Food for thought (is also Re: The Gospel of Thomas

[Doug Millison]

I've mentioned it before on the P-list, but a good place to go if you'd
like to follow up on the very robust, current scholarship about the
historical Jesus is _The Birth of Christianity_ by John Dominic Crossan.
In this recent book, Crossan traces how the Jesus of the sayings gospels
(the Gospel of Thomas rj mentions being one of them) became the Jesus of
the synoptic gospels (the gospels we're familiar with in the New
Testament), and how the original "Jewish Christian" community grew into the
Church. Actually, the Jesus of the saying gospels -- with all the qualities
that rj seemed to find attractive -- is in the synoptic gospels as well.
This is, by the way, the same Jesus that is celebrated in all the mainline,
liberal churches, such as the United Church of Christ, (not the
evangelical, fundamental churches) today -- social justice, table
fellowship, contemplative prayer.  The idea of "becoming Christ" is very
much alive, especially in the mystical tradition of Christianity -- in the
Eastern church, and also in the contemplative traditions of the Roman
church (as practiced and taught by Thomas Merton, and the Centering Prayer
practice now taught by Thomas Keating).

Matthew Fox's _The Coming of the Cosmic Christ_ is also well worth reading,
if you're at all interested in how a Jesus such as the one rj describes
from this TV documentary can address the many challenges we face in the
world today, through a revival of personal creativity, mysticism, deep
ecumenism, and deep ecology. I've met Fox and some of his students here in
the SF Bay Area, and what they're doing is very interesting and, to my
taste, inspiring. I believe he's been defrocked and asked to leave the
Catholic Church by now, although I'm not completely sure about that.


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