Philip Jenkins delivers a fearless examination of the darkand violent verses of the Bible—and a call for us to read them anew in pursuitof a richer, more honest faith. From “one of America’s best scholars ofreligion” (The Economist), this daring exploration of the Scripture’smost difficult passages forces us to confront and accept the violence that wasas integral to the formulation of Christianity’s message as it was for manyother of the world’s religions, and shows us how a full understanding of theScripture will allow us to finally move towards a more peaceful, spiritualworld. Readers of Bart Ehrman’s God’s Problem,John Selby Spong’s The Sins of Scripture, andJenkins’s own The Jesus Wars, as well as every Christian eager to squarethe recurrent violence of the Scripture with Christianity’s enduring message ofpeace, will find these difficult questions explored in full in Laying Downthe Sword.

Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can't Ignore the Bible's Violent Verses

Religion & Spirituality

Jenkins, Philip

Christian Books & Bibles

HarperOne

Laying Down the Sword

SanFran

The Great and Holy War offers the first look at how religion created and prolonged the First World War. At the one-hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of the war, historian Philip Jenkins reveals the powerful religious dimensions of this modern-day crusade, a period that marked a traumatic crisis for Western civilization, with effects that echoed throughout the rest of the twentieth century.
The war was fought by the world's leading Christian nations, who presented the conflict as a holy war. Thanks to the emergence of modern media, a steady stream of patriotic and militaristic rhetoric was given to an unprecedented audience, using language that spoke of holy war and crusade, of apocalypse and Armageddon. But this rhetoric was not mere state propaganda. Jenkins reveals how the widespread belief in angels and apparitions, visions and the supernatural was a driving force throughout the war and shaped all three of the major religions—Christianity, Judaism and Islam—paving the way for modern views of religion and violence. The disappointed hopes and moral compromises that followed the war also shaped the political climate of the rest of the century, giving rise to such phenomena as Nazism, totalitarianism, and communism.
Connecting numerous remarkable incidents and characters—from Karl Barth to Carl Jung, the Christmas Truce to the Armenian Genocide—Jenkins creates a powerful and persuasive narrative that brings together global politics, history, and spiritual crisis as never before and shows how religion informed and motivated circumstances on all sides of the war.

The Great and Holy War: How World War I Became a Religious Crusade

History

Americas

Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis

If we can believe the six o'clock news, there has been an epidemic of sexual abuse among the clergy, and especially among the Roman Catholic clergy. We have certainly seen many well-publicized cases, with front-page photos of priests led off to jail, and television interviews of parents afraid to let their children associate with clergy. But did the news media get the story right? Is there really an epidemic of clergy sex abuse? And is there, as some charge, something about the institution of the priesthood itself that attracts or creates pedophiles? Neither an expose nor an apology, Pedophiles and Priests takes a close, dispassionate look at the entire history of this mushrooming scandal, from the first rumblings to today's headlines. Philip Jenkins has written a fascinating, exhaustive, and above all even-handed account that not only puts this particular crisis in perspective, but offers an eye-opening look at the way in which an issue takes hold of the popular imagination. Jenkins argues convincingly not only that clergy sex abuse is far less widespread than the headlines suggest, but that there is nothing at all particularly Roman Catholic about the problem. What then led to the media's portrayal of a church in crisis? Jenkins begins by noting a number of factors--increased concern over the sexual abuse of children, changes in media attitudes towards the churches, the explosion in litigation in general--which combined to generate more accusations involving ministers of every denomination, with more publicity and more serious repercussions than ever before. He goes on to explore why clergy abuse came to be seen as a peculiarly Roman Catholic problem, underscoring a number of contributory factors. There is a long-standing anti-Catholic stereotype of priests as lascivious predators. The Catholic Church is a more attractive target for lawsuits than other denominations; one can sue not only the local congregation but also the archdiocese and even the national church. Perhaps most important, however, dissidents within the Roman Catholic Church itself--both liberals and traditionalists--seized upon the issue as a rhetorical weapon. Some argued that priestly celibacy led to homosexuality and disordered behavior such as pedophilia. Others alleged that the problem arose from the toleration of gay clergy. If Pedophiles and Priests reassures us about our local clergy, it also delivers a disturbing message about how vulnerable we are to the news media, and how easily the media can be manipulated by special interests. Meticulously documented and dispassionately argued, this volume marks a watershed in the discussion of an issue of enormous current interest, one that will not disappear from the headlines any time soon.

Literature & Fiction

United States

Oxford University Press

In Mystics and Messiahs--the first full account of cults and anti-cult scares in American history--Philip Jenkins shows that, contrary to popular belief, cults were by no means an invention of the 1960s. In fact, most of the frightening images and stereotypes surrounding fringe religious movements are traceable to the mid-nineteenth century when Mormons, Freemasons, and even Catholics were denounced for supposed ritualistic violence, fraud, and sexual depravity. But America has also been the home of an often hysterical anti-cult backlash. Jenkins offers an insightful new analysis of why cults arouse such fear and hatred both in the secular world and in mainstream churches, many of which were themselves originally regarded as cults. He argues that an accurate historical perspective is urgently needed if we are to avoid the kind of catastrophic confrontation that occurred in Waco or the ruinous prosecution of imagined Satanic cults that swept the country in the 1980s. Without ignoring genuine instances of aberrant behavior, Mystics and Messiahs goes beyond the vast edifice of myth, distortion, and hype to reveal the true characteristics of religious fringe movements and why they inspire such fierce antagonism.

Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American History

Was Jesus really a subversive mystic whose true teachings were suppressed by an authoritarian church? Has the real nature of Christianity been deliberately obscured for centuries? Do recently discovered texts such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, and even the Dead Sea Scrolls undermine the historical validity of the New Testament? In this incisive critique, Philip Jenkins thoroughly and convincingly debunks such claims. Jenkins places the recent controversies surrounding the hidden gospels in a broad historical context and argues that, far from being revolutionary, such attempts to find an alternative Christianity date back at least to the Enlightenment. And by employing the appropriate scholarly and historical methodologies, he demonstrates that the texts purported to represent pristine Christianity were in fact composed long after the canonical gospels found in the Bible. Produced by obscure heretical movements, these texts offer no reliable new information about Jesus or the early church. They have attracted so much media attention chiefly because they seem to support radical, feminist, and post-modern positions in the modern church. Indeed, Jenkins shows how best-selling books on the "hidden gospels" have been taken up by an uncritical, scandal-hungry media as the basis for a social movement that could have dramatic effects on the faith and practice of contemporary Christianity. Brilliantly researched and sharply argued, Hidden Gospels unearths both the complex agendas and flawed methods of scholars who have created a whole new mythology about Jesus and the early church.

Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way

Ancient Civilizations

This volume takes a close, dispassionate look at the entire history of the issue of sexual abuse among the clergy, and especially among the Roman Catholic clergy. From the first rumblings to today's headlines, Philip Jenkins has written a fascinating, exhaustive, and, above all, even-handed account that not only puts this particular crisis in perspective, but offers an eye-opening look at the way in which an issue takes hold of the popular imagination. Jenkins reassures us about our local clergy, but also delivers a disturbing message about how vulnerable we are to the news media. Meticulously documented and dispassionately argued, this volume marks a watershed in the discussion of an issue of enormous current interest, one that will not disappear from the headlines any time soon.

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

The explosive southward expansion of Christianity in Africa, Asia, and Latin American has barely registered on Western consciousness. Nor has the globalization of Christianity--and the enormous religious, political, and social consequences it portends--been properly understood. Philip Jenkins' The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity is the first book to take the full measure of the changing face of the Christian faith. Jenkins asserts that by the year 2050 only one Christian in five will be a non-Latino white person and that the center of gravity of the Christian world will have shifted firmly to the Southern hemisphere. Within a few decades Kinshasa, Buenos Aires, Addis Ababa, and Manila will replace Rome, Athens, Paris, London, and New York as the focal points of the Church. Moreover, Jenkins shows that the churches that have grown most rapidly in the global south are far more traditional, morally conservative, evangelical, and apocalyptic than their northern counterparts. Mysticism, puritanism, belief in prophecy, faith-healing, exorcism, and dream-visions--concepts which more liberal western churches have traded in for progressive political and social concerns--are basic to the newer churches in the south. And the effects of such beliefs on global politics, Jenkins argues, will be enormous, as religious identification begins to take precedence over allegiance to secular nation-states. Indeed, as Christianity grows in regions where Islam is also expected to increase--as recent conflicts in Indonesia, Nigeria, and the Philippines reveal--we may see a return to the religious wars of the past, fought out with renewed intensity and high-tech weapons far surpassing the swords and spears of the middle ages. Jenkins shows that Christianity is on the rise again, and to understand what that rise may mean requires a new awareness of what is happening in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The Next Christendom takes the first large step towards that new awareness.

The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Jenkins, Philip. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Jenkins, Philip

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Jenkins, Philip. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can't Ignore the Bible's Violent Verses

Laying Down the Sword

The Great and Holy War: How World War I Became a Religious Crusade

The Great and Holy War: How World War I Became a Religious Crusade

Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis

Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American History

Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way

Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American History

Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis

The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity