Retired prof says Christians got ‘wrong message’ from gospel
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, September 26, 2005
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A retired professor at Louisville Theological Seminary took an audience of members of the General Assembly Council, the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly and denominational staff around his book titled The Wide, Wide Circle of Divine Love.
Professor W. Eugene March meant exactly that – wide, wide – so wide that his pluralist interpretation of John 14:6 – “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” – is that “there is no single verse that has been more misunderstood and misused.”
Contrary to the official position of the Presbyterian Church (USA), March contends that passage was merely intended to comfort Christians in Jerusalem after the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. – March uses “B.C.E.” – and not to convince them that Jesus is exclusively the Savior and Lord for all.
March’s presentation was a bit of déjà vu. In 2000, at a denominational peacemaking conference, Dirk Ficca of Chicago asked during his keynote speech, “What’s the big deal about Jesus?” in his effort to sow the seeds of pluralism. What Ficca sowed, though, was discord that prompted hundreds of Presbyterians to send angry letters to the General Assembly Council. That was followed by some awkward attempts by the council and the General Assembly to quell the uprising. Both bodies adopted statements with a pluralist tint – assuring Presbyterians that Jesus is “our” Savior and “our” Lord. Again, a host of traditional Presbyterians challenged the idea that there are many paths to God and not all go through Christ.
Finally, after two years of confusion and criticism, the 214th General Assembly in 2002 approved a statement prepared by the Office of Theology and Worship that unequivocally said that “Jesus Christ is the only Savior and Lord, and all people everywhere are called to place their faith, hope and love in him … No one is saved apart from God’s gracious redemption in Jesus Christ.”
The battle apparently ended, but now along comes March with a book bearing the imprimatur of the Presbyterian Publishing Co., intentionally divided into 13 short chapters so that it can be used as a quarterly curriculum for Sunday school classes and other study groups.
The full title of March’s study is The Wide, Wide Circle of Divine Love: A Biblical Case for Religious Diversity. The text was recommended reading for the General Assembly Council by the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly. COGA’s executive is Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick, one of the PCUSA’s strongest advocates of unity in diversity and interfaith pluralism.
Kirkpatrick was in the audience for March’s presentation and, at one point, asked a friendly question, rather, a friendly statement -–”We have a witness to share and God intends that it be put into the human mix.”
Davis Perkins, president of the publishing corporation, introduced March to the group of about 50 people. Perkins took note of the fact that several different groups with representatives at the Sept. 21-24 meeting of the council objected to their being assigned The Wide, Wide Circle.
But Perkins insisted March’s book was not “radical” – although he later said it was. “We have a noble tradition of publishing radical books, in many cases beyond the boundaries,” Perkins said, not mentioning several apologetics for homosexual practice, which is contrary to the PCUSA’s Constitution. “But what Gene March proclaims is not radical. He exegetes Scripture carefully and practically. He confronts honestly and critically the texts so that he may enlighten us about them. … This book is radical in leading us to consider doctrine in a refreshing way.”
Ficca’s similar “refreshing way” of casting doubt upon the singular lordship of Christ – and his divinity as well – primed the Confessing Church Movement within the PCUSA, which now includes 1,312 congregations whose sessions have adopted resolutions declaring that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.
In March, Perkins joined other Presbyterian leaders in condemning the Confessing Church Movement. “The term ‘confessing church’ has come to mean something altogether different in the current Presbyterian context … as right-wing organizations seek to use confessional statements as theological sledgehammers to bludgeon Presbyterians into a rigid orthodoxy that divisively excludes certain persons from ecclesiastical leadership,” Perkins said.
Perkins’ condemnation of the Confessing Churches was included in a preface for a book by Douglas Ottati, a professor of theology at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Va., and another pluralist and a self-described “progressive.” In a speech to the Witherspoon Society during the 214th General Assembly in 2002, Ottati defined progressive theology as a conglomeration of process, liberal, Christian realist, liberationist, feminist, black, womanist, Minjung and other ideologies.
There have been numerous calls for Perkins to apologize for his statement, but he has not done so.
March uses a number of reinterpreted Biblical and non-Biblical sources to argue for theological pluralism. He faults Augustine and Calvin for making Christianity exclusive. He says the Council of Nicea was wrong to define Christianity in terms of the Trinitarian Nicene Creed, which says the “Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made.”
He blamed Christians in Germany for the Holocaust and Christians in Europe for the crusades. All of these wrongs, he says, were committed or tolerated by Christians believing that Jesus is the only way, truth and life.
At one point in his book, March seems to suggest that Baha’i, a movement begun in the 19th century, should be a model for true pluralism. “It is monotheistic and believes that all religions are the work of God.” Likewise, a “growing number of people who have studied the religions of the world find the pluralist position the most honest in light of the evidence.”
March called on Presbyterians to recognize that “God has been and always will be at work with others as well as us to move toward the fullness of God’s reign.” Declaring that “old answers don’t seem to satisfy,” he called for “interaction with people of other faiths” and a “compelling reconsideration.”
His linked his view of religion to the cultural and secular trends. “Our intellectual, national and personal boundaries are far more porous. Young and old share some new perspectives and are waiting for some ‘honest’ answers.”
March criticized traditionalists who want “creedal statements … or take some Biblical texts out of their historical context … A new translation of the tradition is needed.”
Calling the literal interpretation of John 14:6 “one of the scandals of Biblical religion,” March spelled out what he described as the “very particular” context of that statement that suggests it should not be taken literally. He noted that Gospel of John was written around 90 A.D., after Christ (March did not use creedal words like crucified, dead, buried and resurrected). The temple had been destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D., he said, and the Christians were being persecuted by the Romans for not recognizing their pagan gods.
“The Christians were asking, ‘Are we loved by God?’ John’s answer (March did not say whether he believes it was Jesus’ statement) was to reassure them that their security was in Christ, he added.
In response, he said, Christians began becoming more exclusive, imposing rules of faith and confessional statements. “But we need to reconcile the text,” he said. “We may have gotten the wrong message from it.”
Declaring that he is a Christian, March said, “My yes to Jesus Christ says nothing about another person’s relationship with Jesus Christ.”