"Forget what you have heard about the cross or the tomb.  Jesus is alive and well and living in America.  And everyone is bearing witness to his glory."  So writes author Stephen Prothero in his book    American Jesus : How the Son of God Became a National Icon. 

Prothero is the chair of the Department of Religion at Boston University and  his book, subtitled "How the Son of God Became A National Icon," is a fascinating  study of how the identity of Jesus has morphed through American history.    As  a scholar and historian, Protheros' painstaking research paints an often hilarious,  sometimes painfully convicting picture of how our nation has sliced, diced, moldedand re-shaped God the Son into everything but the savior of sinful man.

The book  begins with a scathing chapter on Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration  of Independence and architect of the First Amendment.  Any casual reading  of Jefferson and his writings reveal that he was not a Christian but a deist.  He  viewed Jesus as "the first of human Sages" and labels the writers of the four  gospels as "the most unlettered and ignorant of men."  Jefferson took it  upon himself to discover the true historical Jesus.  It was his mission  to wade through the tenets of the faith that had been corrupted, in his mind,  by "the metaphysical abstractions of Athanasius and the maniac ravings of Calvin" to  discover the true teachings of Jesus.  He did this by taking a razor to  the King James Version of the New Testament eliminating anything that he thought  reeked of corruption.  The result of his hatchet job was a Jesus who was  a great moral teacher and example but definitely not God.  Many of the founding  fathers apparently shared his opinion of Jesus being less than deity.  In  today's political climate of culture wars, family values, republicans vs. democrats,  red states and blue states one has to wonder if all the current talk of "re-claiming  America for Christ" and the view that "America was founded a Christian nation" is  a reality or a foolish pipe dream.  Could it possibly be that many who identify  with what is today labeled the religious right are longing for an era that never  existed?  Regardless of your presuppositions or conclusions, this chapteris a compelling read.

What follows in Prothero's book is a systematic analysis  of how Jesus has become a modern day version of the Greek god Proteus, conveniently  morphing and changing into whatever image is created for him.  The Great  Awakening and the influence of revivalist preachers like John Wesley re-scripted  Jesus as more of a "friend" and less "the crucified and risen Lord."  The  God-fearing Calvinist Puritans, obsessed  (in Prothero's words) with being  God-fearing rather than Jesus-loving, were replaced by Arminian pietists who  viewed Christ as more loving than wrathful and angry.  Through this time,  religion became more individualistic and less corporate.  Theologically  strong hymns like "Before Jehovah's Awful Throne" (1719) were replaced by moretender hymns like "What A Friend We Have in Jesus" (1855). 

The natural  response to this softer effeminate Jesus was a push for a more masculine Jesus.  Christianity  was viewed, for the most part, as a religion for women.  In the late 19th-century,  church membership was only 28 percent male.  By 1910, U.S. churches were  only one-third male. In  The Virility of Christ , published in 1915, author  Warren Conant protested against artists who "subjoin a silky, curly beard to  a woman's face and hair and label it 'The Christ'"  Instead he offered a  vision of a "Fighting Christ" with "big lung capacity" and the "free swinging  stride of the mountaineer."  Men of the industrial age would "demand a strenuous  Christ."  Prothero's examination of this battle for the male/female Christ  is fascinating in light of the church's continuing struggle and failure to proclaim  the distinctly masculine God revealed in the scriptures.  In the wake of  the radical feminism of the 1960's and 70's the church is still scrambling to  figure out how to define roles of the sexes and how to faithfully proclaimGod as a male. 

Prothero also examines the rise of Jesus Christ as "superstar" in  the late 1960's.  In 1965, Time magazine asked on its April 8 cover "Is  God Dead?"  In 1969, after a period of national spiritual re-awakening,  Time was forced to ask "Is God Coming Back to Life?"  The rise of "Jesus  Freaks" and "Jesus people" in the 1960's again led to a re-creation of Jesus  as "The Real Revolutionist."  In a time of great social and political unrest,  the Jesus people followed the biblical command of Paul to "become all things  to all men" (1 Cor 9:22) by making Jesus a hippie among the hippies.  Instead  of dropping acid, Jesus people instead were encouraged to "drop Matthew, Mark,  Luke and John" and to groove on "Jesus the everlasting high."  It was this  movement that birthed many of the trends that we still see in Christendom today:  "High  on Jesus" t-shirts and "Honk If You Love Jesus" bumper stickers were the pre-cursors  to the plethora of Jesus junk that litters our Christian sub-culture.  Contemporary  rock hits like the Doobie Brothers "Jesus is Just Alright" and James Taylor's "Fire  and Rain" (which asked Jesus to help him face death and addiction) capitalized  on this new-found Jesus awareness.  With the help of these mainstream hits  and rock operas like Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell , Contemporary Christian  Music (CCM) was birthed.   Many of the contemporary hymns and choruses  that emerged from this movement, from labels like Maranatha Music and the Vineyard,  are still sung at many churches today. 

Out of this Jesus movement of the 1960's and 70's emerged the influential movements  of Calvary Chapel and the Vineyard.  Prothero contends that it was this  movement, founded in southern California, that has had the biggest impact on  modern evangelicalism into the 21st century.  On the positive side, it reversed  the spiritual movement away from the newer eastern religions.  Negatively,  the movement still maintained a distrust of authoritarian groups, including those  within the church.  Individualism reigned supreme, many times to the extent  of abandonment of the church altogether.  At the heart of this rejection  of "Churchianity" was a quest for distance from traditionalism.  Even  common symbols of the church were eliminated.  Calvary Chapel, for example,  rejects the symbol of the cross replacing it, curiously, with another symbol:  a  descending dove.  Prothero writes "the elimination of the cross may free  Jesus up to be everywhere rather than somewhere--to allow him to reside in eachbeliever's heart, in keeping with each believer's needs." 

In the latter  part of the book, Prothero moves away from an examination of Jesus in traditional  Christianity and focuses on how Christ is portrayed in other religions.  The  chapter entitled "Mormon Elder Brother" examines the doctrines and practice of  the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  Prothero fairly analyzes  the changes of doctrine through the history of the church and the differing roles  Jesus has played its teaching.  Any casual reading of this chapter reveals  a number of inconsistencies and the ever-changing doctrines of Mormonism.  The  influence of Jesus in the early Mormon church was non-existent.  Only after  following the lead of traditional evangelicalism in the 20th-century has the  church adopted a more central role of Jesus.  A number of "new revelations" has  caused the church to reject its early teachings of polygamy and racism while  adopting a new emphasis on a need for "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ" andthe view that "the message of the Mormon Church is the message of Christ."

In "Black  Moses," Prothero looks at the social, political and religious motives for the  rise of African-American churches and the Nation of Islam.  Albert B. Cleage  Jr. was a pioneer in the Black Christian Nationalist Movement and a close ally  of Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam.  He argued that Christianity, as expressed  in America particularly, was a white man's religion.  He also argues that  Jesus was distinctly black.  And if Jesus was black and God created "man  in his own image" (Gen 1:27), then God is black.  The implications of this  for the African-American was liberation from a history of slavery and a nationthat still harbored seeds of racism both overt and institutional. 

Prothero  concludes this excellent work with these words:  "...most Americans have  their eyes squarely on Jesus.  Though the WWJD ("What Would Jesus Do?")  craze of the 1990's has passed, Americans continue to read books such as What  Would Jesus Eat? (2002)...The "Jesus balloon," a 110-foot-tall, 750-pound hot  air balloon of the "King of Kings, Lord of Lords," continues to lift off each  Easter over northern California, preaching the risen Christ to citizens below.  What  would Jesus make of all this?  That is anyone's guess.  Might he beleaning back and laughing?"

As the church continues to retreat into its own subculture,  this book should be required reading to nudge it back to cultural engagement.  Many  of the false ideas presented in this book fall squarely back on the shoulders  of the institutional church and its failure to proclaim Christ as reveled in  the scriptures.  The church as a whole and individual Christians should  read this book to see the variations of Christ that have been proclaimed through  history and continue daily in our culture.  Perhaps then it will be  forced to have to confront the errors with truth and the sad history of our savior  in this nation will be a thing of the past.  If the church refuses to leap  head-first into the dialogue, then Jesus will continue to be fashioned into an  idol and not the savior of mankind.  It's a battle the church can notafford to ignore.

AMERICAN JESUS, click here to purchase at Amazon
  Stephen Prothero
  Farrar, Straus and Giboux, 2003.
  364 pages, $14.00

I picked the book up the other day at a local book store, but put it back thinking "I gotta read this one." Well, it'll probably be in my ever-growing pile, too, before the week is out. Thanks!
--Phil ( praybourn at jam dot rr dot com ) on 12/19/2004; 9:00:29 PM

Great review! I'm in! This book will soon be on my shelf...
--Tyler Newberry ( bridgenarrow at hotmail dot com ) on 12/13/2004; 10:52:49 AM

Thanks for this review Stephen. You've made the case for reading this one. I'll have to add this one to the stack.
--bill@beanbooks.com ( bill at beanbooks dot com ) on 12/5/2004; 7:54:27 AM