Your Own Personal Jesus

As Americans have become more Jesus-loving than God-fearing, the symbol of Jesus has changed.

By Kathleen McGowan, published on November 01, 2003 - last reviewed on January 13, 2009

They say he's always been the reason for the season, but Christmas notwithstanding, not much else about Jesus in America has stayed the same, finds Stephen Prothero in American Jesus.The American love affair with the Prince of Peace is fascinating, and this intellectual history does it full justice.

Our colonial predecessors, more concerned with cowering before God, relegated Jesus to a secondary role. But by the 19th century, evangelicals—boosted by the writings of Thomas Jefferson—began to champion a direct connection to the doctrines of Jesus. In the 20th century, Americans became more Jesus-loving than God-fearing, and Jesus himself changed from a symbol of the Christian church into an all-purpose spiritual figure. Kind, wise, tolerant and attentive, the 21st-century Jesus is more like the perfect, chaste boyfriend than a remote godhead. Now, two-thirds of us claim to have made a "personal commitment to Jesus Christ." We listen to Amy Grant, wear T-shirts that say, "Christ Cafe: Open 24 Hours, Forgiveness Any Time" and ask "What Would Jesus Do?"

We're all Jesus freaks now, Prothero argues. He includes separate chapters on the hippie Jesus ("someone who would hold your hand, wipe your brow and get you through a bad trip"), the black Messiah, the Jewish Jesus ("He was of us; he is of us," reads one 19th-century reform tract), Christ the Yogi and Jesus as bodhisattva. Whether we are essentially secular or essentially religious, we are Jesus Nation, he concludes. So even as we chastise ourselves for hitting the malls in honor of this sage's birth, Prothero has a larger message for us: It's OK to love Jesus and not be a Christian. "In a country divided by race, ethnicity, gender, class and religion, Jesus functions as common cultural coin."