Weekend Event—Rita Nakashima Brock

September 24-25, 2010

Fri. 7:30-9pm - Sat. 9 am-2:30pm

Saving Paradise:

How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire

A riddle: why are images of the crucified Christ absent from early Christian art? After visiting Mediterranean and European sites sacred to early Christians a provocative answer comes forth—the dying Christ never appears in early Christian art because early Christians did not believe Christ’s redemptive death had opened a heavenly afterlife for the faithful. Rather, early Christians looked to Jesus as the exemplar who showed how to defy injustice by creating paradise on Earth in a loving community. In this theory, images of Christ’s passion and death invaded Christian art only when the Church started using a theology of otherworldly salvation to recruit the forces necessary to build a Christian empire.

Rita Nakashima Brock

All Sessions $60.00 Friday Night ONLY $35.00 Saturday ONLY $50.00