Garry Wills WHAT JESUS MEANT (book)

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A self-described Catholic and former seminarian, Dr. Wills (won the Pulitzer Prize for his book on Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address), publishes a “devotion” --not a scholarly work-- on the message of Christ in the Bible.

He provides his own translations in many places to show what Jesus was about.

He asserts that Jesus was most concerned about the inner transformation of the individual person, and much less so, if at all, with what has emerged as organized Christianity in subsequent centuries.

It was organized religion – he asserts – that killed Jesus. It was the Roman religion that recognized no others, certainly recognized no king than its own.

He takes on statements of Benedict XVI a couple times to show how the Pope is at odds with the sayings of Jesus.

He has no trouble or fear about dismissing doctrinal positions of the Catholic Church along the way. He finds no bishops or priests anywhere in the New Testament; he finds no basis for a male-only priesthood in particular.

He does offer a couple seemingly fresh insights into the gospel narratives.

He reminds the reader several times that Paul’s writings went 20-60 years before the gospels were written. So, he points to those for the most reliable indications of early Christian thought (if you accept that accounting of the history - he is a historian).

At one point, he focuses on how John’s gospel dwells on the raising of Lazarus from the dead and Jesus’ words at that time. He points out that this gospel passes over the agony in the garden, but focuses on His power over death revealed in the Lazarus matter, as presaging the final display of power over His own death.

I’m still on the last chapter, and I have Wills’ other book, WHAT PAUL MEANT, laying there.

This is a book to challenge all, about who Jesus was.
 
Wills closes the book with a summation to reiterate Wills’ thesis that the reign of God is the acceptance and internalization of Jesus’ teaching in the believer.

Wills goes too far, I think, in dismissing the importance of the Church (the Catholic Church or any church organized in the name of Jesus the Christ).

The Greek word that is rendered “church” in the New Testament is ekklesia which means “gathering.” And, Wills asserts that this is a very horizontal, not vertical (or, hierarchical) organization.

I guess it’s rhetorical whether the Catholic Church suffices as the organization that is best suited for spreading the gospel, the good news of Jesus. Elsewhere, Wills has penned WHY I AM A CATHOLIC, which he has not seemingly revoked with this book.

Wills leaves that issue pending, how the gospel is supposed to be spread to the ends of the earth, save, that I have to jump on his next book, WHAT PAUL MEANT. Maybe there’s more there on what the understanding of Jesus was in apostolic times.

The upside of this book might be, if churches used it (just try to tear their bibles away from them) as a punchlist for testing and proving their ministry.

Wills’ approach is largely a sola scriptura one, wherein he finds no human structure or authority to assemble and canonize a bible or book of sacred writings. At a certain level, this is a criticism of Jesus Himself, for not writing that book which we all wish He would have, or, for not hanging around a bit longer to organize those “gatherings” which so quickly started and have been persistently squabbling with each other.
 
If I may offer something of a random oppinion. It seems to me that people focus too much on how one worships and not enough on why one is worshipping, or who the worship is for.

The author does seem to contradict himself in his book, because in dismissing organized religion in its entirety he must dismiss what it offers to the individuals quest of spiritual transformation, which appears to be (what he would consider) christ’s primary message, as far as his goals for his church.

Skeptictank
 
Whenever I am in a bookstore, I cringe most when I see books by people like Wills. I see James White’s book on Catholicism and it upsets me less. White is a blatant anti-Catholic, but Wills is the more pestiferous because he cloaks his anti-Catholicism in Catholicism itself. It’s demonic. Folks like Wills and Joan Chittister have the potential to kill more souls than Boettner, Hislop, Hunt, White, and those like them.
 
Do you think that if a person leaves the church because they honestly believe that it is the right thing to do, that their souls will be destroyed in the judgement?
 
skeptictank said:
Do you think that if a person leaves the church because they honestly believe that it is the right thing to do, that their souls will be destroyed in the judgement?
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I like the Catholic Church’s admonition that people should develop a Christian conscience, as provided in the Church. It’s really only when conscience is properly formed (that is, informed) that such a decision can be made.

To make such a decision without seriously looking at both sides is not making a decision of conscience, but refusing to look at all the facts (teachings of the Church).

Teachings of the Church – to borrow a term from the science community – are peer reviewed. There is tremendous depth to those teachings, and one should strongly consider them, before one simply gives in to passion.
 
skeptictank said:
Do you think that if a person leaves the church because they honestly believe that it is the right thing to do, that their souls will be destroyed in the judgement?
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Maybe, but hopefully not. Personally I would leave their judgement up to God. I would still pray for them, and pray for them to come back, but I feel that following one’s conscience is the most important thing of all. That being said, we have a duty to ourselves to form our conscience properly…
 
Wills is a modernist. His book “Papal Sin” was outrageous. Catholic? Eh…depends on what you mean by Catholic…anathema sit!
 
Atreyu said:
Maybe, but hopefully not. Personally I would leave their judgement up to God. I would still pray for them, and pray for them to come back, but I feel that following one’s conscience is the most important thing of all. That being said, we have a duty to ourselves to form our conscience properly…
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However, for those who knowingly and deliberately-that is, not out of innocent ignorance-commit the sins of heresy (rejecting divinely revealed doctrine) or schism (separating from the Catholic Church and/or joining a schismatic church), no salvation would be possible until they repented and returned to live in Catholic unity.
Catholic Answers
 
Willis is so OBVIOUSLY a modernist, cafeteria catholic that even outsiders see he has left the fold–for example Episcopalian Phillip Jenkins said Willis’s book Why I Am Still a Catholic should be re-titled, Why in the World do I still call myself a Catholic?
 
Lion_of_Narnia said:
Willis is so OBVIOUSLY a modernist, cafeteria catholic that even outsiders see he has left the fold–for example Episcopalian Phillip Jenkins said Willis’s book Why I Am Still a Catholic should be re-titled, Why in the World do I still call myself a Catholic?
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i bought this book at a book sale today expecting it to be a defence of Catholic beliefs:mad: but i got confused when i started reading it, so i came on the forums 😛

well i suppose the fact that I bought it means someone else won’t =D
 
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