The Christ the Center panel once again had the privilege of meeting with Dr. Stephen Nichols, Research Professor of Christianity and Culture at Lancaster Bible College and Graduate School, this time discussing his book Jesus: Made in America. Dr. Nichols gave us a summary of the book and the panelists interacted with him about the prevalent American Evangelical temptation to make Jesus over in our own image or into the image of some ideal far removed from his Biblical context. The group looked at how Jesus was understood by the Puritans in New England as well as the manly Jesus of Jacksonian America and the gentle Jesus meek and mild of the Victorian era. Closer to the present time the panelists discussed Fosdick and Van Dyke and their views of Jesus in contradistinction to the orthodoxy of J. Gresham Machen. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the American made Jesus was the consideration of the roots of contemporary Christian music (CCM). The group enjoyed the discussion and you will too. (more…)

Participants: Camden Bucey, James Dolezal, Jeff Waddington, Nick Batzig, Stephen J. Nichols