“When Jesus became God” is the title of a very interesting book by Richard E Rubenstein, that I just finished reading. Given my interest in God, Christ Jesus and moving religious conviction beyond belief and dogma, you’ll understand why I found this book such a gripping read. I thoroughly recommend it.

 

The book is subtitled “The controversy that split Christianity during the last days of Rome”. And I have to say it was quite an eye-opener!

 

For some time, I have know that the doctrine that Jesus is God – ( God the Son, rather than the Son of God ) – was something that arose at ecumenical councils of the church in the 4^th Century – I had heard of the council of Nicaea in 325 and the Nicaean Creed that came out of this council, and that the decision making process, included excommunications from the church and might not have been entirely fair. However, I had no idea of the politics, skulduggery and brutality that accompanied the establishment of the Trinitarian doctrine. The fact that people calling themselves Christians (often bishops even!) could have behaved in this way is as shocking as the underlying theological questions are important and interesting.

 

Rubenstein’s book is very insightful in bringing out the motivations for this conflict. Given that this is an issue which rested on so little evidence, it is very sobering to read how this debate about the nature of Christ’s divinity could become so divisive and lead to so much bloodshed. And there are lessons for today.

 

Read Richard A Nenneman’s review from the Christian Science Monitor.

 

Join a discussion on ChristianScience.com that explores the divinity of Jesus.

Or share your thoughts here by leaving a comment…

 

 

Tags: Christ, Christianity, Jesus

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 9:11 pm and is filed under Book Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.