WHAT JESUS MEANT

Wills, a Pulitzer Prize winner for his history writing, is a Roman Catholic, albeit a restless one, taking issue with many elements of that institution and not afraid to commit fully to his ideas about the faith. Here he pulls no punches in attempting to forge a middle way between hard-line Bible literalists and the watered-down Christianity of such revisionists as the Jesus Seminar. While he brings much to the conversation, he leaves the listener with little of lasting value. Vocally, he does not show the passion he claims is behind his words, until there’s some juicy bit of polemic he wants to stress. This tends to give the performance a slow pace and flat affect. S.M.M. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/ MAY 07]