Last Western Heretic
TV One in New Zealand is showing a documentary about the life and ideas of Lloyd Geering who was tried by the Presbyterian Church for heresy in 1969. I’ve never read any of Geering’s work but he appears to have some unconventional views and the documentary should be fairly interesting.
Lloyd is still alive and well at the age of 89 and, by all accounts, as sharp as a tack.
It’s showing at 9.45pm on Saturday 12 January on TV One and again the next morning at 9.30am for those who missed it.
Tags: documentary, heretic, Lloyd Geering
It should be good.
I have read some of his work – it is interesting and does have quite an influence on liberal Christians. He used to attract large numbers to seminars when he gave them.
Today, I think he calls himself and atheist or “Christian atheist.” He gets criticised as not being a very good theologist, more a historian of relgion – probably a positive point considering the poverty of theology.
It’s an unfortunate thing that Geering (or anyone) got labeled and exported. I don’t know the details of the ‘trial’ at all, so I really can’t comment, except to say that I assume patient dialogue and conversation was largely absent from the process…
An interesting question might be: If a minister/pastor/priest were fired for being an atheist, and sought legal action, should he or she expect much help? In other words, is the firing of an atheist minister to be expected?
-d-
probably a positive point considering the poverty of theology.
What exactly does that phrase mean?
I was pretending to ignore that phrase, Frank, but good on you for pointing it out.
I’m not going to play the ‘hurt feelings card’ (and good on you for not playing it either), but I will say that it seems to be a (typically?) selective criticism of a very diverse field (theology), much of which can hardly be seen as ‘poor’.
And Ken, (if you read this) just another thing that I’m curious about. In this comment and almost everywhere else in your writings, you use what appears to be your coined term ‘theologist’ instead of ‘theologian’… Is there a reason for this usage?
-d-
Webster’s dictionary defines a ‘theologist’ as a ‘theologian’… but it is strange to hear it used…. and my spell checker doesn’t like it. Maybe when you hear ‘scientist’ so much it simply feels more natural to use ‘theologist’.
Did you get to watch this Damian?
I found it very interesting and thought it was well made. It was great to see it wasn’t just a look at his life, but also a chance for him to share some of his thoughts.
Two things I didn’t see:
1) the Geering show
2) the Geering pic (above) disappear, and morph into the one that’s up now!
-d-
Ha! Good spotting with the pic – that’ll teach me for hotlinking directly to the website.
Yes Frank, I did watch it and I agree; it was a well balanced documentary that gave a good overview of his perspectives. I don’t necessarily agree with all of them of course but he’s put far more rigour into his theology than most and his is a kind that I could easily live with.
He’s incredibly lucid don’t you think? I’d like to be as sharp as he is at the age of 89 – actually, I’d like to be that sharp now.
Dale, I managed to record it so I’ll burn it to DVD and give it to you the next time we do coffee. You want to catch up sometime this week or next?
I wondered if you had used the existing pic URL – that happened to me once, except it just stopped loading, period; yours was replaced by a rather funny pic!
Gee whiz, thanks heaps for burning it for me! That’d be great. And, yes, another catch up would be cool – maybe Thursday? Will email ya…
Cheers for now,
-d-
That does seem like an interesting doc and to be honest – he’s a heretic from the 1960′s that would be mildly accepted now – but a lot of people do think like he does. I would be interested in learning more about the man – however he isn’t the last heretic. A pal of mine named Kevin Annett – was a United Church Minister – was de-frocked and booted in the mid 1990′s for his stand on Indigenous issues in Canada.
Hmmm, that’s interesting. I’m met a lot of Christians of different stripes but I’ve never met anyone who would stomach Geering’s ideas. I realise that there are people like John Shelby Spong who have similar ideas but I’ve never met them in the flesh. I plan to make contact with Clay Nelson of St Matthews in Auckland at some stage to pick his brains – he’s firmly in the Spong camp and it would be interesting to see where he’s coming from.
Out of interest, your friend, what stand was he taking that was so controversial?
Happened upon your blog, Damian, through your comments on Fruitful Faith.
The Last Western heretic was an engaging and interesting précis of Geering’s ideas, presented by man who is very sincere.
Much of what he says has been said before, even from the early days of the Christian church. Who were the first to say that Jesus hadn’t risen from the dead? That was espoused from the 1st century on, way before scientists started taking the place apart to see how it worked! The idea that ancient cultures regarded it possible for dead men to come back to life, was just as weak then as it is today.
His attraction to many is his great ability with language and telling a story that connects with today’s world culture. He relates current concerns with words and phrases from scripture to spice them up with commonly held ideas gleaned from diverse fields such as physics, biology and psychology. This he claims, has shaped religion over the centuries as culture evolves.
I thought his recollections of the time of dispute within the church over his statements regarding Jesus resurrection etc were a bit cute, in that he claims not to have made such statements. But without putting too finer a point on it, (or did I miss something?) he was rather dishonest (or naive) in not admitting that thinking people would grasp the import of what he was really saying about the fundamentals of christian teaching. Especially, now that in this doco that’s exactly what he is denying!
The major purport of this doco, would have to be the paganisation of christianity. Where God is the idea or symbol of universal natural power and new sacraments and rituals are taken from the natural world. This sounds more like a return to Eden, ready for another Fall.
You mention Spong. I heard him speak at St Matthews in September last year, at the first Conference for Progressive Christianity. He spoke well, but in rather deprecating terms of those he considered limited in their intellectual ability to accept what he claimed to be the real message of the gospel. You’d be welcome to view the DVDs.
Both Geering ad Spong speak in Bultmannian and Tillichian terms within the school of Christian existentialism – deconstructing the ‘harmful’ traditional worldview while constructing a meaning of life from firsthand relationships with family, friends, community together with a smattering of current scientific understanding of the natural world.
Thanks for pulling me up on my use of “theologist”. I had wondered why my spell checker was picking it out (although it seems happy with the plural “theologists” for some reason). Somebody else (a theologian) has also commented on this. I guess that’s the way we lean – from our mistakes. But I do feel a bit ridiculous because it seems obvious now that it’s been pointed out.
I talk about the poverty of theology because it is often used to imply a special knowledge not available to others – which I don’t think it has.
For example, a common criticism of Dawkins’ book is that he had no right to discuss the question of a god concept or a “God Delusion” because he is not trained in theology. Serious reviewers make that assertion – which of course would rule most of humanity out of deciding this question for themselves, and talking about their decisions.
Another common assertion is that there are questions that science cannot answer (what is right and wrong, the ultimate meaning of life, etc.and that these should be handled by theologians (almost typed theologists!). I agree with Dawkins here that if science can’t answer these questions then theologians certainly can’t – they have no more ability to answer these questions than anybody else. These are questions we all deal with in our own way.
I think theologians use circular arguments to “prove” their starting points when it comes to gods and ethics. (Many philosophers seem similar to me). Alongside the scientific approach this does seem to me like poverty.
Geering may have never been able to confront the questions he does if he had limited himself to the field of theology.
Of course, there are more frutiful areas such as biblical history and comparative religious investigation which theologians may be involved in and I would not like to be disparaging about that.
Good comment Ken.
Purely for interests sake around the word ‘theologist’ – dictionary.com allows it
Any view that would place the field of theology in an ivory tower that is not accessible to all is a wrong view. Everyone is, in a sense, a theologian and everyone can offer their thoughts around matters of ‘God’. As you’ve said, comparative religious studies, biblical history and might I add, biblical studies, are another matter.
I’ve done a little study of Genesis 1, but I would expect anyone who has done none to stop and listen a little before offering any conclusions about it – simply because it relates to the area of biblical studies, which involves studies of historical context, literary analysis etc etc. In the same way, I’ll keep my mouth shut and ears open on areas relating to most scientific investigation, because I have no qualification to discuss such things.
Thanks Ken, for the explanatory notes (‘theologiAN’
) and further comment…
Given the context of your comment, one could easily interpret your ‘poverty’ comment to mean: ‘…because theology itself is essentially bankrupt, at least there is some value in studying religious history…’
On ‘special knowledge’, I would say it’s unfortunate that some Christians (and other theists?) claim to have superior or special access to some body of knowledge. There could be some confusion here, however, between the idea of ‘knowing’ things (truth?) in terms of ‘facts’/bullet-points/etc. and the more monotheistic/Judeo-Christian (J/C) way of speaking about ‘knowing’ in relational terms. ‘Knowing the truth’ in a J/C sense is not to ‘know’ every fact and scrap of data ever know-able, but to have a relational, committed bond to truth. To claim this kind of ‘knowledge’ is quite a different thing than claiming to be ‘automatically more intelligent’ or something…
And (just while I’m going) morality (biblically speaking) has always been something that ALL humans work at, question and attempt to ‘answer’. As for what science cannot do, it cannot (at least I can’t imagine how!) provide a universal, consistent theory of morality. Now, some might well say ‘who would want such a thing anyway?’, or ‘well, religion sure hasn’t provided that either…’ but my point here is simply that while science can study, observe and predict the moral actions (which actions AREN’T moral?) of humanity, it can’t provide a universal guiding moral ethic…
And of course, one would expect that an atheist would only find historical or comparative religious study ‘fruitful’, but surely ANY kind of human sharpening and studying is at least (even to an atheist) somewhat ‘good’???
cheers,
-d-
The sort of theology I criticise, and the sort of philosophy I criticise, is the empty argument and logic which doesn’t map its conclusions against reality (and usually doesn’t start from reality anyway). That’s what I mean by the poverty of an approach. And really, there are some extremely stupid philosophical arguments and conclusions in this area. Post-modernist academics who may spend all day arguing that reality doesn’t really exist, or that we can’t know it, and then go shopping for groceries on the way home!
“As for what science cannot do, it cannot (at least I can’t imagine how!) provide a universal, consistent theory of morality.” Sure, I don’t think science , or scientists, have any special ability to say what is right and wrong (nor does religion or a particular believer of one ideology or another). But I do think there is a lot of progress in understanding the sources of our morality and explaining why we think some things are right and wrong. In that sense there may be a set of moral intuitions which we can say are right because they correspond to the brains inference systems. They may be starting points for moral reasoning and logic.
Can anyone “provide a universal guiding moral ethic…”? Whenever that attempt is made (lists such as the 10 commandments etc.) isn’t there something going on in our brain which enables us to select what we think is right and wrong? Wouldn’t we be in a really bad place if our only “sense” of right and wrong was obtained by appealing to a list – particularly lists from another time and place – but any list?
Unfortunately, some people approach ethical questions this way. I don’t see that quoting passages of scripture (or any other document) is a useful way of dealing with modern ethical questions.
My point is that we can look at what is going on in the brain and reveal things which the individual could not possibly do by introspection, no matter how skilled (not to say there isn’t benefit in this – I am a fan of Buddhist meditation).
Ken,
“…map its conclusions against reality (and usually doesn’t start from reality anyway).”
Now, don’t hear me going down the extreme philosophical road that you refer to, that ‘reality doesn’t exist’, but the notion of ‘mapping’ or testing conclusions ‘against reality’ sounds like one which presumes that ‘reality’ is a univocal term. Like the term ‘god’, it certainly is not so simply defined…
I hear what you’re saying (and keep saying) about how important and helpful it is to understand how our brains function. I completely agree. But even presuming we could fully understand the neurological functions of the human ‘choice’ (or does it merely only ‘appear’ that we are really making choices??? – says the most-modern philosopher…), we still are left without a way of meaningfully guiding human choice. And like I said, some would say ‘why on earth would we ever want to guide human choices?’ But many of us humans, I presume many/most atheists as well, do think that human choice does need to be –in some sense– guided. Otherwise we might as well throw out all law, government, care-givers, police, army, etc. Of course, nobody really wants this…
“explaining why we think some things are right and wrong. In that sense there may be a set of moral intuitions which we can say are right because they correspond to the brains inference systems. They may be starting points for moral reasoning and logic.”
Explaining why we think a certain way (the mental processes, etc.) will not help us discern which of many varying ways of thinking is best for humanity. And can I ask: how could we ever discover a ‘set of moral intuitions’, and how could we ever meaningfully say they ‘are right’???
“…we can look at what is going on in the brain and reveal things which the individual could not possibly do by introspection…”
I’m not sure what ‘things’ we can expect to be ‘revealed’ by looking at how our brain works. For example, if a brain belonging to a person who thinks that ‘x’ is right functions in ‘b’ kind of way, and a brain belonging to a person who thinks that ‘x’ is wrong functions in ‘c’ kind of way; that still leaves us –in principle– no way of knowing if ‘x’ is right or wrong…
Put simply, I think our best attempts at morality will be listening to each other’s views openly and honestly – and critically, of course. My understanding of my faith and my understanding of my Scriptures is such that humans can always learn from other humans. I agree that ancient ‘lists’ should not be applied ‘to today’ (certainly not thoughtlessly), but this does not mean that modern or new ideas about morality are automatically the best. Like good wine, sometimes the older the perspective, the more satisfying.
Off to bed now…
-d-
Dale, I think reality is simply defined. Describing it is another question – it may be difficult but humanity is making excellent progress, surely. In my experience people who try to give reality different meanings have their own motives – like magicians (illusionists) who carry out their tricks by diverting our attention.
I think you are worried about finding an absolutist, objective right and wrong. You haven’t been able to this, and neither has anyone else. Sure, being aware of how we arrive at our moral emotions, intuitions and reasoning doesn’t give that. But nothing else does either. We are stuck with working out a code of right and wrong for ourselves through our reasoning and logic.
After all, we don’t come with an instruction manual. We have to work out things for ourselves. And as a social animal we do that collectively – we have evolved to do it that way. That’s why we don’t throw out law, moral codes, etc. It’s just not in our nature to.
Hey Ken, your optimistic meme is showing
Unfortunately, reality is more than refining its description. From most public conversations there is generally a pessimistic concern for current societal and economic systems. Policy makers and social commentators sound very disparate and desperate when attempting to resolve the global problems currently facing mankind. This betrays the idea that mankind is making progress in coming to terms with reality, and thereby construct a morality that can predict good outcomes.
As far as finding an absolutist, objective right or wrong. Don’t we, by our own authority, do this every day as we act on decisions we make? Sure they’re not codified and we may not think too long about each decision, and some of them might seem trivial, but some may turn out to be vital or fatal. Then we’re stuck with the consequences which may riddle (puzzle and pox) our lives, and the lives of others, with more than praise or ridicule.
The dilemma with right and wrong sounds familiar – back to Eden no less.
Ken,
but that it is understood in many different ways. Your notion of ‘mapping against reality’ sounds as though it were a simple thing…
My point, obviously, was not that ‘reality’ was without an entry in any dictionaries,
An interesting example of ‘working out morality/ethics’ was a youth-worker network meeting I took part in a few months back. Input was being sought for a ‘National youth-worker code of ethics’. I found the conversing, sharing and debating very stimulating. Especially when it came to issues relating to teenage sexual behaviour. For example, one question was ‘what does ethical youth work look like’ in various situations:
-a youth asks you for a condom
-a youth (female) tells you she is pregnant and her parents/guardians don’t know
-a youth is thinking about having sex
etc.
There was great discussion on these issues, and there was a good diversity of backgrounds present. Some favoured making condoms easily available, others (and not just those from churches) were concerned that too easy access to condoms would encourage too much sexual activity, etc.
As we’ve discussed before on my blog, morals/ethics are based on values/ideas. Sharing together our values/ideas is the practical stuff of ‘working out’ morality.
-d-
I think the problem is what we understand by reality. To me it is objectively existing (independent of our minds) reality. It’s easy to understand the scientifically. I guess there is a “popular” usage which actually means the opposite – everyone hgas their own “reality.” Of course they don’t, although we all have our own model (reflection) of reality in our heads.
We’ve had this discussion before, Dale. I don’t imply mapping against reality is simple. It’s not. We didn’t evolve as a species to discover truth (or reality). But we can do it – its hard work, expensive and a social activity.
I agree, BC, that we all have our own moral code that we act on. But this is not the objective morality which seems to be advance by some theists (obviously not all) as an argument for a god.
“I think the problem is what we understand by reality. To me it is objectively existing (independent of our minds) reality.”
What, then, is the ‘mind’? Is not the mind a part of reality? A physical thing? Aren’t atheists supposed to firmly hold ‘mind’ and ‘brain’ firmly together?
-d-
If the mind holds a physical representation of reality (in much the same way that a photo can be stored on your computer) it is not reality in and of itself – it can be flawed. The flower that the photo is of exists outside of the photo in what we call ‘reality’. The photo is a physical (even when being sent by email) representation of reality.
That opens a whole other can of worms though. No one really understands how the mind works but I’m putting my money on it being merely a set of physical ‘switches’ or ‘states’ that, if complex enough, can provide the illusion of the homunculus inside our heads.
Of course the mind is part of reality – one can differentiate an observing mind from an observed mind. It may create some philosophical problems, but in practice we usually have no problem with understand and independently existing reality (it doesn’t go a way if we drop dead or our brain dies)
Reality is more than physical things.
The only thing ‘atheists’ have is a non-belief in a god. The word doesn’t define anything else. We can use some philosophical words to describe attitudes to brain/mind/consciousness but in my experience its best to consider evidence rather than impose philosophical descriptions.
But Ken, that’s just the point…
Your talk of only considering raw data or ‘evidence’ rather than philosophical ideas has –I think– problems.
Whatever processes are at work in thinking about, defining or investigating this complex thing we call ‘reality’ (and whether they involve brain cells, souls, spirits, gods or all of these – or not), the very act of ‘considering’ evidence is at the same time both a scientific act and a philosophical act. Yes, the extreme ‘we might not really be here’ post modern philosophers go too far (phenomenonalists), but the other philosophical extreme (positivists) under estimates what Merleau-Ponty might call the ‘phenomenology of perception’…
And with that, I’ve used enough multi-syllabic words to have fully impressed both myself and anyone I might possibly have fooled into thinking I completely grasp these concepts…
-d-
Dale, I agree that post modern philosophy is of no practical use at all and that we have to allow for glitches in these machines we call our minds when making observations about the real world.
I have a very weak grasp on philosophy but I suspect you can still be a good positivist and make allowances for these glitches of perception. Feel free to call me out on that one though.
The problem I see is that wherever there is a gap in evidence or, in your case, some room left on the error bars for perception faults, there always seems to be someone frantically trying to stuff God into the equation.
No, we don’t know how life started but that display of humility doesn’t mean that we should insert God and we know that there are limits to our ability to make complete observations about the universe we live in but, once again, this allowance for error doesn’t mean we should be inserting God.
The concept of God is an extremely complex answer to what is usually a relatively simple problem in the end. The danger of the God of the Gaps argument or the (to coin a phrase?) God of the Error Bars is that the only people who stand to lose are those that placed God into a gap that is subsequently filled by evidence or into a perception error allowance when empirical testing narrows the margins.
If science ever creates machine consciousness then many people’s concepts of ‘God’ will die on that day. Actually, it could also either undergo a rapid reformation to include these new ‘souls’ or make more amendments to what it means to be a human and, therefore, eligible for eternal life.
I would think that if I held to a belief in some complex creator of the universe it would be safer to keep it out of those gaps and margins of error in science in the long run.
Like I say, I’m compelled by the idea that everything is physical and that it’s looking likely that these illusions of the ‘self’ and everything that goes with that may well turn out to be just that; illusions caused by software of our experiences running on the hardware of our brains.
Philosophical ideas (and religious ideas, etc) can be considered as evidence, raw data, and hence be studied. I classify them as material phenomena (we’ve had this discussion before). But let’s not confuse them with hard data about the universe, reality existing independently of anyone’s mind. When we do we allow for all sorts of distortions which get in the way of genuine investigation. (And I think for some people this is where their god comes from).
Yes totally guys.
I’m certainly not trying to argue for a gap-filler god. Monotheistic tradition has always been that the Creator was ‘seen’ through Creation (hence ‘Creational’ Monotheism). In that sense, every bit of data, evidence, matter, thoughts, philosophy, perceptions, hardware, software and anything else that is a part of ‘reality’ is said (by Creational Monotheists) to point to the Creator; regardless of whether these things are placed in the ‘understood’ box or the ‘not understood fully (yet)’ box…
-d-
Hey Ken, what’s a non-belief?
Maybe it’s something that has yet to be perceived, or thought of?
Surely, atheists have a belief there is no god. Therefore, they also have no belief in god (for god, for them, does not exist).
Otherwise non-belief in a god sounds like they have never come across the concept of god or ignored the question of god’s existence altogether.
Agnostics also have no belief in god, but they also hold to the possibility of yet coming to believe in a god.
Isn’t it that atheists have been presented with evidence of god’s existence, but because that evidence doesn’t fit a philosophically formed means of examining reality, i.e. the scientific method, they dismiss that as unscientific evidence, concluding that there is no god?
Philosophical descriptions run beneath the why of the method adopted for whatever we are doing. We may not consider them too deeply they’re there. All the machines developed for observing so-called ‘raw data’, are in themselves extensions of our mind and therefore our philosophy, which determines a modus operandi. The data these machines produce are then interpreted, naturally through the same philosophical lens.
Observation does not, necessarily, undermine the independence of physical reality of the universe.
God can not be used as a gap-filler, because for the Christian, God is the underpinning, creator of all things. The things so far explained by science don’t in any way rule out God’s existence. For the scientist without faith in any god, scientific ideas are just-so, for the scientist who is a Christian, they may or may not be able to be understood as pointing to God as the creator.
BC, you are playing with definitions – your “agnostic” could describe my beliefs but my definition of agnostic is very different to yours and I would never use it to describe my beliefs. It perhaps indicates that such terms are not really very helpful – it’s best to deal with the asserted beliefs of individuals rather than assuming them because of a label (especially one which seems to be emotionally charged for many).
I accept your point about philosophical beliefs colouring our interpretation of objective reality and the data we receive from it. I understand that as inherent to our perceptions. We evolved to survive and reproduce, not to discover the truth about the universe. But amazingly, our species can make progress in this. An essential element in this is the social nature of humanity’s investigation. The critical peer review and competition of ideas in science has been essential to this. Without this we would never have made such progress (It is this aspect which is lacking in “intelligent design” and this makes it unscientific).
I have never thought of scientific ideas as “just-so” but sure, I agree that individuals scientists will see these ideas with the colouring of their philosophy. But the great thing about science is that it is possible for people of all sorts of philosophical or religious beliefs to work alongside each other, use the same methodologies, discuss the same ideas, etc., without any conflict. The conflict only comes when attempts are made to impose philosophical biases onto the science. This happened with Lysenkoism in the USSR under Stalin and is happening now with “intelligent design” and the false “controversy” the Wedge activists are promoting.
It is sad that so many Christians today effectively fall into the God-of-the-gaps trap. There seems to be a strong desire to find scientific justification for their beliefs. However, by doing this they expose their beliefs to humiliation when science fills in the gap they have used. The minute a Christian makes a religion-based claim about the natural world and its origins they make a noose for their beliefs. If I were a Christian I would keep well away from such temptations. I would embrace science and its findings (as I do now) but would keep my religious beliefs completely separate.