Having entered the Christmas season, we ask those who find the work of the Mystagogy Resource Center beneficial to them to help us continue our work with a generous financial gift as you are able. As an incentive, we are offering the following booklet.

In 1909 the German philosopher Arthur Drews wrote a book called "The Myth of Christ", which New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman has called "arguably the most influential mythicist book ever produced," arguing that Jesus Christ never existed and was simply a myth influenced by more ancient myths. The reason this book was so influential was because Vladimir Lenin read it and was convinced that Jesus never existed, thus justifying his actions in promoting atheism and suppressing the Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union. Moreover, the ideologues of the Third Reich would go on to implement the views of Drews to create a new "Aryan religion," viewing Jesus as an Aryan figure fighting against Jewish materialism. 

Due to the tremendous influence of this book in his time, George Florovsky viewed the arguments presented therein as very weak and easily refutable, which led him to write a refutation of this text which was published in Russian by the YMCA Press in Paris in 1929. This apologetic brochure titled "Did Christ Live? Historical Evidence of Christ" was one of the first texts of his published to promote his Neopatristic Synthesis, bringing the patristic heritage to modern historical and cultural conditions. With the revival of these views among some in our time, this text is as relevant today as it was when it was written. 

Never before published in English, it is now available for anyone who donates at least $20 to the Mystagogy Resource Center upon request (please specify in your donation that you want the book). Thank you.



June 5, 2009

Vogue-style Jesus: Dag Soderberg on Colbert Report


Pop goes the Bible.

Dag Soderberg seeks to take the Bible out of the bookshop and onto the coffee table with Bible Illuminated: The Book. When a secularist non-believer like Soderberg seeks to illuminate the Bible, you know very little good can come out of it. The purpose of the Bible is to illumine, and can only truly be illuminated by someone that has in fact been illumined by it.

The glossy-paged Vogue-style Bible sold well in secularized Sweden precisely because it only appeals to a secularized post-modern mentality that limits the teachings of Christ to social justice and would rather honor celebrities as God's messengers than the Saints. Why else would Angelina Jolie, Al Gore, Che Guevera, Mother Theresa, Mahatma Ghandi and Nelson Mandela appear in the Gospel of Mark? Why else would an Andy Warhol poster and the ultrasound image of a baby with 47 chromosomes appear at the opening to the Gospel of Mat­thew, adjacent to highlighted verses on the birth of Christ? What purpose is there to a photograph of three young black men striking gangsta poses to "illuminate" Matthew’s account of the three visitors from the East? Probably the worst thing about the book is that it uses the awful Good News translation of the Bible.

One can only wonder what's next in the world of the big business of selling Bibles - a Jenna Jameson illustrated version of Song of Songs perhaps? After all, wouldn't such a text provoke discussion as well?

Maybe certain things should just not be discussed.

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