Counterfeit Christs: Finding the Real Jesus Among the Impostors

Jesus asked his disciples, Who do you say that I am?

Turns out that today, as back then, this question has a lot of different answers. So many groups want to appropriate Jesus tweaking his identity until he looks and sounds like one of them.

But then you no longer have the Lord, says Trent Horn (Why We're Catholic). You have an impostor.

In Counterfeit Christs, Trent looks at eighteen phony versions of Jesus that we encounter today. Some are the creation of non-Christians: like skeptics who dismiss Jesus as a fictional composite of ancient myths, secular humanists who think he was just a Nice Man, or adherents of other religions who claim him as a prophet or guru in their own tradition.

Others stem from Christian or quasi-Christian theology gone so far wrong that its founder is no longer recognizable. Think of the greed-affirming Jesus of prosperity gospel preachers or the sects that strip Christ of his divinity.

And of course there are enthusiasts for ideological causes who make him a model Marxist (or Democrat or Republican), or enlist him as a convenient spokesman for tolerance of the thing they want to do or promote.

In all these examples and more, the authentic Jesus of Scripture and Tradition is obscured by a pale imitator, and so is the saving power of his wisdom and grace. Read Counterfeit Christs, then, and be able to recognize the fakes when you see them, explain why they are phony, and make a case for the full truth and beauty of who Jesus is: the Christ, son of the living God (Matt. 16:16).

"Once again Trent Horn has given the Church a great gift with his new book Counterfeit Christs. Debates about Jesus, his life, mission, and relationship to the Father and Holy Spirit have existed since the earliest days of the Church. Trent expertly identifies and analyzes the counterfeit claims about Christ and refutes the myths and misrepresentations with logic and historical fact. This book should be required reading for catechists, schoolteachers, parents, and Catholics of all stripes. I highly recommend this excellent work!" - Steve Weidenkopf, Author, The Real Story of Catholic History