I attended the SBL conference in Denver this month and spent several days engrossed in observing panel presentations and voting on new motions for the Westar Institute. I’m a member of the SBL and a Westar fellow. But I’ve rarely been able to afford to attend. A generous patron grant covered my expenses this time. Though I’ve been to regionals before. I presented a paper at one in Notre Dame, and debated the historicity of Jesus at another in Azusa.
In this and following blogs I’ll be writing about all I experienced there in respect to religious studies.
This year, a Westar colleague wanted me to attend the Westar meetings. For those who don’t know, the Westar Institute operates seminars of qualified scholars in which consensus votes are taken on various motions and propositions. Most famous of these was the Jesus Seminar, where scholars discussed and voted on which sayings in the Gospels Jesus actually said, enjoining ever after the wrath of angry conservatives who balked at their disappointing results. But alas, their conclusions reflect mainstream scholarship: in all probability, Jesus actually said very little that’s attributed to him.
The Westar Institute is a large body of highly qualified scholars. Including women (there were at least a handful in every seminar, making up maybe 15%), but few minorities (the Seminars, like the SBL conference generally, is pretty white). Only fundamentalists boycotted membership. Then complained they weren’t represented. Go figure. But that’s as it should be. Fundamentalists cannot be objective scholars in these matters. They are faith-driven, and bound by personal and community pressure, or even outright employment or professional contracts, not to question the Bible’s errancy or “accepted” meaning. (See Volume 1 of Fitzgerald’s Jesus: Mything in Action for the evidence and data.)
That first seminar originated their quirky voting system of “red” for definitely (reflecting the image of the “red letter” Bible), pink for maybe, grey for maybe not, and black for definitely not. They’ve since completed many other seminars, including on the deeds of Jesus, the book of Acts, Paul’s epistles, and more. They are currently working to finish up a seminar on rethinking early Christianity, and another on alternative theologies.
I bounced between both all Friday (the SBL conference proper beginning the next day). On the Christianity Seminar they discussed gender and sexuality in the first centuries of Christianity. I attended the section on sexuality, and though I read all the papers on the gender section and was sure they had that well in hand, I had to jump over to the second half of the God Seminar to see what that was all about. The papers I read in advance of the meeting, by numerous scholars, were all in aid of producing a book on what they are calling “Post-Theism,” and this included forms of atheistic naturalism and secular humanism.
Previous Seminars
In previous years this Seminar has reached a number of interesting conclusions about early Christianity, most I agree with but some I don’t, but perhaps the most interesting example is that they’ve concluded Gnosticism didn’t exist. They have concluded that’s a modern, made-up category that gets wrong what was actually going on in early Christianity. There was no such thing as “the Gnostics.” There were simply diverse Christianities, with no unifying principles, and no conception of what modern scholars mean by “Gnosticism.” And what are often regarded as gnostic elements were found all over, even in orthodoxy, and not separated out into any distinct sect. I reached this conclusion on my own years ago, and now to see them thoroughly demonstrate it is quite refreshing. When numerous scholars independently get the same unexpected findings as you, it’s usually indicative we’re right.
Among the conclusions I don’t agree with is their resolution that the canon wasn’t decided in the second century. I think they’ve goofed on definitions of terms here, and confused “settled” with “originated” and “officially” with “effectively.” And perhaps are using the word “canon” differently than most people mean. I find the arguments of David Trobisch in The First Edition of the New Testament far more convincing. I also think the Westar resolution that early Christians identified as “refugees and immigrants” is too forced, anachronistic, and eye-rollingly politicized. And I even agree with the politics this is lamely attempting to serve. I just don’t think strained revisionist history is an appropriate way to deal with it. They are usually much better than this at getting the facts and context right.
Of course many sects and communities had their own canons, in the sense of authoritative book collections establishing doctrine; and the first canon was Marcion’s. The only surviving canon, the one we know, was created mid-second century to respond to Marcion’s. It was slightly fluid around the edges (there were a few texts that were included or excluded with some irregularity), but in core it was created in one instance of publication before the end of the second century, by a single editor or committee of editors, and never changed since. For example, once the core Paulines and the four Gospels were put together, there was never any disagreement ever again in the sect using that edition as to their canonical status. And defenses of that status were being written even before the close of that century. There just weren’t “official” declarations by any central church authority yet, and the resulting canon was only settled in its core, the edges solidifying later over time.
Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure the few disconnected examples of refugee and immigrant status and narratives they found in early Christianity all have more esoteric and less politically significant causes and significance. For instance, Matthew’s Nativity narrative is not a comment on the struggles of refugees. It’s an emulation of the Moses and Out-of-Egypt hero narrative. Jews often spoke of their mythical past as refugees…which actually meant looters, mass murderers, and genocidal conquerors. It did not convey any deeper sympathy with “the refugee” as a type of person. Likewise, that Jesus was as awesome as Moses, and as embattled by evil, did not signify we should be nice to refugees. I doubt that was on Matthew’s mind as he composed that tale. And no early Christian author expresses having gotten any such notion from it.
Early Christianity and Sexuality & Gender
The motions being decided this time related to what early Christians actually thought and were actually debating in regards to gender roles and human sexuality. The gist of the findings, which I pretty much concur with, are that:
- There was more diversity in early Christian movements than emerged as the self-declared “orthodoxy” centuries later. Both in regards to attitudes toward sex and beliefs regarding gender roles in private life and in church leadership.
- Some churches gave women some leadership and teaching roles. And all the passages in the NT and Church Fathers railing against that were actually protesting a real practice, to prevent it spreading to their churches.
- The original egalitarianism of Paul may not have been thoroughgoing, but it went far enough to be uncomfortable to later generations, and eventually was erased by that emerging “orthodoxy.” In part by forging letters and interpolating passages making Paul voice anti-egalitarian views.
- Many Christians were extremely anti-sex and some regarded even sex for pleasure within marriage as “fornication,” contrary to the common law meaning of that word in English. In fact, “fornication” was being used to refer to a lot of things, some not even involving sex. Like idolatry, or choosing doctrine according to one’s pleasure.
- The Greek word translated as “fornication,” porneia, a word at root meaning prostitution, or perhaps more evocatively “whoredom,” more commonly meant any kind of illicit sex. But what constituted “illicit” sex varied a lot and was constantly argued, both within and without Christianity.
This overthrows a previous consensus that Christians were more united on these things, e.g. that they were largely in agreement that “fornication” only meant prostitution, extramarital sex, and homosexual sex. The propositions were adequately demonstrated. The old consensus was wrong, and driven largely by anachronistic “reading in” to ancient texts what actually wasn’t there. Or wishful thinking, e.g. ignoring the time-tested principle that people usually don’t outlaw or rant against things that aren’t actually happening.
Another proposition, that we should stop translating the word “porneia” with the English word “fornication,” I voted “maybe not” on, as when I questioned them, no one could provide an adequate alternative practice. What we have to do is simply explain that the word is more ambiguous than commonly thought. Any other alternative amounts to doing that anyway, yet even more awkwardly. I don’t know if my remarks had any impact on other voters.
The Future of God Seminar
The concurrent seminar on God and the human future was about contemporary theology rather than ancient history. They were past the stage of voting on motions, and prepping to complete a book on its findings. But what I found myself in the middle of here were dozens of established experts, both professors of theology and pastors of major churches, who were decidedly not conservative.
I usually only deal with conservative and centrist Christians because liberal Christians are so wishy washy and mushy void of substantive beliefs beyond the ethical and political sphere, and their ethics and politics usually mostly align with liberal secularists of various stripes and thus are less of an urgent threat to society. At least in respect to their religion, as their religion really doesn’t provide any basis for their views, whether friendly or toxic. As I’ve often said of liberal Christians, they have no text. They’re just making it all up as they go along. So arguing with them is never any different than arguing with a secular philosopher. They don’t resort to citing Scripture or the Holy Spirit or “historical facts of faith” for authority on anything they espouse. So really, they are just atheists in practice, who dress up as theists.
Consequently I often forget how many of them there are.
They agreed not to discuss their beliefs at the seminar (“that’s confidential,” as one of the fellows told me). Rather, they instead chose to develop a book containing essentially a thorough buffet of options for people who can’t believe in the “old man in the sky” version of God but need some kind of God concept to believe in (for some reason). Without advocating for any of them. Just saying, “Hey, look, historically theologians and philosophers and religious leaders have proposed all these alternative ways of imagining God, so if any of them appeal to you, here you go!”
This included everything from pantheism and panentheism (both naturalist and woo) to “God is a metaphor” stuff to native religious worldviews and alternative god concepts like “weak theism” and “process theology” and “anatheism” and “religious naturalism” and so on. The book will be nothing if not interesting. It will essentially be the most thorough encyclopedia of non-traditional theisms ever published. So if you’re interested in exploring liberal theology and its weirdness and perplexity, this will be the book for you. (It should have a title like “Varieties of Post Theism”.)
It’s not clear yet to me if the book will include simply “atheism” as an option. But the fellows seem intent on trying to keep “God” and godist vocabulary in the picture. When they will own the atheist option as on the table, they prefer the word “nontheism” and have distaste for New Atheism. Hence they call their project “Post Theism.” They’d rather the word God be redefined (as, say, “the universe,” or “love,” or “a metaphor for sovereignty,” things like that) than that it be abandoned.
Partly because they think this reaches an important constituency, people who want to believe in something they for some reason will still want to call God but can’t choke down the “supernatural conscious agent” idea. And this may be true: half of all “nones” are unaffiliated wishy-washy “believers” and not actual unbelievers; and the nones are expanding precipitously, especially in the younger generations, which means where every institution’s future lies. So there is definitely a target demographic for this new product upgrade.
But also partly, I suspect, because they can’t let go of it all. They are too attached to the aesthetics and the feels. They can’t just admit it’s all bollocks and we should do away with the whole shebang. We should instead convert churches into secular community centers devoted to philosophy and philanthropy. But “I will get fired” was the typical refrain at that notion. You can’t run a church, and get away with pushing that transition. And what on earth will a professor of theology do when they admit there is no theo- to have an -ology of? “Hey, I study an absurdly narrow collection of fictional characters and thought experiments, please don’t eliminate my position,” doesn’t sound like a winning proposal.
Be that as it may, I think this is going to be a significant trend atheists should be prepared for. There will increasingly be these liberal “there is sort of not really but kind of in some way a god” Christian leaders, both thinkers and pastors, who will be competing with atheists for members and support from the growing “Nones” community. You may find yourself having to argue with them. You should be well informed when you do. Their forthcoming book on Post-Theism should be ideal for the task. Also useful already, I recommend the sections of Hector Avalos’s book The End of Biblical Studies that cover liberal Bible scholarship, and likewise the sections of Malcolm Murray’s The Atheist’s Primer on liberal theology and apologetics. Meanwhile, too, is the second half of my article What’s the Harm.
Both of these topics, the way the Westar Seminar is seeking to transform the consensus on early Christianity and its work towards rethinking new versions of theism for a more liberal constituency, can easily be brought up in my December course starting this weekend on Counter-Apologetics. Indeed, Murray’s Atheist’s Primer will even be the course text. If you have questions about how to understand or combat or make use of these things (and you may find yourself with a lot of those questions, after reading Westar’s seminar reports on these subjects, linked above), that course would be an ideal place to bring them up and get a full and useful discussion.
Richard putting the beliefs (or non-beliefs) of Liberal Christians aside I think that we actually need a term like “nontheism” that Agnostics can use to clarify their position. Because for the questions “Do you believe in God?” or “Are you an Atheist?”, I suspect that many Agnostics hold the position that they don’t subscribe to (and outright disbelieve) in any particular theology, but remain agnostic with respect to the question of whether or not a deity might exist as the causing agent of our universe. If such a deity existed it might technically meet the minimum requirements to be considered a “God” (of some form) but could and likely would be in no way associated with any of our earth based theologies or theological Gods.
And to be clear I’m not asking if you would agree with someone holding such a position but I do think that you would have to agree that someone holding that particular position is legitimately not an atheist (at least not in the strictest sense of the word) but certainly not a Theist either. And they are not a Deist because they don’t hold the certain belief that a Deity actually exists, they are agnostic about that specific question. But the problem with simply labeling them as an “Agnostic” is that it might give the impression that they are uncertain about their disbelief in theology and theological Gods.
And I would suggest that unlike the Liberal Christians that you are talking about someone of that position is not at all being wishy washy, anymore than someone that is agnostic about the existence of intelligent life on other planets but atheistic about the possibility that the guy on the TV show “My Favorite Martian” was an actual martian.
I don’t object to using terms like nontheism. I just object to emotional overreactions to words like atheism. If you are preferring nontheism to atheism, that’s fine, it doesn’t obscure anything to use a synonym, so it’s adequate for communication, but it’s still a sign you are more emotional than rational, or more diplomatic than brazen, and have some taboo reaction to dumb superstitions about words or are being oppressed by your community into acting like there is.
But I do have a problem with using God to mean anything other than a conscious agent. Because that’s misleading at best, trickery at worst. Most people mean by God a conscious agent; and if you aren’t correcting them every time you use the word so as to ensure you don’t mislead the people who hear or read your words into thinking what they assume rather than the weird new thing you want to mean by it, then you are playing games with people. You are not communicating honestly with the world. Seeking obfuscation is dishonest. Seeking clarity is the only way to use words honestly.
The same dishonesty arises if you want to deny you are an atheist because you believe, say, that God as a concept exists. Because that’s not what the word atheist means. All atheists believe God as a concept exists. So if you use the word in a way no one understands it to man, you are misleading them. You are failing to communicate. You are instead communicating what is false. And that’s just another form of lying. Whereas if every time you use the word you have to correct the audience and explain you mean something completely different by it than they do, all you are advertising is your commitment to misusing words. Which begs the question, why would you wany to do that? Why not just speak the language people know? Why bark at them in an alien language, and pretend it’s English?
Hence I do not see the analogy you try to build. Liberal Christians are wishy washy because they obfuscate and avoid clarity and honesty and coherence at every step. They use words to mislead. Rather than to communicate effectively. This bears no analogy to being “agnostic” about aliens but “atheistic” about aliens on earth. That’s a clear distinction, describable in English with no obfuscation necessary. No one is misled by it.
Richard I don’t disagree with your assessment of Liberal Christians. By use of the term “non-theism” I was actually trying to find a term that someone could use to communicate that they don’t subscribe to any particular theology or religious dogma . Period. But that same person might not be so convinced with respect to the possible existence existence of a Deity or God (conscious being that was the creator of all things). That might be agnostic on that specific point.
So I was just trying to find a simple word or term that might adequately describe person of that disposition.
And as I stated earlier I don’t like the blanket term Agnostic in this case because it might lead someone to believe that they were agnostic with request to the existence of a God that would be defined bay and carry all of the theological baggage (e.g . Heaven, Hell, biblical creationism, man in God’s image, etc.) that necessarily comes along with a theological based belief.
You have a couple of instances of “formication” rather than fornication in here.
“I will get fired.” – Boy do these Westar people seem to have internalised their own oppression! Good to see you engaging the wishy-washy end of Xtianity. Though it is akin to trying to pick up a large jelly.
While it is good to see folk catch up with reality, we hardly need the imprimatur of the self-appointed to accept Williams’ argument and reasoning on “knowledge, so-called”. The result of one plus one isn’t susceptible to a vote.
Which brings us to probably the saddest thing about this outfit. It doesn’t matter how robust their conclusions might otherwise be, they can be dismissed out of hand on their silly voting procedure. I can take most of the individuals involved seriously, but as a collective they are a bit daffy. This and their execrable “Scholars Versions” of Scripture just get anything sensible they might come up with preempted and drowned by gales of laughter.
Next time you are with the Weststar fellows, ask how many accept homeopathy and if not, why not: since they are similarly diluting Christianity beyond the point of there being nothing. The ultimate kenosis, LOL!
Thanks! Fixed the typos.
On their diluting Christianity, that’s not really a criticism. Any move toward truth dilutes Christianity. That I take as indicative their method is working. Which means that’s actually praise, not critique.
And their voting isn’t actually as daffy as you think. Their weighting procedure is maybe a bit voodoo (I have criticism there). But consensus has to be measured. And it is in fact a vote. Always. In every field. Formalizing it is actually more honest and more accurate, because it generates actual data for statements like “the consensus of experts is…” No one is doing anything comparably close to making consensus visible and measurable. And not doing so does not escape the implications of voting; it just hides the fact that it really is just voting.
Knowledge does indeed proceed largely by vote, in the sense that inter-subjective agreement, particularly when more informed, is the strongest evidence for objective truth accessible to us. It’s probabilistic, so it’s not perfectly reliable, and it has its exploitable defects. If one votes based on desire or politics rather than honest and informed epistemic judgment, then the vote becomes bullshit and has no value (or rather, it measures something else at that point, something other than whether someone has demonstrated a proposition is true). But the whole point of having professional fields of experts collectively deciding what’s most likely true about the world (as is the case for all of science, all of history, even the art of motorcycle maintenance) is to see what an informed epistemic vote of multiple observers produces by way of conclusions. It does not guarantee they are right. But it greatly improves the probability that are, compared with similarly-honest-and-informed downvoted conclusions. As long as what they are voting on, is what we want them to be voting on: whether the evidence logically validates a conclusion or not.
See my article on consensus for more on this point. But also, read the Wikipedia article on Condorcet’s Jury Theorem for the mathematics of this.
But for the most part they remain Christian. I’m hardly going to follow a consensus generated by loons who have effectively dismissed everything that makes Christianity while insisting there is still such a thing and that they still adhere to it. I’m going to check their conclusions against scholars who aren’t self-evidently bonkers. Why then consult them in the first place? They are simply redundant.
How long has the text of the NT and the order of it’s writing been established? It says what it says and I for one can’t read it as saying what it doesn’t or as containing what isn’t there. Jesus goes pfft! once Galatians, Romans, and Hebrews are read in that light. Wells is perhaps flawed commentary; The Jesus Puzzle is more accurate but still just commentary; Neither God Nor Man is redundant commentary; PH and OHJ are the Fat Boy and Little Boy of this oeuvre: “Let’s nuke it just to be sure!”
It’s dead, Jim. Now let’s get you down to Sickbay for that overdue psych consult.
Putting arguments about the validity of consensus scholarship aside, The Jesus Seminar’s voting procedure was flawed out of the gate; silently altered half way through their deliberations when no one could find any genuine Jesus sayings at all. I’m being charitable dismissing them as loonies, others would say outright they were simply dishonest.
Again, putting aside their being self-selected and distinctly a minority of a minority of their discipline (minority Minority Report anyone?), there is the problem of the non-constancy of the voting panel’s numbers, deliberately obscured by them only reporting percentages of the vote, virtually mandating invalid results. The panels numbers and constituents varied a lot over time, rendering the opinions on each section of scripture incompatible with one another.
I could go on but I’ll refer to Note 8 of Appendix D to Donald Akenson’s ‘Surpassing Wonder’ from which these remarks are paraphrased; which is more than sufficient demolition and a painful autopsy of their misusage of the statistical method.
But that’s only a consensus of scholars invited to that specific group. It doesn’t tell us the consensus of ALL scholars worldwide. So what’s the point of having the consensus of a few cherry picked bunch?
Anyone qualified can join and vote. So it isn’t cherry picked. But it is only a self-selected sample (a poll of a few dozen well-qualified experts). It’s just the best there is at present. There is as yet no system in place that can do the whole—unlike has been achieved in philosophy with the PhilPapers Survey; an approach I agree is much needed in Biblical studies. Westar tried to create this by inviting all scholars to join, at its original founding. But Westar can’t force them to if they refuse to join and vote. So what we have is this: a large number of experts willing to have their assessments counted. You can say that only represents a consensus of that body of scholars. But that body of scholars is a representative sample of mainstream scholarship generally. It’s only fundamentalists who end up disagreeing with them, and refuse to join and vote. And IMO, the assessments of fundamentalists on the Bible are as useless as the assessments of creationists on science.
Hi Richard, thanks for these reports. Your discussion on the planned ‘Post-Theism’ book is illuminating for the confused cultural agendas it reveals around religion. Using cold logic, the idea of God as metaphor is atheist, in its rejection of the theist tradition of God as an intentional entity. But the cultural agenda for Christians is about belonging to a tradition, which means talk of God is moral poetry, not empirical description. The sense of reverence and awe for the order of the cosmos in God-talk leads believers to respect the mythology and reject the atheist insistence on coherence.
Religious believers exist within the emotional mythos, while atheists exist in the rational logos. That means both can hold the same beliefs, but the emotion of religion means that for believers the beliefs can be seen as metaphor, not literal fact.
What you call “trying to keep “God” and godist vocabulary in the picture” is all about the poetry of belonging, so involves subterfuges when critics point out the incoherence. The problem with “allowing the atheist option as on the table” is entirely about cultural politics, that atheism is overtly hostile to religion and seeks its abolition, whereas “nontheism” “allows the word God to be redefined (as, say, “the universe,” or “love,” or “a metaphor for sovereignty,” things like that)” in a way that is compatible with worship and prayer.
The “important constituency” have a ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ attitude about belief in God. They know literalism has been absolutely central to the Christian mythos but has been refuted by science. Keeping the emotional comfort and social solidarity of the church community means living with this intellectual contradiction.
My view is that it would be better for church people to at least allow a conversation about whether Jesus existed, since that would expose the abyss of dishonesty and delusion at the core of human psychology. What Calvinists call the total depravity of the fall from grace into corruption is shown most vividly by the fact that Jesus Christ was invented.
Literalism refuted by Science? Large parts of the argument to the ahistoricity of Jesus rely on taking the genuine Paul, and Hebrews, at their word and without importing understandings reliant on the later/much later Gospels/Acts. Asking the question does Mark’s Jesus look or act as if he is a real person and ditto for the other characters also rely on taking the text at it’s word. Or do you have some special meaning you attribute to “literal”?
Steven, you seem to have misunderstood my comment. I said “literalism has been absolutely central to the Christian mythos but has been refuted by science.” Literalism includes literal belief in miracles, creationism, the flood and similar stories. These beliefs are broadly rejected by the modern secular world and by Christians who accept scientific reason. Finding meaning in those stories means interpreting them as symbolic, not literal. I don’t see how your points about Paul and the Gospels are relevant to that issue.
“Finding meaning in those stories means interpreting them as symbolic, not literal.” This is a non sequitur. In some cases it’s true and others not; whereas the principle has not been consistently applied even by Christians.
For example, it is obvious to us now that the scene of Jesus withering a fig tree is symbolism and not intended literally. But a large segment of ancient Christians did not regard the text that way, and in fact this was such a problem, that Origen declares the elite in the Church must adopt a principle of double meaning: literal for the public, allegorical for upper rank insiders—lest the public abandon the church and not be saved (see sources and discussion in On the Historicity of Jesus, Element 14, Ch. 4). And even some elites took such miracle stories as literal (even Augustine, who yet was the most liberal in allowing for allegorical readings of the Bible, once the science of the day started being used to refute literal readings; but especially Lactantius, author of the leading textbook on Christian education and tutor to Constantine’s children, who was more fanatically literalist).
By contrast, Luke and John both explicitly tell their readers the things they are writing are literally true, actually witnessed, and written down by them specifically so the truth of those miracles will persuade them to the faith. This essentially rules out allegorical interpretations (apart from simultaneous double truth—miracles that actually happened that are also allegorically intended by their performer, and not merely the author). Likewise 2 Peter was forged in fact specifically to condemn allegorical reading of miracles, by fabricating an eyewitness testimony to a miracle. And did so to condemn as heretical a rival sect that was reading the Gospels as allegory. It’s clear the sect that prevailed was more literalist than sects that died out. And that even many authors of NT texts were literalists.
So there are limits to this dodge. We cannot say the NT miracles were all written to be understood allegorically and not literally. Because that’s false. And we cannot say the NT texts relating those miracles were assembled into canon by a sect that preached all those miracles were to be understood allegorically and not literally. Because that’s false.
Attempting to rewrite history to recover some supposed utility hidden in Gospel mythology is a futile exercise, as very expertly demonstrated by professor of Biblical studies Hector Avalos in The End of Biblical Studies.
Richard, by “finding meaning” I meant “finding the originally intended meaning”, rather than just inventing any old comforting fantasy. I was talking about how readers today can legitimately find meaning, so sorry if that was not clear.
My view of Christian origins is that the original authors of the Jesus stories were part of a secret mystery tradition, linked to Greek philosophy in a similar way to the cults of Serapis and Mithras, wrapping spiritual messages in believable parables. Along the lines of Plato’s Noble Lie in The Republic, these traditions routinely camouflaged their real intent with allegory. Evidence for the pervasive use of this symbolic method is in The Memory Code by Lynne Kelly.
However, the orthodox church rapidly departed from this allegorical method for political reasons. The early church found that treating Mark’s Gospel as literal history gained far more popular traction than sticking to the original allegorical intent, with the result that symbolic readings were suppressed as heresy. Books like 2 Peter, and the line in John’s epistle that anyone who does not believe in the physical Jesus is the antichrist, come from this later literalist political faith.
The Gospels express support for non-literal reading in the statement at Luke 8:10 drawn from Matthew 13:11 and Mark 4:11 “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables.’ My view, following Elaine Pagels in The Gnostic Paul, is that this statement expresses a defining method of the original Christian church whereby all public statements hid the real intended meaning which was available only to initiates. The main ‘secret of the kingdom’ was that Jesus Christ was a fictional invention. Literalism was a later corruption.
All true (I have a whole section, Element 14 in Ch. 4 of OHJ devoted to proving it in fact), except the secret allegorical meaning was also primitive superstitious bullshit (about blood magic and angelology and demonology and whatnot; overall, really bad philosophy, and even worse science).
Thanks for spending some time in the lion’s den. I’m sure you had to control your eye rolls but I’m glad you’re bringing to light this idea that liberal theology will be the next challenge for the atheist community. I was fooled by it for a decade or so. Not so much the theology, but it was a great community that was doing good works, so it must be good, right? Really, they did stuff, then they’d tack on “because Jesus!” It took a while to figure out that although they said their goodness derived from the scripture, it was really from the sum of all human wisdom, they just brought that in and made it fit the scripture.
I’m still friends with many Christians and I can see they just aren’t interested in doing the study to sort that out. They are fine just doing the things that build community. They can see the results of their actions, which are usually fine, but they don’t want to see the results of the things like telling a kid that heaven is real or that prayer actually does something.