Every time I pick up a new book I am reminded of two things I read in the 70s. The first was a statement made by a general – at least I think he was a general. The statement was “At this juncture of human events…”. He could have said “now”. The second was the safety report for Three Mile Island. Can you remember Three Mile Island? The report, written before the meltdown, was quite clear in its conclusion. The procedures in place were flawed and there was a good possibility of something going wrong. The problem was that the report was written in a scholarly fashion with data and facts comprising most of the report with the conclusion indicating a dangerous problem found in a paragraph on the final page. Anyone reading the report was put to sleep long before reaching the conclusion. I read books with those examples as a standard.
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This past week I picked up two new books. The adult after church study class (I hesitate to call it a Sunday School Class) at Asbury is starting on this book Sunday. I don’t think I will be able to attend much but I bought the book anyway. It is Paul among the Postliberals – Pauline Theology beyond Christendom and Modernity by Douglas Harink. If you want a book report look here. So far I have managed the introduction (12 pages) and part (25 pages) of the first chapter, Justification. This is not a book for the faint of heart. It may not even be a book for me. Harink does a great job in the introduction of telling what the book is about (Pauline theology in relation to particular theologians). But, so far, I have a lot more questions than answers and that leads me to think that Harink may be somewhat akin to the verbose general.
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I should have been warned by the title. After all, just exactly what is a “postliberal” (and here)? I thought perhaps the introduction might enlighten me. No joy. The best I could do was figure out that some theologians I know of (Karl Barth, Stanley Hauerwas and John Howard Yoder – note that in addition to the links I have given all three can be found on Wikipedia) with others that I am not familiar with (Krister Stendahl, Hans Frei and George Lindbeck – also to be found on Wikipedia) are/were postliberals. Great. I have read some things by Yoder and Hauerwas and neither of them are exactly easy to grasp. So now we have someone that clumps them together along with other theologians that I am totally ignorant of under the rather ill-defined title of postliberal and states that they preach Paul’s theology? Another question I have is: what books (of the New Testament) does he accept as authentic Pauline? I hope to find the answers in the rest of the book.
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The second book I started is Deepak Chopra’s The Third Jesus. A less skeptical bio of Deepak can be found here. As with Paul among the Postliberals. I have not read much, just the introduction (4 pages), the first chapter, Redeeming the Redeemer (14 pages) and 5 pages of the second chapter, “I am the Light”. I am unsure at this point what I think of the book. I choose the book because I thought it would be nice to see a non-Christian’s view of Jesus. I expected a detached viewpoint. I don’t believe that is what we have here. I will continue reading and see what develops.
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One impression I have is that Deepak has read the gospels rather uncritically. For example he assumes that Jesus’ actual words are quoted in the Gospels. I am not so sure of that especially when it comes to John. Don’t get me wrong, I love the language of John but I am not so sure of the accurateness of his wording. John and the other gospels for the most part were written in Greek but Greek was not the language that Jesus spoke. So how good is John’s translation of what Jesus said and how close were the words that he wrote to those that Jesus uttered? John wrote some 65 years after the crucifixion. I think maybe he (Deepak) was taught that the gospels were inerrant (at least in fact) by the Irish Catholic brothers that were his teachers in India. Deepak also appears to draw a lot of meaning from very few words. It is almost as if he has the inverse problem of the safety report for Three Mile Island. That is, he does not seem to have enough facts (reality) for his conclusions. I hope not but only the rest of the book will tell. On the other hand his ultimate conclusion appears to be in the last section of the book (judging from the table of contents). I hope I don’t fall asleep before I get there.
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Did you know that Deepak Chopra champions intelligent design? I wonder if that has any bearing.