Amicus Dei

  Normally, I read an entire book before posting about it.  But, I am reading a fascinating new book, Saving Paradise — subtitled, How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire, by Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker.  You need to read this book.  Brock and Parker offer some of the freshest, most exciting insights into the transformation of the Christian church over the past 2,000 years.

Paradise, the authors contend, was the focus of the early church.  Paradise was where humanity was created in the image of God.  Paradise was the destiny of the people of God — the land flowing with milk and honey. The psalmists wrote of paradise; and the prophets described the renewed land as paradise restored.  The church was the “portal to paradise” and baptism the rite that ushered new converts back into the paradise that sin had lost.

The book is also filled with first-through-fourth century historical vignettes depicting how the early church spoke of and anticipated paradise here and in eternity.  One of the most fascinating chapters titled, “So Great a Cloud” describes how the early church held sacred dinners at the entrance to the burial places of Christians who had died.  They placed a single lit candle in an empty chair, signifying the presence of the deceased in their midst.  Based on the Hebrews 12 image of “a great cloud of witnesses” the early church believed that the dead were present with and helped those Christians still in this life.  They believed that the resurrection defeated death immediately, not just in the future, and that the veil between this world and the world to come was much thinner than we believe now.  

The tone of the book is positive, hopeful, and points us back to a time when the church took seriously and practically the life-giving power of the resurrection.  Paradise was the narrative that gave coherence to creation, even in all its sin and short-coming.  Paradise, the garden of God, is not only the goal, but the present reality of followers of Christ.  

I read a lot of books, as I am sure many of you do.  Most books are rehashes of old ideas, maybe with some good stories, or clever twists.  But, Saving Paradise presents a unique perspective, a fresh encounter with the early church.  If the second half of this thick volume (over 500 pages) is as good as the first, then I’m in for a treat for the next couple of days.  I’ll let you know.  – Amicus Dei