JesusSutrasBRRP

China Syndrome

A Review of The Jesus Sutras:

Rediscovering the Lost Scrolls of Taoist Christianity

Fundamentalists are loath to admit the degree to which their faith is informed by Western culture. Amid the throes of the current Culture War, Christians should be able to distinguish between accumulated cultural artifacts and the core of First Century Christianity. Unfortunately, the Christian Right finds any attempt to identify non-Biblical cultural practices as a thinly veiled attempt to deconstruct their carefully crafted comfort zone. Many contemporary Evangelicals are unaware that many of their ancestors as recently as one hundred years ago eschewed such practices as an altar call or “invitation hymn” and used wine rather than grape juice in their communion observances. Instead of an informed awareness of historical developments, they proceed blithely as if today’s worship practices represent the way things have always been done. One of the reasons for this collective ignorance is that we have little opportunity to compare how the church developed in the West with how the church developed elsewhere. We don’t have the opportunity to answer the question, “What would Christianity look like if it hadn’t developed in the West?” Martin Palmer’s The Jesus Sutras provides us with an answer to this very question.

Palmer brings an intimate familiarity with Chinese spirituality to the task of translating and interpreting the various writings from northwestern China of the seventh to the eleventh century. These early Christian texts represent a thread of Christian development that rose, flourished and reached its zenith far removed from the historical controversies and councils that shaped much of Western Christianity. From these sutras or sacred scrolls we can see a vibrant, spiritual faith that was shaped by the Buddhist and Taoist culture around it rather than the pagan influences that impinged on Western Christianity. Additionally, we can trace the development of a form of Christianity that is at once familiar and alternately alien to the Christianity to which we are accustomed. More importantly than providing answers to the shape and nature of Eastern Christianity beyond the influence of the Eastern Orthodox Church, The Jesus Sutras raises questions about how much of what we believe is accumulated baggage and how much is integral to first century Christianity. This book contains no easy answers, but instead raises hearty challenges.

This is not a book for those who feel that we in the West, and particularly in evangelicalism or fundamentalism, have everything nailed down. Rather, such folk will find much to criticize in this book. Palmer is certainly no advocate for evangelical Christianity and does nothing to assuage any misgivings denominational partisans might have. Instead, he arranges the sutras in chronological order and allows the reader to discover how China shaped a form of Christianity that was able for centuries to speak Jesus Christ into a Buddhist culture. The language, idioms, metaphors and allusions are so alien to our Western way of thinking that many would find these works to be heterodox declensions from an otherwise “pure” faith. What the detractors would miss, however, is that much of what we accept in Western culture is the same sort of culture-centric language, idioms, metaphors and allusions. If one can imagine a theology of the afterlife that was uninfluenced by the likes of Dante or Milton, one can then read The Jesus Sutras and find something worthwhile in these medieval Chinese texts.

The Jesus Sutras is an eminently readable chronicle and should be required for any student of comparative religions and theology. Palmer does a masterful job of telling the story of his personal discovery of an eighth century pagoda that was the earliest known monastery in mainland China and a stone stele containing a sutra with distinctly Christian motifs unique to China. While relatively unknown to the West, the local inhabitants recognized that the Da Qin monastery was the most famous Christian mission in China during the Tang Dynasty. Palmer’s story-telling ability extends to the way he gradually unfolds the sutras that chronicle the development of a uniquely Chinese version of Christianity. The Jesus Sutras unfurls an astounding story of Chinese Christian development that both parallels and diverges from our own cultural heritage. If anything, it should humble the current crop of Culture Warriors and give them pause to evaluate exactly what it is they are making war for. Are they seeking to protect Christianity from the onslaught of “cultural relativism” or have they already succumbed to cultural relativism by adapting their Christianity to Western culture? The Jesus Sutras provides us with a way of exploring this question.

by Rick Presley