What a delight the letters are, and how predictable has been the response to Dr. McLelland’s March model of the world’s major religions compatibly orbiting a central God. No surprise that the level of wrath rose from ‘rising indignation’ in May to lashings of heresy in June. Personally, it was gratifying to find thoughtful support for a belief structure which does not commit three-quarters and more of the world’s people to inevitable damnation.
The span of real time and biblical verse laying between the unbelievable in the Old Testament—the stuff McLelland calls saga—and the beginnings of rational truth depends on who you are, and is the battleground of the literalists and those of more rigourous thought. For the utterly convinced the gap is zero and that is simple, but for others, perhaps clergy most of all, it is not easy. Having spent a career in resource exploration where to be absolutely convinced and totally wrong can be very expensive, alongside four decades in Presbyterian eldership, I have learned not to worry about these things. The essence of Christianity lies in the scant gospel pages between Mary’s decision to go to the tomb and Christ’s ascension. The rest, some of it anyway, is history.
Years ago it was meaningful for me to pick up a foot-long piece of tusk and a molar the size of a baseball just east of Old Crow, Yukon. It gave proof to a world long after the beginning but quite a bit before the word became flesh. It was a world I could see and hold in my hand and think about, but it has never conflicted with Mary’s world, the world of my faith. So let’s not fuss (June Letters), over General Gordon’s mis-identification of Christ’s tomb and give the guy a break. After all, his death at Khartoum led to a place called Omdurman and the first defeat of what we now call the Taliban, not to mention launching the career of another saviour, a kid named Winston Churchill.
