by David H. Lane
(Editor, Apologia)
This article was in response to Noel Cheer (Editor, Sea of Faith Network NZ Newsletter) - click here
Noel Cheer, editor of the Sea of Faith (NZ) Newsletter is to be commended for providing a detailed response to the latest issue of Apologia (2000; Vol. 7 [1]) entitled "Focus on James Veitch".
He is quick to dismiss those who accept the Gospel accounts as authentic records of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, as not engaging their intellects and as those whose faith is not seeking understanding (contra Anselm). He accuses contributors Drs Fruchtenbaum, Duggan, Scott-Pearson and the editor, of clinging to a threadbare "sternly literalistic apologetics" in order to gain a "toe-hold on eternity". He argues that Rev. Dr Jim Veitch's approach, in contrast, particularly his Birth of Jesus booklet, indicates that he is indeed one to whom Anselm's words "faith seeking understanding" does apply, because he at least engages his intellect (in implied contrast to Apologia contributors?). In an apparent about-face he then concedes that, "to be fair", the Society's critique of Veitch also exemplifies Anselm's approach, which is the motto of the Society.
He refers to Veitch's position as being "attacked" in the editorial and by the journal contributors and accuses the editor of "lash[ing] out at the Jesus Seminar" (because the editor refers to it as the "so-called" Jesus-Seminar) and "sniping" at Veitch because the editor refers to Lloyd Geering as Veitch's "mentor".
The latter claim appears to be unjustified, given that sympathetic journalists and others, such as Bob Shaw of the Evening Post, have frequently used the term "mentor" to characterise the Veitch-Geering relationship. It is well known that much of Veitch's public notoriety (if any) has come about through his deliberate attempt to advance the liberal cause of Geering, his Masters thesis supervisor and the one he has willingly played "understudy" to for much of his academic life at Victoria University. Furthermore, Veitch's regular (and for some tiresome and repetitious) public recounting of the so-called Geering-heresy trial details in lectures and in the media (he has written a major work on the subject - still as yet unpublished), underlines the link in the minds of the public. (It is noteworthy that Bishop John Spong, whose views Cheer likens to Veitch's, refers warmly to the late John A.T. Robinson in his autobiography Here I Stand (2000), as his "mentor", crediting his writings and thinking as having been extremely influential in his own 'spiritual' journey).
It should be noted that Veitch has regularly "attacked" the key doctrines of the Christian faith and "sniped" at the sincerely held beliefs of orthodox Christians, not only in The Birth of Jesus, but in his public lectures and in the media. It seems that such emotive terms as "attacking" and "sniping" are deemed not appropriate to use when describing Veitch who, like the Jesus Seminar scholars, writes Cheer, is only trying "to develop Christianity in directions that embody new understandings resulting from, not only Biblical scholarship, but also from the human sciences such as psychology, sociology and anthropology". The fact that conservative scholars like Dr Fruchtenbaum, a Messianic Jewish believer with an encyclopaedic knowledge of Hebrew scholarship, traditions, language and so on, also seeks to sincerely arrive at a true understanding of the Scriptures and his Christian faith, is not even taken into account by such question-begging approaches. Again, the fact that world authorities in Semitic languages, New Testament studies, archaeology, science and other fields, have become convinced of the authenticity of the Gospel accounts, while engaging their intellects in their research, risks appearing of little consequence to Cheer. The Wellington Christian Apologetics Society has regularly featured such scholars over the years in its programmes of seminars, lectures and publications.
The work of such scholars is flawed however, in Cheer's view, because they have failed to adopt the 'vastly superior' "methodology" of the Jesus Seminar, adopted also by Veitch (a Seminar Fellow), Funk, Geering, Cupitt and Spong, one which "precludes setting things in concrete". But let us pause. Cheer concedes that the Jesus Seminar participants find nothing profitable in the view that the Gospel accounts are authentic or that supernatural intervention is a possibility: this is ruled out a priori. Dr Fruchtenbaum points out this dismissive approach, central to Veitch's biased analysis, in which unstated presuppositions are accepted as fact. However, Cheer suggests that his criticism of Veitch's presuppositions fails because he (Fruchtenbaum) writes (says Cheer) "as though Veitch were the only one to do so" [i.e. to employ presuppositions. Emphasis added]. The real point is, however, that Veitch's presuppositions, like those of many liberals, are (generally) unstated. Fruchtenbaum, having disclosed his own presuppositions up front, discloses Veitch's hidden presuppositions by analysing his treatment and application of the term "myth" to the Gospel accounts.
Cheer seeks to contrast the overly "literalistic" approach to apologetics of Drs Fruchtenbaum, Duggan and Scott-Pearson, with that of the contributions from Drs Tovey and Trebilco. He states that the latter group go as far as adopting an approach closer ("even if timidly in comparison") to that of Veitch, Funk, Cupitt, Spong and Geering. But it appears that such a suggestion would rather cause a theological moderate to conclude that someone advancing the idea of such unlikely bedfellows, betrayed only a limited grasp of the theological issues at stake and the nature and size of the theological chasm that divides Tovey and Trebilco from the views of Veitch et al.
Cheer quotes Trebilco: "... if belief in Jesus' divinity involved completely overlaying the historical Jesus with something that was totally alien to him, then Veitch has a point" (emphasis added). It is astounding that he draws encouragement from this statement, taking it to mean that Trebilco is siding with Veitch (albeit "timidly) to some degree. On the contrary (note the word "if"), Trebilco is clearly not suggesting that there is any inconsistency between the "historical Jesus" presented in the Gospels and the "Christ of faith" proclaimed by the Apostle Paul. Rather, he sees a consistency between the two, while acknowledging a development and progression - the understanding of the divine nature of the Son of God is enlarged in meaning to its cosmic and universal dimensions in later writings. Trebilco makes it very clear that Veitch has not established his point, for he writes:
Yet why was it that the early Christians so quickly spoke of Jesus in language previously reserved for God? It is unlikely that this was because of the influence or imposition of outside factors, such as Hellenistic religions, or mystery cults, and so on [as Veitch and the Jesus Seminar argue], since these developments took place within a very short time when most Christians were Jews. The reasons for this development lie rather, amongst other factors, in the impact of the life and ministry of Jesus himself, in his addressing God as Abba, in the implicit claims he made as outlined above, in the resurrection as the vindication of Jesus' ministry, and in the presence of the risen Lord in their midst. This means that rather than speaking about the early Church "creating" a divine Jesus [as Veitch claims], we would be better to speak of the early Christians making explicit what was implicit about Jesus, or developing what was there in embryonic form from the beginning" (p. 3. Emphasis added)
Cheer has surely engaged in wishful thinking regarding Trebilco's position. He also disappoints with an uncharacteristic apparent sneer at the "spin-doctoring of the Gospel writers" and seems to betray a sad refusal to engage with the sublime insights of the Apostle Paul's position when he refers to the "Cosmic Christ fantasy". Two things here. There is no shortage of undeniably orthodox thinkers, such as Austin Farrer, who can combine quite radical New Testament scholarship with a full blooded supernaturalistic faith. None of these, however, would dream of using the impertinent slur of "spin doctoring". Secondly, the suggestion of a Paul who needlessly expands upon a supposed "simple Gospel of Jesus" was massively discredited by the time of Chesterton, and more cautious liberals were explicitly distancing themselves in the 'seventies of the past century from this Nineteenth Century article of unreconstructed liberalism in the same way they were retreating from claims that the Hittites never existed or that writing was unknown in the time of Moses.
The Cosmic Christ, rightly understood, provides the path upwards out of the sterile see-sawing between a short-sighted literalism on the one hand and a sterile and restless radicalism on the other, but one is sad to observe Mr Cheer seeming to block off that upward path in advance through misguided adherence to discredited Hegelian speculations. Conservative Christian scholars have always recognised the development process referred to by Trebilco, but find no evidence that a belief in the "divine nature" of Jesus was somehow overlaid on the "historical Jesus" as something "totally alien to him" (as Cheer puts it), by the writers of the Gospels and other New Testament books, as the Jesus Seminar scholars maintain. Nor should a development process be uncritically assumed. This assumption was behind much of the insistence that the Johannine Prologue, for example, was far too lofty and "developed" to be from John, and "had" to have been a later addition by other authors. A massive computer study confirmed single authorship of John's Gospel, and obliged an embarrassing choice between computer study and developmental dogma. Mr Cheer cannot, of course, resist a dig at the Chalcedonian formulations, yet as Karl Barth points out:
"To surrender the absolute and essential Godhead of Jesus Christ amounts to surrendering God himself. Such is the meaning of the early Church's struggles. Modern theologians who mock the people of Constantinople disputing on whether Jesus Christ is analogous to God or God himself show themselves more stupid than they. For here is the knot of the question." (...) "The criticism levelled against orthodoxy during the past two centuries is quite simply barbarian: it does not even know what it is talking about. Useless complication and subtlety were not shown by those ancient fellows but by the modern savants who did not try to understand and who did not understand."
Dogmatic development is a necessary and organic development as the fires of the original Apostolic revelation grow colder, as it were, and things implicit and apparent to all originally need to be codified for the many. Mr Cheer can presumably see the foolishness of the various sects which seek a primitive Christianity supposedly free from Chalcedonian "Churchly" overlay, but seems strangely blind to the fact that the similar postmodernist project runs an even greater risk of finding only its own reflection. Particularly with such "soft" pseudosciences as sociology in play, anachronistic reading in of meanings absent from Scriptural texts is almost inevitable. Interestingly, Drs Trebilco and Tovey specifically endorse the Statement of Faith adopted by the Wellington Christian Apologetics Society with regard to the full divinity of Jesus Christ, a belief rejected by Cheer, Veitch, Geering, Spong, Cupitt, Funk and other liberals.
Cheer suggests that the editor has little appreciation of the Sea of Faith members' "sincere attempt" to "develop Christianity in directions that embody understanding...". Sincerity is not the question here. The Dolly Pond Church of God with Signs Following doubtless holds its beliefs in all sincerity, but that should not and would not prevent either Mr Cheer or Apologia from criticism of them in both senses of the word. But the editor does not address himself to the beliefs of Sea of Faith. While Cheer may feel that an "attack" on Veitch must be redressed by Sea of Faith, the aim of this issue of Apologia is clearly stated: it is a critique of Jim Veitch's booklet. While Cheer is free to sincerely believe and promote the view that Veitch is developing Christianity in the directions he outlines, others have the right to post a warning and say "this teaching is outside the sphere of true Christian faith" and provide the evidence. Once the major tenets of a faith have been abandoned by a minister within the Christian Church and propagated publicly, a response is called for from the Christian community and especially the professing Church.
When the likes of Jesus Seminar Fellows and their supporters dismiss biblical scholars who accept the authenticity of the Gospels, as not even engaging their intellects in seeking an understanding of their faith, one wonders about their ability to provide an objective and reasoned assessment of the debate. A new form of intellectual bigotry emerges in the liberal camp - one which seeks to clutch a toe-hold onto the crumbling philosophical foundation of an increasingly threadbare positivism.
Cheer claims that the relationship between "myth' and history has not been understood or appreciated sensitively by Dr Fruchtenbaum. Duggan is labelled as grossly over-literalistic in his understanding and a failure when it comes to understanding the true nature of "metaphor". There is a considerable degree of truth in Cheer's claim that some conservative evangelicals show a weak understanding of myth when they dismiss it as "mere myth". There is likewise however an alarming mirror-image of such misunderstanding on a greater scale (and with considerably less excuse) in the blatantly reductive and often breathtakingly coarse and rationalistic approach of Sea of Faith. Indeed, hubris seems often revealed in such claims by liberals. A true grasp of the meaning of such terms is proclaimed to be their exclusive preserve. Cheer's problem is that he wants to apply no less contrived definitions of "myth" and "metaphor" to the Gospel accounts: narrow and reductive definitions that satisfy his liberal agenda. The definition used by Veitch of myth as a story involving supernatural agents, for example, is both reductionist and question-begging, and a thousand miles from the numinous awe apposite to these staggering tales. Even Lloyd Geering has recognised this, with his statement that (on this reductionist definition of myth) the only myth proper in the book of Genesis is that involving the "sons of God" (Genesis 6: 1-2)!
Cheer appears to wish to maintain some "upper story" reality (the so-called "mythic" element) while gutting the Gospel accounts in particular of almost all their connections to a real-time historical world. He ignores the fact that literary scholars (e.g. C.S. Lewis) have decisively refuted this type of liberal misapplication of the term "myth" to the Gospel narratives, showing how Myth can become Fact: how events literal and historical enough to delight a fundamentalist may at the same time embody layers of transcendent meaning to transport a poet or mystic, and to speak what otherwise cannot be spoken. In their misguided efforts to try and downgrade the historical authenticity of the Gospel accounts ("the typical liberal reduction process - abridging the Gospel", as Bonhoeffer put it), the postmoderns posit a false alternative. Do the five porches in St John's story of the healing of the man ill for thirty-eight years in John 5 speak of the five books of Moses, for example? If so, then they are and can be only myth (in the pejorative sense), says liberal dogma, or rather said liberal dogma - until the archaeologists dug them up. They then belatedly realised that which should have been apparent all along: the porches were as literal as can be and as full of metaphorical meaning and import as can be. The fundamentalist who clings to the literal porches has at least a chance of discerning the deeper theological meaning of the story; the radical who decides in advance that the story is a fiction, albeit with the possibility of a remote and possibly arbitrary "substrate", displays a blindness which may be tragic. The same principle applies, of course, to the Resurrection and Ascension, and Barth was sublimely correct when he wrote:
"... if someone should accept, all in one piece, what he learnt in Sunday School I should tell him: You are wiser than if you were to interpret the Ascension in a merely spiritualistic sense".4
Cheer is therefore saddled with the task of explaining how a cloud of nonfundamentalist witnesses, including many who have made a lifetime study of literary forms and comparative mythologies, accept the substantial authenticity of the orthodox faith. This leaves his criticisms of the Apologia statement of faith and contributors somewhat beside the point even if they were valid. The point is not simply that a jerky and unwieldy statement of faith heavily skewed towards conservative evangelical Protestantism will not square with the nostrums of a Veitch, but rather that Veitch's position will equally not square with the great historic creeds at a single point, nor even with the mainstream of a more moderate and intellectually principled liberalism. He has also to come to grips with the liberal J.A.T. Robinson's Redating the Gospels and its well-researched claim that all four Gospels were written before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD: a Robinson the Sea of Faith people seem to neglect in favour of the 'sixties Robinson and an enthusiasm for a late dating of the Gospels, itself dated and untenable. I am reliably informed that Knox College staff (hardly known as devotees of hyperfundamentalism...) cautioned students, on the publication of Robinson's seminal Redating book, that all presumptions on late Gospel dating were to be placed on hold on the light of Robinson's book, a piece of advice the wisdom of which has been amply demonstrated in the years that have followed but which seems lost on Jim Veitch.
The range of approaches found among the contributors to the "Focus on James Veitch" issue of Apologia is presented as a weakness by Cheer. He sees it as evidence of the demise of the evangelical position. On the contrary, the fact that all contributors disagree fundamentally with Veitch's approach, while maintaining their differences, says it all. Veitch's viewpoint is a minority one among New Testament scholars world-wide and could with equal logic be held to represent the death-cry of a dated liberal faction of the church. Veitch's views are rightly regarded as bizarre by many mainstream liberals and even by some more educated radicals. Cheer would have us believe that "so different are the 'understandings' of Veitch and his critics that we can observe that the Christian faith looks no nearer finding consensus". He fails to recognise, as Duggan points out, that the often hoary arguments Veitch and those like him put forward, are nothing new. Dissenters and heretics have abounded throughout the history of the Christian Church. And yet the fundamental doctrines such as the deity of Christ have never changed. This does not rule out the need for greater illumination of the meaning and application of Holy Scripture to the modern world, and it certainly does not imply a weakness inherent to doctrinal tenets of the faith if they do not "evolve" or "adapt" to fit supposedly modern viewpoints and mores.
Dr Duggan was correct to conclude that Veitch's booklet "is incredibly shoddy. It abounds in categorical statements about the New Testament books and history of the early Church, many of which are not only doubtful but demonstrably false." While it may be argued that Cheer failed to address any of these criticisms in his lengthy critique, one has the impression that Cheer stands somewhat apart from the Sea of Faith people, particularly in his willingness to review at some length. It is evident that many of the issues alluded to call for more extended treatment, while others need to be picked up, all in the light of Anselm's motto.
This article was in response to Noel Cheer (Editor, Sea of Faith Network NZ Newsletter) - click here
Endnotes
Endnotes are available in the hardcopy only.
This article appeared in Apologia 7(2/3) 2000.
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