Rational Religion

The image of Jesus Christ is perhaps the most significant symbol in Western history. However, the story of the human Jesus has been all but abandoned by both independent and religious scholars. The sign of the cross and the image of a crucified Christ have become part of a greater spiritual narrative that positions Jesus as God at the expense of his human incarnation.But, argues Tony Sunderland in his new book, could the highest incarnation of the divine in both Freemasonry and Christianity be the same-a pantheistic vision of God where the divine resides within us and all around us? The history of what would become known as speculative Freemasonry was born from the 'mystery religions' of ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and Israel and the rationalist Enlightenment, and its direct confrontation with the doctrinal authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Sunderland traces a secret history of ideas, signs and symbols that shine a new light on the story of the human Jesus as being part of a greater narrative that puts every individual at the centre of all things.