based (ironically enough), in "traditional" Christianity.

With all due respect to the reviewer, G. Hubbell, and certainly to his/her right to freely share his/her point of view, I am mystified how anyone living today, and especially in contemporary North America, could come away from "Saving Paradise" with anything short of its recognition as a masterwork. Opinions aside, Brock and Parker leave little room for question regarding the robustness and voracity of their research, making available citations and notes for all source materials at the back of the book for us to delve into at will. Yet, they structured their book in a way that fully allows us to absorb and reflect on its vast implications as more is revealed. They bring us directly into the re-tracking of a journey gone off-course hundreds of years ago, the result of which has affected every generation since and continues to affect all of us every day. For anyone who has ever struggled with so many incongruencies between compassionate love and the justifications of a modern world that acts against it that glorifies suffering and death, and yet does all this in the same name, this book will bring tremendous relief and healing. Paradise has a local zip code, no matter where you are . . . what a concept! (Better late than never.) My indebted thanks to Brock and Parker for an astoundingly important work.

Normally, I read an entire book before posting about it. But, I am over halfway through reading a fascinating new book, Saving Paradise -- subtitled, How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire, by Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker. You need to read this book. Brock and Parker offer some of the freshest, most exciting insights into the transformation of the Christian church over the past 2,000 years.

Paradise, the authors contend, was the focus of the early church. Paradise was where humanity was created in the image of God. Paradise was the destiny of the people of God -- the land flowing with milk and honey. The psalmists wrote of paradise; and the prophets described the renewed land as paradise restored. The church was the "portal to paradise" and baptism the rite that ushered new converts back into the paradise that sin had lost.

The book overflows with first-through-fourth century historical vignettes depicting how the early church spoke of and anticipated paradise here and in eternity. One of the most fascinating chapters titled, "So Great a Cloud" describes how the early church held sacred dinners at the entrance to the burial places of Christians who had died. They placed a single lit candle in an empty chair, signifying the presence of the deceased in their midst. Based on the Hebrews 12 image of "a great cloud of witnesses" the early church believed that the dead were present with and helped those Christians still in this life. They believed that the resurrection defeated death immediately, not just in the future, and that the veil between this world and the world to come was much thinner than we believe now.

The tone of the book is positive, hopeful, and points us back to a time when the church took seriously and practically the life-giving power of the resurrection. Paradise was the narrative that gave coherence to creation, even in all its sin and short-coming. Paradise, the garden of God, is not only the goal, but the present reality of followers of Christ.

I read a lot of books, as I am sure many of you do. Most books are rehashes of old ideas, maybe with some good stories or clever twists. But, Saving Paradise presents a unique perspective, a fresh encounter with the early church. If the second half of this thick volume (over 500 pages) is as good as the first, then I'm in for a treat for the next couple of days. I'll let you know. - Amicus Dei

It is a remarkable book! The scope and depth of the authors' research for the book and the clarity and richness of their expressions are impressive. It is not easy for me, as a Christian, to face the history of Christianity, at least part of it, which has wrought so much suffering and death to the world in the name of salvation. And yet, by the end of the book, the authors convince me of the true wonder and beauty of the world we live in as God intended. Let us rejoice in it and do our part to keep it and make it even better for all God's people.

This is one of the most original and thought-provoking books I have ever read. The research is thorough,insightful and original. It raises some enormous questions for Christian theology, with special implications for Atonement theories. So much emphasis has been put on salvation through the death of Jesus, and the greater the torture, the higher the reward. Brock and Parker invite us to a radically different viewpoint, one that clearly has historical rationale, as their research highlights. Salvation through the life-engaging praxis of Jesus (paradise)is what we need to reclaim, and in doing so Christianity is likely to come alive in a whole new way, one which hopefully will contribute to peace and reconciliation in our world, rather than the redemptive violence it has too often generated in the past.