Madam, - The Christian faithful among your readers may well have been looking forward to some rich Christmas fare, but they were treated to a platter of theological red herring and hot potato in the form of Canon Hilary Wakeman's article of December 22nd.
The theological and historical reservations which Canon Wakeman rehearses are part of the jaded tradition of rationalist theology and are, ironically, no more rationally verifiable than the "mythological" theology which she opposes.
A demythologised core of the Christian tradition, which Canon Wakeman would hold out, turns out to be an onion divested of its layers. It is lived commitment to the Person at the heart of the Christian creeds that produces effects justifying belief. The truth of faith is an experiential one, more likely to be found in kneeling before a crib than in editing the creeds. - Yours, etc.,
Rev CHRISTOPHER HAYDEN, St Kevin's, Tinahely, Co Wicklow.
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Madam, - Canon Hilary Wakeman is right to assert that the Christian gospel is unbelievable. She is wrong to assert that it was ever anything else.
Like many theologians she labours under the illusion the people who lived in earlier ages were gullible fools who accepted virgins having babies and crucified men coming to life again as everyday events. Yes, they believed the earth was flat because it appeared to be so from their observation. But they did not believe virgins could have babies because it did not appear to be so from their observation.
The questions Canon Wakeman raises are not new. They are the same questions that were raised by those who heard the message of Christianity in those first century. The stuff was just as unbelievable then as it is now. The question is not, "Is this believable in our age?" The question is: "How could the people of any age believe this?" The answer for the first century is that most people didn't. But some fools did believe it. And they took their unbelievable message to an unbelieving society and changed it forever.
Canon Wakeman is correct in asserting that ecclesiastical structures and traditions have added to and distorted the message. But the solution to that problem is remove those accretions, not to rewrite the message. No matter what way you spin it the Christian gospel as presented in the New Testament is unbelievable. But maybe it is so unbelievable it has to be true. - Yours, etc.,
SEÁN MULLAN, Dublin West Community Church, Blanchardstown, Dublin 15.
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Madam, - The article by Canon Hilary Wakeman brings to mind the following comment which I once read: "Those who preach liberal theology are robbers; they rob God of his sovereignty, Jesus of his divinity, the Holy Spirit of his ministry, the miracles of their credibility, Mary of her virginity, the apostles of their authority, the church of its history and the new birth of its necessity." - Yours, etc.,
STEPHEN JOHNSTON, Oak Park Drive, Carlow.