Christianity in A Nutshell

Book Review: Christianity in a Nutshell
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Introduction
In approximately twenty-one centuries of its chronology, Christianity has turned to be
vastly multifaceted with theological schemes, celebrations, doctrines, rituals, hierarchical rulings,
ethical canons, and canonical laws. The typical Christian and the theological society face an
extraordinary challenge when striving to determine a thread to reconnect and link the
fundamental elements of faith coherently and develop a rank within the truth. 1. After a half-
century of profound progressive engagement in the theological conception, Boff attempted to
demonstrate Christianity's minimum of minimum or to determine the maximum of the minimum
in an approach that can be grasped by individuals who are displaying some interest for and
fascination in the Crystal message. He expressed what he had to say in the modern world
perception as it is given to people by life and earth sciences. This implies understanding the
cosmos in expansion and evolution and for advocates sustained by the progressive God's power.
Out of the universe, numerous spectacles have progressively appeared like the elusive
enunciation of cosmic potencies that override the heavenly bodies' course, the developing orders'
complexity, and ultimately the insight of consciousness and life, and presently the human
species' unification through globalization.2. Jesus was an incarnate son of God, a product of a
painful and long trajectory of internationalization and ascent to which all factors, the cosmic
potencies, and the forces creating people have generated. 3. In collaboration with additional
spiritual and religious pathways, it also partakes in the conjoint mission to sustain the life of the
supernatural flame or the mystical presence in every individual, in the cosmos' entirety, and
1
Boff, Leonardo. “Christianity in a Nutshell.” Google Books, 2013. https://books.google.co.ke/books?
hl=en&lr=&id=NOsNPTMYoTUC&oi=fnd&pg=PT8&dq=Christianity+in+a+Nutshell&ots=6a64XuXpwL&sig=4L
D5dmR1S38eR-vLtH1qiczitDU&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false. P6
2
IbidBoff, Leonardo. “Christianity in a Nutshell.” Google Books, 2013. https://books.google.co.ke/books?
D5dmR1S38eR-vLtH1qiczitDU&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false.p6
3
Case, Shirley Jackson. “Christianity and the Mystery Religions.” The Biblical World 43, no. 1 (January 1914): 3–16.
https://doi.org/10.1086/474965.
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history. The world's Mystery comprises compassion, communion, and love of all with all. This is
the factual name of what human beings call God.
Christianity and Mystery
Theological Mystery is accredited to commencement of the communion, originality of
life, Trinitarian reality, the enormous salient paroxysm, Sun's birth to sustain the life on earth out
of billions of galaxies, the globe as observed from within, the infinite project of man’s existence,
and Mary’s spiritualization by the holy ghost 4. Other mystical tales include The Son’s
manifestation in Jesus of Nazareth and many others. When we target our observance, to the
small, to the vast, inward and outward, downward and upward, all we see is Mystery. 5. Einstein
was correct when he said, "The man who doesn't have eyes open to the mystical realm will spend
his lifetime seeing nothing." The Mystery isn't anonymous. It is that which interests and pulls us
to know it profoundly. simultaneously it prompts in us reverence and wonders 6. Since it's always
present, it exists for us to acknowledge it. When people try to learn this Mystery, they find that
their hunger and thirst for acquaintance is never satisfied, but we can always learn deeper.
Nonetheless, whenever we seize Mystery and knowledge, they lure us to the unknown. We quest
it eternally, and even so, it always remains mystical in all comprehension, creating intangible
enticement, inevitable reverence, and anxiety in people. That's Mystery.
God’s Himself as a Mystery
4
5
Ibid Case, Shirley Jackson. “Christianity and the Mystery Religions.” The Biblical World 43, no. 1 (January 1914):
3–16. https://doi.org/10.1086/474965.
6
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In the genesis was secrecy. This secrecy was God. Theologically, God is mysterious and
us and Godself. God is a secret that we ceaselessly try to understand by intelligence or love.
Each experience plants a deficiency that leads to a supplementary experience 7. Any familiarity
opens an additional entrance to a novel knowledge. God's Mystery for human beings isn't the
endpoint to an acquaintance but the endlessness of knowledge and the affections that never rests.
We can't reach a point that provides utter gratification. 8. This is because Mystery cannot fit in
any structure and can’t be caught in the trap of several doctrines. It's a pre-emptive mystery; it
always convokes and lures us. Whenever we experience it for some time, it has already
absconded us, but it leaves behind a feeling of fascination 9. It is a nonexistent presence but also
an existent absence. It is portrayed in our unlimited discontent, which in vain and tirelessly
quests satisfaction. In this changeover, human beings are realized between absence and presence,
happy and horrific, entire but incomplete. God, as an anonymous, understands Himself. God is
endlessly learning himself because his knowledge about Himself is never exhausted. Anything
understandable cannot be God since God is a Mystery to Himself. In their debate with God,
Moses and Job never understood any full meaning of His explanations. He used anonymous
names.
Secrecy in its Trinitarian realm understands itself and annexes from its brimming reality
insofar as it is self-disclosed to itself. It shows what’s incongruent from it as a reflector in which
mystical Three view themselves. That is the creation’s implication. Creation portrays God to
7
8
3–16. https://doi.org/10.1086/474965.
9
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Himself10. Out of the complexities of Secrecy stem the immeasurable potentialities that aren’t
known as possibilities11. Each advent is understood in its entirety, but an additional one breaks
simultaneously and so ceaselessly in a limitless Perpetuum mobile 12. The mystical mechanism
unbolts to collect them and blend them into its environment. They eternally explode and
implode, making the Mystical essence uncover itself as uninterruptedly vibrant and demonstrate
its endless probable riches. It is always new in the newness of the world, a surprise based on
surprise, elegance upon elegance, affection on affection, adoration on adoration, and
comprehension on comprehension. The God-intimacy has its chronology 13. It can be that which
has never existed, for instance, the Son of the Father, who became the bodily God, the Son at a
given period.
Formation of the Sun by a Supernova Explosion
Out of billions of galaxies, one is outstanding, The Great Milky Way. Milky Way is a
spiral galaxy reaching one hundred thousand light-years in the expanse. Within this galaxy, the
initial Sun, Tiamat, was formed. It shone for many years. Within this Sun, atomic explosions
kept it alive, imitated in the great red stars which were essential for what would appear many
years later with Ammonia, Sulfur, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus, and particularly Carbon which
is vital for chemical synthesis that facilitated genetic information, reflex consciousness, and
memory14. After thousands of centuries, this Sun detonated and turned into a supernova. From it
10
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13
3–16. https://doi.org/10.1086/474965.
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proceeded an enormous gas stream and various elements in many directions. The gases stabilized
due to gravity then the great present Sun appeared. It is currently five million centuries-old, and
planets formed around it from materials ejected by the first Sun. Earth took billions of years to be
spherical and make a revolution path around the Sun. Earth's distance from the Sun facilitated
retention of liquid elements and water, which created an essential environment for life and an
oxygen-rich atmosphere after it attained a good shape and condensed.
Emergence of Life
For a thousand centuries, the Sun has been a sea of flames because of its cosmological
background and the meteors that struck it. cosmogenesis is a mysterious process that has resulted
in the emergence and multiplication of life globally 15. First life was a bacterium that emerged
from an ancestral swamp after a fusion between four nucleic acids and twenty amino acids,
complying with the mystical life design and then exploded to form more of their type. After
billion years, eukaryote appeared. This was a cell with a nucleus and membrane. This cell
invented sexuality because a couple of these cells exchanged nuclei and had genetic DNA for the
multiplication of cells16. Adaptations, mutations, multiplication, and diversity of species
escalated on earth17. Biosphere originated from a communication process between living things
with the earth, its elements, and the energies. The fall of Meteor in the Caribbean implied a type
of vast ecological Armageddon since it led to the vanishing of enormous species and earth's
biotic asset.
15
16
3–16. https://doi.org/10.1086/474965.
17
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Jesus and Christianity
Jesus' tradition is the hard nucleus, the elements that fit in a Nutshell and epitomize the
innovative praxis and intention of Jesus before the elucidations bestowed to them. Visions and
values contained in the Bible developed Jesus' tradition. Ostensibly, it doesn't concern a
discipline, canon, or institution. Jesus taught Christians a lifestyle, not to develop a novel religion
or an organization with reverent congregations 18. This custom is a worthy dream, a divine
pathway that can take numerous forms and gain cohorts other than the ecclesiastic and religious.
Jesus’ tradition changed itself chronologically into Christian Religion. Christianity is a sacred
organization comprising various Churches, particularly the Roman Catholic Church. These
cathedrals are characterized by being agencies with disciplines, juridical canons, moral
devotions, celebrations, rituals, and doctrines 19. Roman Catholic was structured around the class
of divine potency, which is emphasized in the hands of a minute elite, a rank with the Pope as the
leader, to the exclusion of ladies and the uninitiated. The rank clings to gospel monotony and
decision-making. This means that it versioned enormous inequalities yet identified to be founded
on Christ's tradition, meaning it was illegitimate.
Such a form of chronological changeover complicates the best novelty and
implementation of customary Jesus. The churches are always in problems because they don't
adopt joy for every member as they did in the beginning. Jesus Himself foretold this transition,
cautioning that it's of little essence to adhere to the canons and not to be anxious about the most
essential, which is faith, mercy, and justice; that is what is more relevant in religion, without
18
19
Boff, Leonardo. “The Tradition of Jesus vs the Christian Religion.” Leonardo Boff. Leonardo Boff, October 19, 2013.
https://leonardoboff.org/2013/10/19/the-tradition-of-jesus-vs-the-christian-religion/.p1
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other elements mentioned in Matthew 23:2320. In the modern era, wherein the allure with the
speeches and the figure of Pope Francis? It is due to his trait of directly allying himself with
Jesus’ tradition. Pope Francis upholds that love appears before creed and service to the less
privileged before principles. In the absence of this transposal, Christianity squanders the
fragrance and the freshness of God's word. It changes itself into a spiritual idea and embraces
doctrinarian fascination21. There is no approach to revive the genuineness of Roman Catholic
other than embracing Jesus’ tradition because the doctrines are dissimilar to Jesus’ foundation.
Liberation Theology by Leonardo Boff
Similar to Niebuhr, liberation theologians like Leonardo Boff never believed that the
Church should essentially be a rudimental conduit for societal justice. However, it holds an
enormous allegation to set an example and contribute to societal justice. There is a particular
ecclesiological incredulity in the systems of contemplation 22. Although the Church has dispensed
Christ as a true liberator, in Boff's approximation, the Church hasn't entirely been loyal to the
deliverance programs for those on the border. Moreover, Boff and Niebuhr conjointly emphasize
that every theology is communally situated. However, imperial and European theologies
routinely look in history to obtain their direction; this chronology, comprised of the suppression
of the lowly, isn't accepted in the liberationist viewpoint. Rather, the future turns into the gearing
magnitude for freeing theology- a future that comes with the evil schemes of coercion 23. When
heaven is imagined, it is not to be comprehended as a synonym for a flight from the present time
20
ibid Boff, Leonardo. “The Tradition of Jesus vs the Christian Religion.” Leonardo Boff. Leonardo Boff, October 19,
2013. https://leonardoboff.org/2013/10/19/the-tradition-of-jesus-vs-the-christian-religion/.p1
21
ibid Boff, Leonardo. “The Tradition of Jesus vs the Christian Religion.” Leonardo Boff. Leonardo Boff, October 19,
2013. https://leonardoboff.org/2013/10/19/the-tradition-of-jesus-vs-the-christian-religion/.p1
22
peter. “Article: Liberation Theology of Leonardo Boff - Philosophical Investigations.” Philosophical Investigations,
December 27, 2017. https://peped.org/philosophicalinvestigations/article-liberation-theology-leonardo-boff/.p1
23
ibid Peter. “Article: Liberation Theology of Leonardo Boff - Philosophical Investigations.” Philosophical
Investigations, December 27, 2017. https://peped.org/philosophicalinvestigations/article-liberation-theology-leonardo-
boff/.p1
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or a fallacy. It is begotten from hope and acts as a structure for perfecting realms and safeguards
against unproductivity. Somehow, counter-instinctively, talking or paradise is contemplated to
sustain the societal progresses open and thwart conceptual absolutization. Bestowing to
Leonardo Boff, its prompts dynamic transitions.
In Latin America, an enormous proportion of the inhabitants have been downgraded.
Structural sins surpass discrete ones and have profound penalties. It isn't just that collaborative
assemblages must be scrutinized and controlled dissimilarly from individuals, as Niebuhr
proposes. However, that must be scrutinized first and more promptly 24. This is the accurate
context that Leonardo thinks the Gospel is lecturing to counter unjust government forms and the
unstable economy. Therefore, a person discovers freedom theology, the core motif of Jesus'
preaching regarding God's Kingdom, and not as several distant-ended, unrealistic, but the
progressive and inherent context that demonstrates itself in credit to the people's fellowship with
God to loosen the injustice chains all times. Boff imagines God’s Kingdom as an institutional,
political, and universal revolution, although he is keen not to demean it to a single dimension, be
it cultural, political, or economic. Therefore, Christology is bonded to ethics 25. Boff quotes
numerous scriptural passages: “He who says he stands in him should walk in the same way he
walked," (1st John 2: 6). From Matthew 7: 21-23, Boff quotes, "it is not those who say to me,
'Lord, Lord,' who will get into heaven's Kingdom, but the ones who do my Father's will.” For
Leonardo, the Historical Christ takes superiority over the creedal Jesus. Concurring to the
allegory regarding undistinguished Christians in Matthew 25: 31-46, the permanent judge won’t
ask people about their dogmatic canons or whether they did any precise orientation to Christ's
24
boff/.p1
25
boff/.p2
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Mystery when they lived. He will question instances of assisting the poor, and all are declared 26.
Poverty is responsible for increased infant death rates, low revenues, malnutrition, pandemics,
inadequate safety, low-grade healthcare, unemployment, poor housing, schools, and hospitals. In
that perspective, Boff refers it to as inimical, offensive, and inhumane to God's will.
Trinitarian Theology
Like other crucial Christian creeds, the Trinitarian creed was pounded out, not in barren
research, but instead in between prayer, lived spirituality, and the veneration of the Church. The
Trinity regards everyone's life, struggles to comply to the conscience, routine encounters, bearing
grievances, the human existence tragedies, love, and joy. It also concerns the quest for societal
justice, the endeavors at creating a more humanitarian community, martyrdom, and sacrifices
that these efforts bring27. If we can't entail the Trinity in our social and personal odyssey, we will
have become incapable of showing the Mystery of salvation. In the early 20 th century, Robert
Deutz attended a church mass was narrated by a White-haired patriarch 28. During the offertory
procession, he felt Holy Trinity’s visualization. He envisioned that two were old and the third
was a youth, and the beings were of distinguished dignity and bearing that no one could describe
them. A novel theoretician did not counterfeit trinitarian mysticism, but by trusting Christians
attempting to be relevant to the empirical and concrete information of salvation, starting with the
Biblical tale and progressing in the snowballing chronology of believing societies 29. Founded on
our personal and social encounters of salvation, what are our words concerning God who does
26
boff/.
27
Friedrich, Jim. “Leonardo Boff on the Trinity – the Religious Imagineer.” jimfriedrich.com. The religious Imagineer,
June 11. 2015. https://jimfriedrich.com/tag/leonardo-boff-on-the-trinity/ p2
28
ibid Friedrich, Jim. “Leonardo Boff on the Trinity – the Religious Imagineer.” jimfriedrich.com. The religious
Imagineer, June 11, 2015. https://jimfriedrich.com/tag/leonardo-boff-on-the-trinity/
29
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this? Trinitarian replication commenced with the historical society profoundly founded in the
Judaism monotheism, which, over centuries, discovered final reality to be not a variety of
contradictory and disconnected potencies but a cohesive harmony 30. Self-contained singleness
wasn’t adequate to denote the reality, the reason why Christians started accrediting divinity to
the Holy Ghost and Jesus.
How could they document the mystical diversity in saving the Spirit and Christ's
activities without misplacing God's unity? When they started calling Jesus "The Lord," which
occurred in early storytelling and worship, orthodox monotheism was thoroughly weakened. The
growing viewpoint of the Holy Ghost as an empowering and guiding presence in the society
resulted in the problem31. There are numerous trials to resolve the repercussion by relegating the
Spirit and Jesus to derivative, subordinate, and semi-sacred realms, by no approach similar to the
uncreated, eternal God. The traditional religion never negated the completeness of spirituality to
either the Spirit of Christ. Only God gives salvation; in Christian experience and Biblical
disclosure, the Spirit and Christ are essential and integral to redemption. It is biblical to
contemplate God as an affectionate Love, the divine Father who decides to involve the world's
suffering and doesn't separate from his creation to safeguard his autonomy 32. Robert Jenson was
the first North American on Trinity's author, who denied the concept of spiritual impartiality
from creation in brief terms. For numerous theologians like Leonardo, people's encounter of God
as threefold also mirrors a Trinitarian existence within God's self. Because God's intrinsic
existence reaches beyond our measure, this is a presumption but an essential one.
Conclusion
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31
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Inside and out, the Church must learn from its conventional faults, live beyond its
stagnating clutches, and be influenced by God's change agents. With her love of the wayward
wind and excitement of reforming and surprising people, the Future of Christianity is as
perplexing as the radical Jesus. She can be discovered in places where new spiritual pathways are
being developed, and virtues are being nurtured. Most poignantly, the Spirit resides in those who
practise love, justice, peace, and solidarity with the impoverished. She must make an effort to be
personal and permanent. The dominion of God is personal and eternal. First, it is personal
because He sits on His flawless throne and extends His Church to reach the least, last, and lost to
establish a connection. It is also perpetual in the sense that it is continual, never-ending, and
never-failing. We live in a constantly changing world, and we should remember that when Christ
returns, Satan will be tossed into the lake of fire, where all evil will be destroyed forever.
Corruption will be eradicated. "The voice of a huge crowd, like the roar of many seas and the
sound of strong peals of thunder, shouting out, 'Hallelujah! For the Lord, our God the Almighty
reigns," will replace God's people's sorrow and agony (Rev. 19:6).
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Bibliography
Boff, Leonardo. “Christianity in a Nutshell.” Google Books, 2013.
https://books.google.co.ke/books?
hl=en&lr=&id=NOsNPTMYoTUC&oi=fnd&pg=PT8&dq=Christianity+in+a+Nutshell&
ots=6a64XuXpwL&sig=4LD5dmR1S38eR-
vLtH1qiczitDU&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false. (pp6-30)
Boff, Leonardo. “The Tradition of Jesus vs the Christian Religion.” Leonardo Boff. Leonardo
Boff, October 19, 2013. https://leonardoboff.org/2013/10/19/the-tradition-of-jesus-vs-the-
christian-religion/. (pp1-2)
Case, Shirley Jackson. “Christianity and the Mystery Religions.” The Biblical World 43, no. 1
(January 1914): 3–16. https://doi.org/10.1086/474965. (pp1)
Friedrich, Jim. “Leonardo Boff on the Trinity – the Religious Imagineer.” jimfriedrich.com. The
religious Imagineer, June 11, 2015. https://jimfriedrich.com/tag/leonardo-boff-on-the-
trinity/. (pp2-5)
peter. “Article: Liberation Theology of Leonardo Boff - Philosophical Investigations.”
Philosophical Investigations, December 27, 2017.
https://peped.org/philosophicalinvestigations/article-liberation-theology-leonardo-boff/.
(pp2-3)

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Book Review: Christianity in a Nutshell

In approximately twenty-one centuries of its chronology, Christianity has turned to be

century of profound progressive engagement in the theological conception, Boff attempted to

demonstrate Christianity's minimum of minimum or to determine the maximum of the minimum

the factual name of what human beings call God.

Christianity and Mystery

Theological Mystery is accredited to commencement of the communion, originality of

enticement, inevitable reverence, and anxiety in people. That's Mystery.

God’s Himself as a Mystery

insofar as it is self-disclosed to itself. It shows what’s incongruent from it as a reflector in which

surprise, elegance upon elegance, affection on affection, adoration on adoration, and

Formation of the Sun by a Supernova Explosion

oxygen-rich atmosphere after it attained a good shape and condensed.

multiplication of cells16. Adaptations, mutations, multiplication, and diversity of species

Jesus and Christianity

on Christ's tradition, meaning it was illegitimate.

Such a form of chronological changeover complicates the best novelty and

doctrinarian fascination21. There is no approach to revive the genuineness of Roman Catholic

Liberation Theology by Leonardo Boff

against unproductivity. Somehow, counter-instinctively, talking or paradise is contemplated to

Leonardo Boff, its prompts dynamic transitions.

In Latin America, an enormous proportion of the inhabitants have been downgraded.

assemblages must be scrutinized and controlled dissimilarly from individuals, as Niebuhr

the Holy Ghost and Jesus.

Boff, Leonardo. “Christianity in a Nutshell.” Google Books, 2013.

Boff, October 19, 2013. https://leonardoboff.org/2013/10/19/the-tradition-of-jesus-vs-the-

(January 1914): 3–16. https://doi.org/10.1086/474965. (pp1)

religious Imagineer, June 11, 2015. https://jimfriedrich.com/tag/leonardo-boff-on-the-

peter. “Article: Liberation Theology of Leonardo Boff - Philosophical Investigations.”

Philosophical Investigations, December 27, 2017.

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