What Jesus Meant by Garry Willis

I consider myself a fairly spiritual person, but when getting down to naming a particular religion or denomination, I claim to be an agnostic. A more accurate discription probably lays somewhere between being a Presbyterian and a Buddhist, if that is possible. Anyway, for years I have been interested in Jesus Christ not only as a spiritual person, but also from a historical perspective. Jesus is one of a handful of historical figures that literally changed the world (for the good in this case.) Few historical figures can ever be attributed with actually changing the
course of the word.

In recent years, there has been a lot fiction written questioning the divinity and providing alternate theories of his life, not the least of which is Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code (which I loved) and Steve Berry's The Templar Legacy (also quite good).

I stumbled across What Jesus Meant by Garry Willis and initially did not give it a second glance. However, I learned more about its author and became intrigued. Willis is a former Jesuit seminarian and considers himself a good Catholic. He certainly did not start out with the intent of maligning the life of Christ.

Based on the scriptures, Willis looks at the life of Christ and attempts to explain the type of person that Jesus actually was in his own time as well as what he would be like today. From this, he explains what it was like to be a follower of Jesus. This book made an enlightening read. Willis' conclusions about Jesus Christ in today's world are similar to my own. Jesus would not set foot in most churches. "He broke every possible religious rule of his time. He broke Sabbath. He consorted with unclean people. Everything that could offend external releigion, he did.... Why would he be any different now." says Willis.