Years ago, I commented elsewhere on how Christian liberalism, for all of its sophisticated philosophical underpinnings, typically manifested itself in the words of its adherents in the church as a bundle of vacuous pieties, a heap of verbal rubbish, full of sound and fury, signifiying nothing.  And it seems to be worse now than before.

The recent New York Times interview with Serene Jones, President of Union Theological Seminary, is one for the ages.   Indeed, critique is almost pointless as the interview itself begs not so much questions as gasps of amazement at the breathtaking combination of leaps of logic, misrepresentations of the Christian tradition, and the deployment of emotive buzzwords with no actual content.   It used to be that critics of orthodoxy had a certain gravity to them – one thinks of Giordano Bruno, for example.  Now, as with much else today, there is a cocksureness about them which is belied by the superficiality of their thought.

Here are just a few gems: ‘There’s no resurrection story in Mark, just an empty tomb.’

‘Crucifixion is not something that God is orchestrating from upstairs. The pervasive idea of an abusive God-father who sends his own kid to the cross so God could forgive people is nuts. For me, the cross is an enactment of our human hatred. But what happens on Easter is the triumph of love in the midst of suffering. Isn’t that reason for hope?’

‘I find the virgin birth a bizarre claim. It has nothing to do with Jesus’ message. The virgin birth only becomes important if you have a theology in which sexuality is considered sinful. It also promotes this notion that the pure, untouched female body is the best body, and that idea has led to centuries of oppressing women.’

There is more, for those who wish to venture behind the paywall.  Such as the idea that Jesus’s physical resurrection is irrelevant to faith; and Dr Jone’s agnosticism about life after death.

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