Is Jesus God?: Finding Our Faith

I had resigned myself to being forever frustrated with the teaching & preaching in my Catholic church. I wanted more 'meat' that I could take as a challenge to my prayer life and social justice mission. Michael has given me challenge, rooted in today's cosmology and scripture. I am grateful!

We were having dinner at the home of Jewish friends. The other guests were a Catholic couple whom I will call George and Emily. George had lost his teaching position at a local Catholic college because of his liberal theology. Emily, a student health nurse, had been dismissed for giving information about contraception to students. I told these two that my wife and I shared their religious heritage but were now Unitarian Universalists. Emily compressed her lips, looked down, and said, "We decided to stay and fight." They are indeed scrappy people. Recently George accepted a teaching position at a Catholic high school. He did not modify his progressive opinions, the bishop learned of these, and he was fired. I suspect these two are closer to me theologically than they are to the Pope, and I wonder why they remain Catholics. But I respect that decision "to stay and fight." Michael Morwood also stays and fights, and he is a nimble strategist. When in 1998 his book 'Tomorrow's Catholic' received unfavorable attention from the Archbishop of Melbourne, Australia, he resigned from the priesthood. He continues to find groups of Catholics and others who engage him as a teacher and lecturer. His main concern in this book is that official doctrine and the way it is taught are driving people away from the Catholic Church. Current teaching, Morwood says, depends too much on an outmoded cosmology, on the assumption that heaven is in the sky somewhere and that the universe is a lot younger and smaller than we now know it to be. This style of teaching, and its emphasis on unquestioning faith rather than on free intellectual engagement with tradition, hinder what he calls "adult faith development." Morwood spent 29 years as a priest, many of them teaching, and in that time he noticed much "arrested faith development" in Catholic adults. Symptoms of this condition include literalism regarding Scripture and certain doctrines; uncritical loyalty to "external authority"; "unquestioning acceptance of dogma and doctrine"; adherence to childish notions of heaven, hell, and judgment; ignorance of how the Christian faith developed over the centuries and of how the Gospels were written; hostility to more sophisticated views of Christian doctrine.A notable item in this syllabus of errors is "Claims of exclusivity: we are the only true religion." This belief, he says, reflects an inability to appreciate that "all of humankind shares the one Transcendent Spirit," a sharing that is implied by "the universality of God's presence." The claim of exclusivity certainly was Catholic doctrine as I remember it from my years in a Catholic university in the 1960s, and it is reasserted in the recent 'Dominus Iesus' declaration from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Morwood would remind me, though, that the church is not just the "teaching authority," but the entire body of believers.And Catholics do at times pull their leaders in a different direction. An example is the rep

Both this book and Morwood's previous work,Tomorrow's Catholic are authentic, succinct, simple insights into the potential for Christianity, and Roman Catholicism in particular, in the modern world. Together they answer questions of inquiring Catholics and other persons of good will. The books are in- tended for those in particular who have moved or are moving beyond conventional stages of adult faith development. They know that their religious tradition/spirituality is a truth and not the truth. It is for those who need and want cosmic generating principles for their lives. Morwood give them that. The book will initially be upsetting for those who think of Jesus only in the sense of having provided a bloody sacrifice to redeem humankind from a "fall". But the invitation to live in one's own time and place with the Spirit of God even as Jesus did in is is irresistible for those who heads to learn, hands to work, and hearts to love. Morwood has done a great service for all who do not want to leave their brains at the doors of their churches, or their mosques or synagogues for that matter. He has paid and will likely continue to pay a high price for speaking the truth in love but one can only admire him for having done so and hope he will continue to do so.

Michael Morwood spent 29 years of his life as a Roman Catholic priest in Australia. When he wrote "Tomorrow's Church," he got the attention of the Vatican. Eventually he chose to leave the priesthood. The present book responds to the questions that arose from the former. What Morwood believes is that religion comes from a worldview that is based on the realities one perceives. When humans learn more about those realities, they find their religion unable to explain the divine story. Morwood suggests that Christian religions, notably Roman Catholic, are based on philosophical and linguistic perceptions that no longer are relevant. For instance, he rejects the notion of Original Sin. He writes that the Adam and Eve story has been shown to be a myth borrowed from other cultures. Our scientific studies have shown that life evolved. Original Sin theory is a way of explaing evil in the world. But it poses some serious problems as the kind of God who could punish all people is not the same God of later philosophers and theolgians, indeed the God the Church proclaims.Morwood refers to a New Story, meaning the way humans see the world today. Anthropology, arhceology, psychology and other sciences have revealed knowledge long accepted. Yet the language of religion has not adapted, causing many to perceive that Christianity is irrelevant. Morwood believes that religious leaders need to explore language and rituals that speak of this New Story by reconciling the Old with it. An example of this is to try to explore how Jesus is God. He refers to the Trinity teaching as being irrelevant today. Yet many people, evne though they do not subscribe to this teaching, believe that Jesus was something special and was God in a way we are not. The divinity of Christ needs further exploration. This means looking at things like resurrection and what it means. Does Jesus go somewhere else? If God is everywhere, how do we consider a heaven where God lives?These and other questions Morwood explores with the hope that others will also try to explore through prayer, reading and dialogue.This reviewer did not agree with the idea of a "New Story." There are realities known today not known hundreds of years ago. This revieweer believes the challenge is to relive the old story in this current reality. Christians shoudl explore language and rituals that reflect current realities, but integrate them into the old story. This is nothing new really. In Roman Catholicism to some extant new realities have always been added, even though the old story remained.