Praise for Christ Actually: Reimagining Faith in the Modern Age

“The divinity and greatness of Jesus for a secular age, Carroll asserts, are not to be found in miracles ascribed to Him, nor in the grandeur of His elevation by millennia of Christian theology. Carroll argues, finally, that the appeal of Christ to the contemporary faithful has much less to do with creed, and more to do with our ability to imitate Him in his unwavering acceptance of love for the brokenness of human beings.”

—The Washington Post

“Carroll’s own reading of Jesus, at once stunningly original and strangely familiar, is a testament to the power of a critical, creative faith.”

—The Boston Globe

“Written in the brisk, argumentative style that has won James Carroll a broad popular readership, Christ Actually avoids the interminable maundering of academic prose, even as its extensive footnotes indicate attention to advanced, if radical, scholarship. Conservative Christians may well be shocked and annoyed at Carroll’s configuration of Jesus. Nevertheless, for its pushback against the boundaries of conventional interpretations and, above all, for its passionate presentation of the sinfulness of Christian anti-Semitism, his book deserves serious attention.”

—Commonweal

“It’s the book’s greatest virtue that Carroll can present all these real-world possibilities for Christ alongside his lifetime’s work in theology, historical research, and biblical criticism. . . . But for all this historical fidelity, Carroll’s writing is also thoroughly modern and devotional. His notion of Christ for today depends on taking seriously the possibility that ours is now a ‘religionless world.’ . . . Believers like Bonhoeffer and, later, Day, whose very lives opposed the infernality of war, groped for words that might give Christ some meaning amid the ruins of Christendom. Carroll gropes too and well. But there are no words as powerful as our human lives. Carroll knows this. It is his final word. And for Christians, he concludes, the fullness of their lives remains Christ’s only hope.”

—Los Angeles Times

“With well-researched clarity, Carroll explores the question posed by anti-Nazi Lutheran pastor and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer: who actually is Christ for us today? . . . Because Christ actually is meaningful in some way to a billion Christians around the globe, this heartfelt investigation is of interest to many.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Carroll . . . strives to reconceive Christ for a secular, post-Holocaust, post-Hiroshima era. . . . Readers seeking a faith responsive to the zeitgeist will find it here.”

—Booklist

“Compelling.”

—Todd Gitlin, The Tablet