Letter to the Editor: Battle Creek Enquirer

I enjoyed the recent article on the Jesus Seminar. In my opinion, Robert Funk and his colleagues are performing a very important work. Many are put off by this work because they fear it will result in a loss of faith by those who explore it. In contrast, I believe that when faith is based on a deliberate ignorance of known facts it remains weak and ever subject to collapse.

We live in a society which emphasizes the importance of studying a matter out in order to understand it as fully as possible. Doubt is an important part of that process and must accompany faith in order to give balance to a person's beliefs and outlook. As medieval philosopher Peter Abelard once said, "By doubting, we come to examine, and by examining, we perceive the truth."

Funk and his colleagues founded the Jesus Seminar after having spent many years of frustration teaching at institutions who feared the facts that could be gained from a historical study of Christianity. Anyone who has studied the matter in any depth knows that Christian scripture and doctrines have been subject to abuse by powerful men for centuries. The Gnostic gospels, for example, are believe to have been repressed not because of any false doctrines they contained but rather for their subversive content.

The Jesus Seminar's goal is to get at the core of Jesus' life and words by filtering out politically motivated and other inaccuracies that have crept in over the centuries. It was Jesus himself who taught that knowing the truth would set us free.

David Harris,
Eaton Rapids, Mich., Nov. 2000

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