ANDREW FURLONG,
Sir, - The traditional message of the Christian gospel can be succinctly expressed as per the letter of January 2nd from Rev David Frazer. However, it needs expressing in contemporary thought forms, if its truth claims as a matter of belief are to be properly examined. This is because the beliefs about the post-Easter Christ (be he a real or a fantasy figure) come out of a world with radically different throught-forms to ours in the 21st century.
In order to do this, let us imagine the following situation. Suppose that the New Testament has not yet been written (and there are no Creeds either). A person called Jesus of Nazareth has been born in 1970 and is a member of the Jewish community. He has his mobile phone, his computer, his passport, his Visa card, his driver's licence, his life insurance and perhaps a qualification in theological studies. He is becoming better known.
What would we make of him today? Would it occur to us that he was anything other than an extraordinary human being? In what sense would we say that we believe he gives us an insight into what his hidden and unknowable God may be like? In what way does he do so: is it by what he says, or as we ponder the meaning of some of his actions, or is it because of his personality or perhaps a combination of these? What comparisons would we make between him and someone like Mother Theresa, for example?
If he were to die later on this year, would it matter how he died (e.g. from cancer or in a road accident?)? Would his death come about because of his beliefs and/or actions, and would some of us be finding ourselves wanting to ponder the meaning of his death?
If some people, but not others, claimed that they believed he was alive again, what would we make of those claims? And if we did become convinced by these people's testimony, then what would we speculate to be the reasons why a hidden and unknowable God had made him alive again in a very mysterious way?
Of course, what religion you and I would be belonging to (if any) if Jesus had only been born in 1970, is a matter of speculation. The Neolithic community of Ireland no doubt thought their beliefs and culture would last for ever. Perhaps we would be seeing ourselves as being a part of an evolving Neolithic religious tradition.
Incidentally, have laity sometimes heard it said by priests speaking to a congregation that over the past 250 years there has been a massive amount of theological research, using the latest and best tools, and that the results of such research have produced various interpretations of the significance of Jesus - some orthodox and some which challenge the orthodox views still held by the majority of Christians? Whatever one may make of these different interpretations, I am sure that in any other field of life, be it industry, science, medicine, agriculture or economics, no one is unaware of the progress in knowledge over the past 250 years in their own speciality. - Yours, etc.,
Very Rev ANDREW FURLONG,
Dean of Clonmacnoise,
Trim,
Co Meath.
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Sir, - The letter of December 29th from the Dean of Clonmacnoise is an outstanding example of prolix irrelevance. Many years ago a remarkable preacher (who was, I am afraid, most notable to his schoolboy congregation for being called Colonel O. Heck) told us that either Jesus really was the son of God, or he was at best mad, at worst a fraud and a liar. There was no in-between.
This I found, on reading the gospels, to be entirely justified by everything Jesus of Galilee is quoted as saying - but perhaps the dean relies on a more modern translation.
If the dean does not believe that Jesus was the son, or incarnation, of God, then he is not a Christian and is demonstrating the ultimate in hypocrisy every time he takes part in a church service. That he should try to justify his position by reference to "the wounded psyches of the Jewish and Islamic communities" is both ridiculous and faintly revolting.
I have no time for religion myself, but I do have an unswerving belief in logic. The Dean has stepped off the rock of faith, failed to reach the rock of rationality, and fallen into the mire between, rising mud-bespattered and ridiculous. - Yours, etc.,
CHARLES CLARKE,
Markethill,
Co Armagh.