Day 26. November 1, 2006
Movement 2. Solus Jesus
Lecture 12. Jesus and Muscular Christianity (Part 2)
The muscular version of Victorian Christianity exemplified in Ben Hur connects quintessentially masculine Judah Ben Hur with Jesus, the man of sorrow. The Social Gospel grounded in the same search for the historical Jesus evident in Ben Hur took shape also in an 1896 novel by Charles Sheldon, In His Steps. Sheldon's large cast of contemporary characters repeatedly posed the question "What would Jesus do?" The answer, according to Sheldon, involves paternalistic sacrifice that inevitably brings reward to the one sacrificing. Christians, says Sheldon, can together address and solve any problem, particularly poverty, by rightly filling their socially and culturally defined roles. A quarter century later ad man Bruce Barton realized explicitly Sheldon's implicit portrayal of Jesus in his novelized self-help book The Man Nobody Knows. Barton's Jesus discovers himself in the course of a ministry in which he occupies himself with modern roles such as the executive, the outdoorsman, the great salesman, and the founder of modern business.