The Man of Light

Many contemporary Christians will be offended by the suggestion that we cannot trust everything the New Testament says about the life and ministry of Jesus. Many others may have harbored the feeling that there was much there that was very problematic, e.g. the miracles of healing and interference with the laws of nature. But most of the rest has gone unquestioned. And those who have any further doubts about the veracity of the biblical accounts are looked on with great suspicion. In the church we have often raised the question, without answering it, as to why the biblical learning which pastors receive in their seminary training seems to have been largely ignored when they assume their roles as pastors of churches. For example, how many parishioners have never been aware that the books in our New Testament, which are called “canonical,” are a very small part of the literature which was produced by the early Jesus movement? Seminarians were taught that. We were also taught the history of the process by which those books were chosen to be included. But that process was rarely ever questioned. And it was much too disturbing to question it with our laymen. We had an institution to serve as well as a congregation to protect. And maybe we did not want to face the questions ourselves But there comes a time when we must do so. As we enter the 21st century, on the run as it were, we are already beginning to smell the dust and our churches are dropping further and further behind the world in which they are attempting to live. So I invite you to enter with me on an adventure that promises a new understanding and a profounder spirituality.