In her new book, A People’s History of Christianity, Diana Butler Bass takes a people’s perspective of Christianity that Howard Zinn took in his path breaking book, A People’s History of the United States. Rather an institutional history, and how the institution spread, it’s a history of the people who are Christian and how they live. In an interview she explains it this way:
It is parallel to the story of the secular history of the United States. I think that in the book I actually use the phrase “Manifest Destiny Christianity” to describe it, in the same way that we have “Manifest Destiny” American history.
…That popular story of Christianity starts right in the New Testament with the Great Commission…and so I thought to myself, “That’s kind of intriguing,” because while I respect the Great Commission and I have done mission work myself, those words are contested words by New Testament scholars. Many people think that they were a later addition to the New Testament. So I thought to myself, “Well if that’s not really the beginning of the church’s story…what did Jesus really say?” And that took my imagination back before the Great Commission to words that no scholar that I know of has any problem saying that Jesus actually said these words, and that is the Great Command: To love God and love your neighbor as yourself.
Follow the link for more of the transcript. There’s also audio of the interview and more about the book.