I asked my beloved how it is that he reads non-fiction so quickly. It seems to me that he can sit down with a new book and be finished it in an afternoon if it intrigues him. He tells me the secret of reading a non-fiction book is not really reading it. You are to scan it. Which makes me feel like I'm cheating. I tried this strategy at different times in my ministry training - reading the 80 hours of reading material for each Circle, twice a year. But I never got into the groove of scanning in such a way that I felt that I really retained what each article was about.
Until this week.
This week I read/scanned a book in three days. It helped that I had a good understanding of the topic already.
I must of bought John Dominic Crossan's book, God & Empire, more than six years ago. I likely bought it when I was still in school. And I probably thought I would read it soon-ish. For fun. Then, it must of occurred to me that you don't read Crossan for fun. You read Crossan to learn something MORE. And in depth. John Dominic Crossan is not a light Saturday afternoon read.
John Crossan is an amazing theologian. I have heard him preach at the Festival of Homiletics. He is a very dynamic and engaging speaker.{'Homiletics' is the $25 word for 'preaching'. No. Really. There is a whole festival - a.k.a a conference - in which preachers preach for other preachers. It is AWESOME. But I digress.}
As I began to read God & Empire this week, I discovered that over my extensive schooling and the past six years of reading other materials in my line of work, what Crossan was saying was no longer new to me. And so, rather than read it word for word I scanned the book.
[Who absolutely needs to know the fine details of how the Book of Revelation fits in with any of the book series based on the rapture? Answer: Very few. Cause we are not rapture people. Nor are we really Revelation people.]There is a lot of information that I didn't know before but it is information that is specific to certain topics that I don't necessarily need to become an expert in any time soon. But now I know where to go when I need more details on any of those subjects.
God & Empire explores how the radical religious beliefs of Jesus and the early Christians challenged and opposed the power dynamics of the authority and rule of the Roman Empire. There are many different examples of how the radical welcome of Jesus stood in opposition of what society, as whole, demanded of its citizens. Crossan does a great job of breaking down the seemingly different personalities of Paul in his various letters in the Christian Scriptures (New Testament). He shows that Paul actually wrote some of the letters himself and how other people wrote letters in Paul's name later, as time went by. Paul's vision of God's Kingdom on earth was very much one of equality amongst all people. However, those who came after him were co-opted by the society in which they lived. Gender discrimination inched its way into the letters, not because this was Paul's thinking but rather, it was the belief system of later theologians who 'borrowed' Paul's good name for credibility.I have two quotations that I want to lift up out of the book this week....italics are my commentary.
The Christian Bible records the ongoing struggle between the normalcy of civilization's program of religion, war, victory, peace (or more succinctly, peace through victory [this is how Caesar obtained peace, through winning battles])...and the radicality of God's alternative program of religion, nonviolence, justice and peace (or more succinctly, peace through justice [God's vision of how peace is obtained]). p.94
Justice is the body of love, love the soul of justice. Justice is the flesh of love, love is the spirit of justice. When they are separated, we have a moral corpse. Justice without love is brutality. Love without justice is banality. p.190
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