I read Bultmann on the recommendation of our Curate as a relative youngster, certainly before I went to theological college, I was probably about 19 years of age.
It wasn't the easiest of reads for someone who had left school at 15 with 'O' Levels in Woodwork and Geography!
But somewhere or other I gained an impression that whilst de-mythologising the scriptures as an academic, Bultmann was still able to preach the Gospel as 'Kerygma' from his pulpit on a Sunday.
That early exposure to the idea that it is possible to have an emotional commitment to the essential claims of the Gospel whilst retaining an honest and open critique of the gospels themselves has remained with me throughout my ministry and now into my post ministerial retirement.
As a student at Salisbury in the mid sixties I found that I was required to read the same books as everyone else and then attempt to write an original essay on whatever the subject at hand was. In those days, before Google, it was necessary to go to a Library and find a book, hopefully one that no-one else had found including the Tutor and then write something original.
During a tutorial on The Resurrection we were set a task of writing about what happened during Jesus Passion and the days following.
The book I found, was dusty, dirty and hidden on a shelf in the local bookshop it was the work of Bishop Barnes.
Barnes was unknown to me but he was a liberal Bishop and in his book The Rise of Christianity he attacked, coherently and cogently, it seemed to me, many christian claims including the Virgin Birth and the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
So I wrote my essay, echoing much of what Barnes had said, that the body after it was taken down from the cross was tossed into the rubbish pit and lost. That the disciples were scattered, broken hearted and leaderless. And that the real miracle of the 'psychological' resurrection was that the story was first told, then re-told and then gossipped, that Jesus was alive and myth became, what Norman Mailer characterised as a 'factoid'.
I submitted my essay and after a while it was returned. I looked to see whether I had achieved an Alpha or Beta plus or minus but no I laughed out loud when I saw that at the end of my essay he had written one word, 'Balls'!
Clearly Bishop Barnes, liberal Bishop and courter of controversy, was still at it, provoking the tutor from beyond the grave through the medium of my essay, was I 'channelling' the Bishop's spirit? Was he still alive? Had I 'resurrected' him?
Later in a tutorial the tutor asked if I actually believed what I had written and I had to admit that it made more sense to me than the stories in the gospels, and that in some ways the real miracle was that here we were 2000 years later still telling the story of a man who had lived and died and that his story enabled people to live better lives loving, as he commanded, God, whatever that concept means in practise and their neighbours as themselves.
(Interestingly Don Cupitt quotes the Jewish literary critic, Howard Bloom who comments on the J narrative, the founding epic of God written by an unknown author who presents us with a demanding, persecuting, jealous, capricious, enthralling super male ego. Bloom suggests that the author of the J narrative may have been female! Certainly the most difficult aspect of the God we describe today is that S/he should allow evil to persist in the human condition, the most anaemic is the image of gentle Jesus meek and mild).
Later I preached a sermon as part of a college mission and later rehearsed the sermon in a preaching class in the college chapel, the response from the visiting lecturer was: 'that, gentlemen, was the Kerygma'.
I had to go away and look the word up to realise that the lecturer was complimenting me, it was the opposite of 'balls' and means to cry or proclaim as a herald.
Looking back over the forty six years since I my ordination in 1969 I realise that this has always been the tension between my private thoughts and my public ministry.
In my view the commitment to living a social ecumenism which allows the rich tapestry of the stories from the Bible to mix and mingle, enrich and enliven the equally rich tapestry of human existence to embed the claims of faith in the context of secular reality allows the christian story to have a real and meaningful effect.
I once rehearsed my secular view of the real miracle of the feeding of the five thousand from the pulpit. I suggested that Jesus' breaking and sharing the bread and fish caused a ripple effect of generosity so that those with packed lunches began to share after the manner of a pot luck supper, this caused one indignant worshipper to walk out and then write to say that he could no longer worship with someone who denied 'God's Word'.
Aah well I reflected, we'll just have to manage without you!
This Easter, without an Altar or a Pulpit, there will be no opportunity to preach the Gospel as Kerygma.
But what is more important is to continue to reinforce the power of the Easter story through the secular interpretation of the gospel.
I started with Bultmann and end with Don Cupitt:
'Traditional ecclesiastical Christianity has now completed its historical task, which was always in the end to go beyond itself, exceed itself and become something greater than itself'.
This is still the challenge facing the church to accept and understand that without intellectual honesty and rigour the old myths will continue to fade and without some form of secular interpretation will be rendered meaningless by those who have forgotten them or increasingly never learnt them.
But if the church retreats into its comfort zone, with clergy brandishing irrelevant texts to answer questions that are troubling people or suggesting prayer or attendance at an Alpha Course as the answer, then the church will remain trapped in time, never exceeding itself or becoming something greater.
It is sometimes too easy to wonder whether the Church does actually believe in death and resurrection?
It wasn't the easiest of reads for someone who had left school at 15 with 'O' Levels in Woodwork and Geography!
But somewhere or other I gained an impression that whilst de-mythologising the scriptures as an academic, Bultmann was still able to preach the Gospel as 'Kerygma' from his pulpit on a Sunday.
That early exposure to the idea that it is possible to have an emotional commitment to the essential claims of the Gospel whilst retaining an honest and open critique of the gospels themselves has remained with me throughout my ministry and now into my post ministerial retirement.
As a student at Salisbury in the mid sixties I found that I was required to read the same books as everyone else and then attempt to write an original essay on whatever the subject at hand was. In those days, before Google, it was necessary to go to a Library and find a book, hopefully one that no-one else had found including the Tutor and then write something original.
During a tutorial on The Resurrection we were set a task of writing about what happened during Jesus Passion and the days following.
The book I found, was dusty, dirty and hidden on a shelf in the local bookshop it was the work of Bishop Barnes.
Barnes was unknown to me but he was a liberal Bishop and in his book The Rise of Christianity he attacked, coherently and cogently, it seemed to me, many christian claims including the Virgin Birth and the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
So I wrote my essay, echoing much of what Barnes had said, that the body after it was taken down from the cross was tossed into the rubbish pit and lost. That the disciples were scattered, broken hearted and leaderless. And that the real miracle of the 'psychological' resurrection was that the story was first told, then re-told and then gossipped, that Jesus was alive and myth became, what Norman Mailer characterised as a 'factoid'.
I submitted my essay and after a while it was returned. I looked to see whether I had achieved an Alpha or Beta plus or minus but no I laughed out loud when I saw that at the end of my essay he had written one word, 'Balls'!
Clearly Bishop Barnes, liberal Bishop and courter of controversy, was still at it, provoking the tutor from beyond the grave through the medium of my essay, was I 'channelling' the Bishop's spirit? Was he still alive? Had I 'resurrected' him?
Later in a tutorial the tutor asked if I actually believed what I had written and I had to admit that it made more sense to me than the stories in the gospels, and that in some ways the real miracle was that here we were 2000 years later still telling the story of a man who had lived and died and that his story enabled people to live better lives loving, as he commanded, God, whatever that concept means in practise and their neighbours as themselves.
(Interestingly Don Cupitt quotes the Jewish literary critic, Howard Bloom who comments on the J narrative, the founding epic of God written by an unknown author who presents us with a demanding, persecuting, jealous, capricious, enthralling super male ego. Bloom suggests that the author of the J narrative may have been female! Certainly the most difficult aspect of the God we describe today is that S/he should allow evil to persist in the human condition, the most anaemic is the image of gentle Jesus meek and mild).
Later I preached a sermon as part of a college mission and later rehearsed the sermon in a preaching class in the college chapel, the response from the visiting lecturer was: 'that, gentlemen, was the Kerygma'.
I had to go away and look the word up to realise that the lecturer was complimenting me, it was the opposite of 'balls' and means to cry or proclaim as a herald.
Looking back over the forty six years since I my ordination in 1969 I realise that this has always been the tension between my private thoughts and my public ministry.
In my view the commitment to living a social ecumenism which allows the rich tapestry of the stories from the Bible to mix and mingle, enrich and enliven the equally rich tapestry of human existence to embed the claims of faith in the context of secular reality allows the christian story to have a real and meaningful effect.
I once rehearsed my secular view of the real miracle of the feeding of the five thousand from the pulpit. I suggested that Jesus' breaking and sharing the bread and fish caused a ripple effect of generosity so that those with packed lunches began to share after the manner of a pot luck supper, this caused one indignant worshipper to walk out and then write to say that he could no longer worship with someone who denied 'God's Word'.
Aah well I reflected, we'll just have to manage without you!
This Easter, without an Altar or a Pulpit, there will be no opportunity to preach the Gospel as Kerygma.
But what is more important is to continue to reinforce the power of the Easter story through the secular interpretation of the gospel.
I started with Bultmann and end with Don Cupitt:
'Traditional ecclesiastical Christianity has now completed its historical task, which was always in the end to go beyond itself, exceed itself and become something greater than itself'.
This is still the challenge facing the church to accept and understand that without intellectual honesty and rigour the old myths will continue to fade and without some form of secular interpretation will be rendered meaningless by those who have forgotten them or increasingly never learnt them.
But if the church retreats into its comfort zone, with clergy brandishing irrelevant texts to answer questions that are troubling people or suggesting prayer or attendance at an Alpha Course as the answer, then the church will remain trapped in time, never exceeding itself or becoming something greater.
It is sometimes too easy to wonder whether the Church does actually believe in death and resurrection?
No comments:
Post a Comment