Garry Wills on Jesus

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The conflation of the religious and the political has become so common that we almost take it for granted. We often measure religion’s strength with the standards of political power, and have come to accept the way politicians of all stripes wield religion like a fiery sword. But when was the last time we actually talked about God? Or talked about faith separate from politics, or of the institutions that shepherd us through religious practice?

In time for Easter (the celebration of the resurrection) Garry Wills has his own mediation on faith, and specifically, on Jesus. Not the historical figure – a contradiction in terms, Wills says, an impossibility (for without the faith, and the resurrection, would we care about any supposed historical figure?) But the “divine mystery walking among men.”

More on this soon.

Garry Wills

Professor of American studies and cultural history, Northwestern University

Author, What Jesus Meant

Harvey Cox

Professor of Divinity, Harvard Divinity School

Caleb Stegal

Editor, New Pantagruel
Extra Credit Reading
Garry Wills, Christ Among the Partisans, The New York Times, 4/09/06

Jon Meacham, The Radical, The New York Times, 3/12/06


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