© 1997 Meredith Sprunger
© 1997 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
| Arguing With Nicodemus | Fall 1997 — Index | Significant Books: Reclaiming the Church by John B. Cobb, Jr |
Peter J. Gomes
Morrow, 1996, 375 pp.
Peter Gomes, preacher to Harvard University and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard College, addresses contemporary issues from the point of view of the Bible. The Bible, according to Gomes, is an American icon that intelligent people know less and less about from first hand acquaintance. Peter Gomes is an interesting writer with a lively sense of humor. This is a good book to read, especially for those who are not well acquainted with the Bible.
In the introduction, Gomes says, “My apologia is an argument in favor of taking the Bible seriously, and it is addressed in part at least to those who either trivialize it or idolize it, and who thereby miss its dynamic, living, and transforming quality. It is an argument addressed as well to those who are in search of spiritual and moral grounding in their chaotic lives, and who may have heard of the Bible but know little and want to know more.” (p.xi)
Gomes observes that people use the Bible to affirm their own theological convictions and he is a prime example of this fact. One must read the Bible with both head and heart and “to be biblical may well mean to move beyond the Bible itself to the larger principles that can be derived from the Christian faith of which the Bible is a part, but for which the Bible cannot possibly be a substitute.” (p. 82)
The triple danger of bibliolatry, literalism, and culturism (defending the status-quo) are to be avoided, and Gomes applies this observation in disagreeing with some Biblical interpretations as he asserts the Biblical position condemns racism, anti-Semitism, the exclusion of women, and the rejection of homosexuality — “the last prejudice.” For those who may disagree with Gomes’ interpretations of scripture, he says, “Arguments about scripture generally are unprofitable, and no one has ever been persuaded from his or her position in a biblical argument by the weight of superior scholarship.” (p. 184)
In the last section of the book, Gomes shows what his interpretation of the Bible has to say about our contemporary human condition including suffering, joy, evil, temptation, wealth, science, and mystery. The difficulty Professor Gomes has in squaring the literalism of the Bible with our present day moral and ethical standards demonstrates that much in the Bible was tailored to a prescientific, outdated culture.
Our society stands in critical need of the reorienting and rejuvenating power of the Fifth Epochal Revelation. The Urantia Book in our time stands in relation to the Bible much as the New Testament stood in relationship with the Old Testament in the first century A. D.
| Arguing With Nicodemus | Fall 1997 — Index | Significant Books: Reclaiming the Church by John B. Cobb, Jr |