{"id":8230,"date":"2004-01-06T09:19:30","date_gmt":"2004-01-06T09:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/why_bother.html"},"modified":"2004-01-06T09:19:30","modified_gmt":"2004-01-06T09:19:30","slug":"why_bother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/why_bother.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Bother?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A good quote from John Meier in A Marginal Jew<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A tweedy poetaster who spent his time spinning out parables and Japanese koans, a literary aesthete who toyed with 1st-century deconstructionism, or a bland Jesus who simply told peole to look at the lilies of the field — such a Jesus would threaten no one, just as the university professors who cdreate him threaten no one. The historical Jesus did threaten, disturb, and infuriate people — from interpreters of the Law through the Jerusalem priestly aristocracy to the Roman prefect who finally tried and crucified him…To outsiders like Josephus, Tacitus, and Lucian of Samosata, one of the most striking things about Jesus was his crucifixion or execution by Rome. A Jesus whose words and deeds would not alienate eople, especially powerful people, is not the historical Jesus.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(p. 177)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A good quote from John Meier in A Marginal Jew: A tweedy poetaster who spent his time spinning out parables and Japanese koans, a literary aesthete who toyed with 1st-century deconstructionism, or a bland Jesus who simply told peole to look at the lilies of the field — such a Jesus would threaten no one,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Bother? - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/why_bother.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Bother? 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. 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