Jesus in America Reflects Diversity

January 31, 2004

Source: The Associated Press

http://www.projo.com/ap/ma/1075580031.htm

On January 31, 2004 The Associated Press reported, "Readers looking for the one true Jesus won't find him in Boston University professor Stephen Prothero's new book 'American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon.' Instead, they will discover the extraordinary range of identities Jesus has assumed in American culture - in art, music, literature and more - over the past four centuries. The range testifies to a power and flexibility in Jesus' message that has made him a source of fascination not only among Christians but other faiths. 'I kept running into Jesus when I was trying to study Hindus and Buddhists,' said Prothero, who was inspired in part to write the book after coming across a portrait of a meditating Jesus while visiting a Hindu temple in San Francisco. But Prothero's interest is less in what that says about Jesus, than in what the 'malleable and multiform' Jesus says about America.