What Did Jesus Mean?

Garry Wills, professor emeritus at Northwestern University, is best known for his writings on American history. His work also includes substantial contributions to the religious studies in contemporary literature. His writing on St. Augustine is critically acclaimed.

His most recent work, ‘What Jesus Meant’, is a very personal approach to a reflection on the underlying message of Jesus. Wills states clearly in the beginning that this work is not a piece of exegesis or scholarly analysis, but the work is his insight into the effect of the gospel message as discerned by Wills.

Thus, we have a very nuanced reflection that looks like a window into the sublime but falls neatly into the subjective opinion of a frustrated commentator.

Wills is in a stage of discontent with the church as order and authority. He suggests that Jesus had it right and the present church leaders have it wrong.

For example, Wills targets the present pope as being inimical to the example Jesus set. Wills says that “…Not for him the Epistle to the Hebrews, which says that Christ is the unique priest making the one last sacrifice. The pope, like his predecessors, is returning to the religion Jesus renounced, with all its paraphernalia of priesthood, separation from the laity, consecration of places and things, distance from the ‘unclean’ life of those not privileged by consecration…” p. 132.

This is pure opinion stated as pure fact.