Jay Parini Quotes
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Who was Jesus anyway? After twenty centuries, there is not much anyone can agree on. The four canonical gospels don't measure up to modern standards of biographical writing, and - outside of this material - there is precious little contemporary evidence, apart from a few glancing mentions of Jesus or the movement centered on him.
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What I'm trying to argue, as passionately as I can, is that the Jesus story isn't worth dying for, it's worth living for. Jesus presents a third way, a way of being in the worth that embraces the Sermon on the Mount, with its challenge to violence and greed.
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I suspect that the framers of the Bill of Rights have long since rolled over in their graves.
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I still have deep respect for the evangelical tradition and feel, in many ways, close to the Baptist roots of my childhood, although I've been an Episcopalian throughout my adult life and a regular churchgoer.
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Although the story of George and Lennie in 'Of Mice and Men' ends on a depressing note, there is a peculiar aura of human dignity in it, a hint of redemption.
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I suspect that a huge amount of the anxiety and suffering that we see around can be closely traced to our wanton misuse of our resources. Just look at any garbage dump and see what is wasted. In a sense, we've wasted our souls.
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In truth, Jesus did not, in his own time, attract much notice.
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My own grandparents came to the United States as immigrants in 1912, and they lived for some years in Italian ghettos in New York. Most immigrant groups start in ghettos somewhere, and many of them never get out.
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I say that a myth is a story which has particular energy, mythic resonance. I always say that a myth is a tear in the fabric of reality through which all of this spiritual energy pours.
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The idea that owning a gun in America was an individual right only dates to the 1980s.
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The most dazzling aspect of 'Possession' is Ms. Byatt's canny invention of letters, poems and diaries from the 19th century.
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I envy Muslims their practice of regular and genuine prayer. It's a beautiful practice that enriches their daily lives.
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Beginning in the late 18th century, some German scholars began to regard Holy Scripture not as a single revelation but a sequence of inspired texts that occurred in specific times and places and were subject to varied and multiple meanings.
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I have always found the baptism of Jesus, with a dove descending and voice from Heaven, one of the great moments in the Jesus story. This is where Jesus hears the deep call from God.
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Indeed, we might all forget where we have been if we didn't have somebody to assemble and arrange the little blocks called facts from which history is constructed, artfully or less so.
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I have written about some truly great writers - John Steinbeck, Robert Frost, and William Faulkner. Faulkner and Frost were the very peaks of American poetry and fiction in the 20th century.
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Within the Christian tradition, fundamentalism arose in the 19th century as an effort to push back against modern' readings of the Bible that suggested everything in the text wasn't true in some literal sense.
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Fundamentalism takes different forms in different religions, but there is one striking similarity in all forms of fundamentalist thought. Each wishes dearly to hold in check all varieties of 'modern' or 'decadent' thinking.
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American politicians who dwell on American exceptionalism only dishonor us by suggesting we play dumb to our past.
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In a sense, I wrote the book about Jesus that I wanted to read.
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Honest, simple work for young people is essential to their well-being.
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American failures in Vietnam and Iraq suggest that it's not really possible to create and sustain a proxy government in a country far from our own borders.
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So who is Jesus? For me, he's the central character in the greatest story ever told. It's a story about a gradually realizing kingdom that lies inside of us.
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When Gore Vidal was coming up, there were three major channels, and he could count on a big audience when he debated someone like William F. Buckley on TV.