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.

Upcoming Weekend Events

Friday & Saturday, 10/22/10 & 10/23/10 - BISHOP JOHN SPONG, Retired Episcopal Bishop

Friday & Saturday, 2/25/11 & 2/26/11 - JOHN DOMINIC CROSSAN, Professor, Speaker, Author

Friday & Saturday, 4/15/11 & 4/16/11 - PAUL KNITTER, Professor, Speaker, Author

Make a contribution

Opportunities to discuss contemporary theology, including a non-literal and non-dogmatic Bible, are available at several locations and times in the greater Houston area. Subjects for discussion can be lectures by our weekend speakers, as well as books and individual spiritual issues.

The present four groups (up to 20 individuals) are:

Memorial/Spring Branch area—meets on Sunday evenings from 6:30 to 8:30.

Call Bob Tucker at (713) 468-5607 or send him a message.

Bellaire/Meyerland/Sharpstown/Westbury area—meets on Thursday Nights at 6:30 p.m. This group begins with a pot luck supper.

Call Jerry & Barbara O’Keefe at (713) 778-8528 or send them a message.

Museum District/West University area—meets on Monday Nights at 7:00 p.m. This group meets in the Church Parlor at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church at 5501 South Main Street.

Call Dottie Burge at (713) 664-4143 or send her a message.

Willis/Kingwood/Tomball/Spring area—meets on the first and third Monday Nights at 5:00 p.m.

Call Karyl Paige at 1-281-292-6503 or send her a message.