Among the Gentiles: Greco-Roman Religion and Christianity
Luke Timothy Johnson
Yale University Press, 2009-11-10 - 461 pages
The
question of Christianity’s relation to the other religions of the world
is more pertinent and difficult today than ever before. While
Christianity’s historical failure to appreciate or actively engage
Judaism is notorious, Christianity’s even more shoddy record with
respect to “pagan” religions is less understood. Christians have
inherited a virtually unanimous theological tradition that thinks of
paganism in terms of demonic possession, and of Christian missions as a
rescue operation that saves pagans from inherently evil practices.
In
undertaking this fresh inquiry into early Christianity and Greco-Roman
paganism, Luke Timothy Johnson begins with a broad definition of
religion as a way of life organized around convictions and experiences
concerning ultimate power. In the tradition of William James’s
Variety of Religious Experience,
he identifies four distinct ways of being religious: religion as
participation in benefits, as moral transformation, as transcending the
world, and as stabilizing the world. Using these criteria as the basis
for his exploration of Christianity and paganism, Johnson finds multiple
points of similarity in religious sensibility.
Christianity’s
failure to adequately come to grips with its first pagan neighbors,
Johnson asserts, inhibits any effort to engage positively with adherents
of various world religions. This thoughtful and passionate study
should help break down the walls between Christianity and other
religious traditions.
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Gabriele Boccaccini, John Joseph Collins
