Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity Do movies like “The Passion” bring you to tears over the sacrifice Christ made? Do you wonder if what He stood for is represented by today’s Christianity? If you share these questions with me, Bruce Bawer’s book “Stealing Jesus” is worth reviewing. Book Review – Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity When engaging the world, Christians spend much of their time defending the culturally accepted view of Christianity. This act of engagement is very difficult in America, where the popular image of a Christian usually involves either a slimy televangelist or Ned Flanders, a character from the Simpsons who goes away for the weekend to a church camp to “learn how to be more judgmental.” Stereotypes can never capture the entire population of a complete body of data; however, the most common Christian stereotype is not centered around Christ’s predominant teachings of love, grace, mercy and forgiveness. …… As I read this book I wondered how many of the struggles Bruce has gone through were made worse because of dealing with fundamentalists. As someone who lost their faith completely for a period of time, I know the repulsion I felt towards fundamentalists engendered in me a profound distaste for anything spiritual. ….. A recent Newsweek article talked about the struggle ministers are having with pornography. The most poignant part of the article for me was not that a minister could have such a struggle, but rather that the minister would be honest enough about his struggle to tell his family, friends and parishioners. Forgiveness is absolutely central to the Christian life; do we allow those who struggle, who question, who are seeking and perhaps even cynical to probe, to question, to disagree with us? Or are we so concerned with being right that we feel obligated to make a point? My fellow Christians, Bruce has something important to say. He says it in his book explicitly, but his life also says it. It is a life spent searching for truth, for absolution, for connection with his Creator. Let us allow God to be God and seek common ground by which we can show the world what being a Christian is. But such an attitude is not common in Christian fundamentalism. The point in fundamentalism is rooted strongly in the Puritan faith – a faith that mandated being right above all else. As my good friend Rich Vincent has reminded me, “God does not love you because you are right.” Within the American fundamentalist movement, being right has become the reason for being active socially, culturally and politically. It is within such movements that Bruce contends Jesus is being stolen; it is here that fundamentalism is betraying Christianity. No doubt for Bruce, the title of this book is more than pithy wordsmithing. For him it is a core belief upon which his faith is built – the belief that Christianity stands for more than externals – that it must produce meaningful changes of the heart. Because fundamentalism first focuses on the outside, Bruce rightly believes that the Christianity of today is not based on the real teaching of Jesus. ……… Neither of these cases probably best explains what the primary reasoning is for those who seek to go back to the “old days.” For these people, such a desire is based on their knowledge that fundamentalism frightens away those they disagree with, making it easier for them to retain control. Even for people willing to engage in a potentially heated and contentious argument, dealing with fundamentalists can be frightening. It is not an accident that many totalitarian religious institutions and political bodies come to power quickly without resistance. Many times, those who oppose fundamentalists are so put off by their lack of logic and extremism that they believe such ideologies will burn themselves out. At times this can happen. History, however, is full of examples when fundamentalism has grown in intensity and consumed even the most moderate of objectors. Fundamentalism also allows for a high degree of control of those who stay within the institution of power. Fundamentalism is, and always has been, a device for letting people in power get what they want: power, control and homogenous populations (people that look, act and believe as “I” do). ….. Even R.C. Sproul, a theologian who is doctrinally miles away from Bawer, says in his Ideas that Shaped Our World that we live in the most anti-intellectual age of Christianity ever. From Bawer’s book: “In their suspicion of the intellect and their categorical assertion that the Bible contains all truth, these kinds of Christianity reflect the American distrust of mind described by Richard Hofstadter in his book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life; indeed, they can be understood as ways of avoiding the obligation to think – and, especially, to think for oneself. As William Ray puts it, ‘fundamentalism demands believers, not thinkers.'” (page 8) As a result of such reasoning, teachers like Hal Lindsay (The Late Great Planet Earth) are allowed to represent Christianity – a thought that saddens me. Bawer’s comment linking Lindsay to the anti-intellectualism within fundamentalism is right on: “Consistently, Lindsey pounds home the message that the important truths of life cannot be discovered through education, scientific experimentation, and objective critical analysis, but rather through predictions by seers who have demonstrated their premonitory prowess. Over and over again, Lindsey makes the point that people with fancy educations don’t know the things that really matter and that they are dangerous because they lead others astray.” (page 146) When I reflect on Bawer and Sproul’s words I am reminded of one of the most fundamental characteristics of every fascist and communist system of government: the extinction of intellectuals. ……….. Any religious system or leader that tells people exactly what to think and does not share with them their own struggles, imperfections and spiritual journey is a system or leader that is not to be trusted. None of us have all the answers; none of us grasp all of the concepts required to know God fully. Fundamentalism wants to white-wash over these struggles and instead drive home conformity. Within conformity comes control, and control means power. A system of belief that cares so little for affairs of the heart, as well as questions of the mind, is a system of belief that is not worth having. Conclusion I agree with Bruce’s primary assertion that fundamentalism betrays the core of Christian belief. …..

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