On October 24, 2001, perhaps the best-known evangelical pastor in America told CNN that President Bush should "blow them away in the name of the Lord." Nobody blinked. How did Christians come to such full-throated embrace of war? The answer might surprise you.

What was Jesus really about? Life after death? Social justice? Moral rules? The answer challenges both evangelical and progressive assumptions today and provides a deeper, more hopeful vision of what Jesus came to do and what it means to follow him today.