Myth in the Gospel?

The notion that much of the Bible is myth has long been held by some Protestant theologians, including the U.S.'s Paul Tillich and Germany's Rudolf Bultmann.

But this has rarely been stated flatly by a bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church. For so saying, San Francisco's Bishop James A. Pike has been accused of heresy by some of his fellow Episcopalians. While Pike, an ex-lawyer and a convert from Roman Catholicism, has a well-demonstrated talent for starting controversy and making news, the issues at stake are real and deep.

Allergic Reaction. Pike first stated his views in the Christian Century, was attacked by 15 Episcopal ministers in Georgia and critics elsewhere, then turned on his critics in a pastoral letter. Pike placed heavy emphasis on the freedom of the Anglican Communion. "We, unlike most principal Christian traditions, are not bound to a particular set of concepts or form of words . . . It is true that we have a rather skimpy set of propositions, printed in the back of the Prayer Book, called the Articles of Religion; but they are not a Confession of Faith; they represent the allergic reaction of our Church to 'papists' on the one hand and 'puritans' on the other at a singular point in our history . . . Actually we take seriously the views of theologians and synods of all centuries --and precisely because we 'sit loose' to all of them."

The Gospel, said Bishop Pike, is largely communicated by means of myth--not in the sense of an untrue fable ("A good myth is true"), but in the sense of a form used to express complicated and difficult truth, such as the Garden of Eden. Writes Pike: "I do not know a single member of the Anglican Communion--Bishop, presbyter, deacon or layman--who believes this story literally."

Another myth, set forth in the creed, is the idea that Christ "ascended into Heaven." Pike asks "Where? We no longer believe in a three-level universe: a flat earth, Hell below and Heaven above . . . And as for 'sitteth on the right hand of the Father,' I simply remind you that in certain Oriental areas of the Church the phrase is 'on the left hand of the Father,' since in their cultures the latter is the place of honor."

Package v. Product. The virgin birth is a myth, Pike feels, designed to communicate the simultaneous humanity and divinity of Christ; so is the thorny theological concept of the Trinity. "The packaging is not to be confused with the product . . . For example, 4th century church leaders, imbued with a dated Greek philosophy, tried to organize God's revelation of himself into categories which thoughtful people of that time could grasp. They did a good job. They gathered up God's true revelation of Himself as Creator (we might say 'Evolver'), Redeemer (we might say 'Healer'), and Sanctifier (we might say 'Community-Builder') into 'hypostases' or 'personae' in one 'Substance.' But nobody has thought in these terms for a long time."

This is not to say that a story cannot be literally as well as mythically true. "I will quarrel with no one," said Bishop Pike, "even the clergy of South Georgia, about literal belief in any Biblical narrative. We are open as to all that. But as to the meaning which these various narratives are meant to communicate, all the rest of us value--we do not reject--the myth."

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