Treasure beneath the hearth
Michael Wright reviews a new book by Edward Walker
The Quaker approach to the Christian scriptures is a radical one, not well understood either among Friends, nor the wider Christian community. George Fox and Robert Barclay were always clear that they valued not so much the words of scripture, as the Spirit, the source from which those words sprang (see also Quaker faith & practice 27. 27-34).
It seems to me that Edward Walker in Treasure beneath the hearth: Myth, gospel and spirituality today, complements this in modern terms, as he looks at the life and teaching of Jesus ‘in the light both of modern biblical scholarship and of the insights into human living provided by depth psychology’. He explores what kind of religion we are looking at: whether it is furthering human development or paralysing it. He argues that ‘intellect unbalanced by imagination can become sterile, imagination unbalanced by intellect can become fantasist’.
He sees the need to rehabilitate myth, recognising it as a deeply creative product of the imagination, capable of enhancing our lives and carrying the human spirit forward. He identifies with Carl Jung, who blamed the churches for failing to make a clear distinction between the literal and the mythological.
He argues that a contemporary spirituality must be a critical one: any focus on the Christ of theology has to include an awareness of his life and teaching, and the ways in which this has been transmitted by the gospel authors to particular people in particular circumstances. Yet the concept of Jesus lodged in the minds of most British people is a totally inadequate one for a robust adult to use for their own human development in an exploration of their inner world.
The objective of the book is to help readers to ‘dig beneath the hearth’ and see whether they find something only of antique interest, or something ‘which can contribute to contemporary human living’.
The early Christians searched the Hebrew Scriptures for stories and myths with which to interpret their experience of Jesus through their perceptions of great Old Testament figures such as Moses, Elijah and David. These scriptures provided source material for part of the passion story, for example, with fact and interpretation woven together at a very early stage.
The way in which we can most usefully explore those myths, Walker suggests, is in prayer and through modern biblical scholarship: both can feed our imagination. He writes: ‘It is because they come from a culture remote from our own that the perplexities with which they confront the modern reader make an up-to-date commentary essential.’
Walker goes on to encourage us to read the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord’s Prayer and the light of insights of great pioneers like Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler and Carl Jung. These writers can then be seen to be directed not towards making a person more religious, but more human.
‘How this life-enhancing myth might be more vibrantly celebrated is a task with which the Church has constantly to engage’ if people are to engage with it. They will have to do so with ‘a lightness, and a recognition that those around them who do not share their orientation are nonetheless fellow pilgrims’.
I share Edward Walker’s view of the value of both myth and modern scholarship in our understanding Jesus of the gospels, but I wonder how this can be implemented amongst Friends and by churches? Many of those who attend our Meetings are indifferent, or resistant, to engaging with it. I would have liked the author to share more of his experience, as an effective teacher of religious education to teenagers, in how to do it. We would all benefit from that help.
Treasure Beneath the Hearth: Myth, gospel and spirituality today by Edward Walker. Christian Alternatives. ISBN: 978 1 782799 679 4. £9.99.
Comments
To have a modern interpretation is, of course, essential. And sadly lacking, in general.
Positively, we have three progressive bible study groups in the Nottingham Meeting. Which is a big step forwards.
By Richard on 1st April 2016 - 11:54
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