Brian Pearson, a retired Anglican priest from the Diocese of Niagara – where else – has chosen this Christmas to expose the fundamental tenets of Christianity for the myths they really are.
Forget the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, angels from the realms of glory, Magi and a miraculous star. All much too literal: Jungian mythical thinking is what we need.
Keep Jung in Christmas!
From here:
Consider this. The Christmas story is not just about Jesus. Yes, it’s a theological construct designed to bolster the Christian claim that Jesus is the Son of God. But it’s also a mythic tale that has something to say about all of us. Or why would we still be telling it, lo, these many years later? It’s not supposed to be just about him!
The hardest sermons I had to preach in my 38 years of ministry as a parish priest were at Christmas and Easter. People wanted to hear the old, old stories, and they didn’t want you messing around with them. It was hard because, as literal stories, they not only beggar our ability to believe, they have almost nothing to say to us. Jesus was born of a virgin. Okay, interesting! Jesus rose from the grave. Well, how nice for him!
These stories only speak to us if we see them as the myths that they truly are, that is, as stories that may not be literally true, but that tell a certain kind of universal truth. Or, as a First Nations saying goes, “It may not have happened just like that, but every word of it is true.”
As to Christmas, what could a virgin birth, an angelic visitation, and a guiding star possibly have to do with us? Unless, that birth is viewed mythically — as hope in a dark world, as each new birth is; as attended to by the angels, as all births are; as changing the world, as every birth does.
Then the story shifts to become a lens through which we see our own miraculous arrival, both literally, as babies, and spiritually, as we become the people God made us to be. I was a sign of hope, when I was born; the angels watched over me, and celebrated; my presence has changed the world, forever. Now that’s something to chew on over Christmas dinner.
The Jungian writer James Hillman says literal thinking is the enemy of mythical thinking. You make a story literal — like, insisting that the virgin birth was historical fact — and you squeeze all the life out of it. But mythical thinking — well, there we are, right in the middle of that story, right down to our soul.
Brian Pearson is a retired Anglican priest (formerly from Niagara).
ANiC minister Robert Lyon has just published an e-book titled A Christmas You Can Believe In. It draws on science, history, and archaeology to support the argument that the Biblical narrative was not only possible but could have happened just as the gospel writers describe. It includes a discussion of the dating of Jesus’ birth; the census, the visions, and the genealogies; how the Three Wise Men were guided by an unusual star; and whether a Virgin Birth is even possible. I wrote it in the hope it may be helpful for those for whom such events have been intellectual stumbling blocks.
A Christmas You Can Believe In is available on the website owlsbooksnmore.com.
Brian Pearson? Who would that be now? Surely, he is just a myth!
With the current leadership — or should I say the lack thereof — it is no wonder that you have people like this who really do not believe. The ACoC has descended so far into the pit of apostasy it will take a miracle to bring it back. Currently it is no longer Christian.
“Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”
– C.S. Lewis
I cant believe how this guy mocks God, Christ, and the Resurrection, all with a straight face ?
‘Moses the Evangelist’, as found in + Exodus 18:1-12, and Preached at ‘West Highland Baptist’, Hamilton, on Advent II, Sunday, December 8, 2019, (available online from coast to coast to coast) could prove not only instructive, but + Saving: just as it did for “the priest of Midian” who is Converted by Moses.
How? By Moses respectfully sharing with Jethro all of the miraculous wonders that JHWH had performed in Egypt, this the seminal Saving Exodus, first of the Jewish Nation, and thereby foreshadowing the Saving history of every Believer in a + Crucified and Risen LORD Jesus Christ who form the spiritual Family of His Church, a spiritually adoptive “father in law” in Jethro’s case.
Exodus from Biblical defined sins; and thus exodus from death, its fatal eternal “wages”; and thus the unique Christian Hope,
of Heaven + I Peter 3:15 “The Hope that is in us…”.
This, and no other reason or means + John 14:6, is the Saving reason “that our GOD is The GOD of Christmas!”.
Jesus is The Reason for The Season.
Amen.
‘How silently, how silently, The Wondrous Gift is Given!
So GOD imparts to human hearts The Blessings of His Heaven,
No ear may hear His Coming, but in this world of sin,
where meek souls will receive Him still The dear Christ enters in.”
‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ (1868)
The Reverend Dr. Phillips Brooks (Dec.13,1835 + Jan.23, 1893)
Bishop of Massachusetts,
Trinity Church, Boston.
After this has all been intellectualized to death is there anything there