Philip Jenkins
Commands to kill, to commit ethnic cleansing, to institutionalize segregation, to hate and fear other races and religionsâ€”all are in the Bible, and all occur with a far greater frequency than in the Qurâ€™an. But fanaticism is no more hard-wired in Christianity than it is in Islam. In ,Laying Down the Sword,, â€œone of Americaâ€™s best scholars of religionâ€ (,The Economist,) explores how religions grow past their bloody origins, and delivers a fearless examination of the most violent verses of the Bible and an urgent call to read them anew in pursuit of a richer, more genuine faith.,Christians cannot engage with neighbors and critics of other traditionsâ€”nor enjoy the deepest, most mature embodiment of their own faithâ€”until they confront the texts of terror in their heritage. Philip Jenkins identifies the â€œholy amnesiaâ€ that, while allowing scriptural religions to grow and adapt, has demanded a nearly wholesale suppression of the Bibleâ€™s most aggressive passages, leaving them dangerously dormant for extremists to revive in times of conflict. Jenkins lays bare the ,whole, Bible, without compromise or apology, and equips us with tools for reading even the most unsettling texts, from the slaughter of the Canaanites to the alarming rhetoric of the book of Revelation.,Laying Down the Sword, presents a vital framework for understanding both the Bible and the Qurâ€™an, gives Westerners a credible basis for interaction and dialogue with Islam, and delivers a powerful model for how a faith can grow from terror to mercy.
Religion,Religion,Theology,History,Religion,Christianity,Nonfiction,Christianity,Old Testament,Religion,Islam,Spirituality
Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can't Ignore the Bible's Violent Verses