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The Civilization of Christianity
Series: John L. McKenzie Reprint Series
Imprint: Wipf and Stock
264 Pages, 5.50 x 8.50 x 0.56 in
- Paperback
- 9781606080436
- Published: January 2009
$34.00 / £30.00 / AU$46.00
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The devastating thesis of this book is "that there is a deadly and irreconcilable opposition between western civilization and Christianity, and that one of them must destroy the other."
Throughout his more than forty years of teaching and writing, says John L. McKenzie, he felt a vague but strong discomfort -- a malaise. He finally realized that it was a "deliberately unrecognized discord between what I was and the word of God which I had so long studied. My way of life and my world demanded the maintenance of a number of assumptions which the world of God compelled me to question. My way of life and my world did not permit me to ask those questions. When the questions grew to an intolerable number, this book was the only way to find comfort, the comfort which I hope is reached by at last achieving total candor."
And candid John McKenzie is in this piercing analysis of the confrontation between Christianity and a world which has twisted it, softened it, rationalized it, and evaded its basic precepts.
Father John L. McKenzie (1910-1991), an Old Testament biblical scholar who taught at Loyola University of Chicago, University of Chicago, Notre Dame and DePaul University, is considered one of the most influential post-WW2 scholars who oriented Catholic thinkers toward modern biblical scholarship. Beyond being a prolific writer of books and articles, he was the first Catholic president of the Society of Biblical Literature, and served as president for the Catholic Biblical Association and for Clergy and Laity Concerned.
"There are few who can match (McKenzie's) honesty and grace."
The Christian Century
"It is cause for rejoicing that the scriptural reflections of John L. McKenzie are once more available. We are the richer for his erudition and saving sense of humor."
Daniel Berrigan, 2008
"Father John McKenzie led American Roman Catholic scholarship into the mainstream of critical biblical scholarship. In sum, he incorporated in terms of biblical scholarship the best of the Second Vatican Council."
Jim Robinson, 2008