Rudolf Bultmann, Pope Francis and a little story

Why?  That is the million dollar question

When I was in seminary back in the 1990s, one of my professors told a story about a theology student from way back in the day that I took, put in the back of my memory, and largely forgot about.  Until I saw someone defending Pope Francis as nothing less than 100% in line with historical Catholic teaching in light of the whole synod going on.  

According to my professor, the student was studying in Germany over Easter one year.  That year, word came to him that none other than Rudolf Bultmann would be delivering the Easter sermon at a local church.  The student thought, in his best Grinchy way, that this was something he simply must hear.  So he made sure to be there and see what would surely be a wacked out, far out Easter message.  

That's because Bultmann, of course, was one of the most popular advocates of de-mythologizing the New Testament.  What's that mean?  It means stop taking the New Testament, or the Bible in general, seriously.  At least literally.  At least historically.  In a world of planes, trains and automobiles, computers, air-conditioning and television, there simply is no more room for talking donkeys and people walking about on water or raising from the dead. It's time to admit the Bible for what it is: myth (in the 'didn't really happen' sense). 

Of course this was before the rise of the liberation movements and the growing scrutiny of the Bible as a cultural relic of bigotry, sexism, homophobic and transphobic prejudice, barbarism and savagery.  It was just saying we need to look at the Jesus story the same way we see Apollo or Thor or Luke Skywalker.  None of it was real, none of it happened.  Or at least as much as you feel uncomfortable clinging to.  You certainly could believe, but you didn't have to.  Bultmann was on record as saying that belief in an actual physical Resurrection was entirely unnecessary for Christian faith. 

That's why an Easter sermon from him had to be worth the ticket.  So the student went.   And there was Dr. Bultmann. And then came the sermon.  And the student was stunned.  

Why was he stunned?  Because he heard that morning an Easter sermon that wouldn't shame Billy Graham.  It was all there:  the nail pierced hands, the arms stretched out on the cross in love for mankind, the spear in the side, the dead rising, the earthquake, the empty tomb, the risen Lord.  All of it.  He said Bultmann even did the famous trick of holding out his own arms when he described Christ's arms on the cross spread out for our salvation.  And this was the great de-mythologizer!  

So what's my point kiddies?  My point is, just because someone prattles on with orthodox Christian language doesn't mean they believe it.  And I typically assume those who say you don't have to believe it don't believe it.  While I understand that the Gospel, including teachings such as the Resurrection, are matters of faith, I also know the Church didn't evangelize the world by approaching the pagans with a 'take or leave it' attitude.  Most movements and causes don't accomplish much if that is their approach. 

I admit that I have no clue how much of the Bible, the Gospel or Christ Bultmann didn't actually believe in, beyond them being myths and tales and little white lies.  I know he didn't seem to care how much anyone did believe.  If you thought they were nothing but ancient folklore from a bygone, pre-industrial age, no problem.  I also know he was heavily influential among those - Protestants at least - who followed his lead and began rejecting anything and everything from the Bible as fables and nothing more (think The Jesus Seminar).  It was a great way to reject pretty much anything of the Faith you choose, once you no longer believe it was real. 

But when called upon to give an Easter morning sermon in a German church, you'd never have known a bit of it.  No Baptist preacher in a tent revival was ever more serious, or literal, about the crucified and risen Christ as Bultmann was that Sunday morning. 

And so?   And so, just because we see people running about saying Jesus this and Resurrection that or Risen Lord here or Savior Jesus or Heaven and Hell there doesn't mean in the depths of their minds they believe it actually happened, or that anything from the Gospel or the historical Faith has any real basis in fact or reality.  To them, it might be like gleaning inspiration from a few Harry Potter tales, but not really believing you can go to London and get a train to Hogwarts.  

It should be mentioned that Bultmann, to his credit, was open about his views.  How many, I wonder, aren't.  As we see so many leaders buckle and throw values, doctrines, teachings, customs, rituals, social norms and common sense out the window under the slightest pinky-pushback, it makes you wonder. 

 After all, even the most cynical non-believer can catch the warmth and fuzziness in the distilled Jesus story even if you think it was all fake.  I know as an agnostic I did.  But that warm and fuzzy comes to a screeching halt if someone puts a gun to your head, or even threatens to compromise your middle class living, if you don't think in your gut of guts it ever happened.   After all, will I go to the mattresses over freedom?  I'd like to think.  Will I go to the mattresses over the story about Washington cutting down a cherry tree?  Nope. 

The German church in the 1930s often catches flak for having sold out to the Nazis.  That so many German Lutheran leaders happily draped the Swastika over the altar, and Germans in those churches gladly goose-stepped down the naves, has been endlessly condemned since I can remember.  But consider.  Bultmann was hardly alone, and by the 20th Century, Germany was leading the charge in endless new philosophies and theories for the secular world.  Was a time that if you wanted a PhD in philosophy, you had to know German.  

Therefore, it shouldn't be shocking that many of those people and leaders in that Church, as much as anywhere, had accepted a secular take on religion: As something invented by ancient man, embellished, and changed accordingly depending on the latest, hippest.  Not that the Scriptures were worthless, they simply weren't true.  At least in terms of reality and history.  Therefore, anything within the pages could be suspect, or discarded when no longer up to the latest modern perfection that progress always yields.  

That's why theologians point out that, though he would appear a theological liberal to us Americans, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in the context of the German church in the 1930s, was practically a fundamentalist.  But so many weren't, and had accepted the idea that a 'God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross' (official Niebuhr quote).  

So when the Nazis rose to power, do you think they were going to take a bullet for the cause?  Do you think people who learned that Jesus was as much a myth as Odin or Robin Goodfellow were going to stand up to the Nazis because of their faith in Christ, even though their faith was on nothing other than good thinking? Heck no!

Does that mean everyone we see throwing over old Christian values and teachings and priorities, tossing aside the exclusivity of the Gospel, warming up to forces once consider antithetical to God's revelation, are all people who no longer believe the Gospel story historically happened?  No.  I'm sure more than once a favorite believing disciple denied Jesus when the heat was on.

Nonetheless, I also bet that there's more cynicism about the historical Faith than we might know, or care to know, even among many leaders today, no matter what they say.  These are people who didn't sweat their doubts, because for many generations in America and the West you could still be a good Christian on Sunday and play with a secular world through the rest of the week.  After all, that hipster non-Christian world was honor bound to live according to its lofty post-war promises of tolerance, diversity, kindness, openness, inclusion and respect for all different beliefs and opinions and expressions. 

Now, as we witness the emergence of this post-diversity revolution and its diminishing tolerance for those who won't bend a knee to the new progressive movement, expect more and more to drape over the altars whatever flags the new way demands. And no matter how evil - up to, and including, mutilating the bodies of adolescents in the name of post-genderism - you can bet the best we'll get from many is a good old Rodney Dangerfield collar tug.  At worst, they will actively promote the evil and join in.  After all, if the thing you see before your eyes demands conformity, do you think you'll say no in the name of something you no longer believe?

I can't believe it. I'm ignoring the mutilation of adolescents