Dr Rowan Williams has claimed there was little evidence that the Magi even existed and there was certainly nothing to prove there were three of them or that they were kings.
 Dr Williams argued that the traditional Christmas story was nothing but a ‘legend’  He said the only reference to the wise men from the East was in Matthew’s gospel and the details were very vague. Dr Williams said: “Matthew’s gospel says they are astrologers, wise men, priests from somewhere outside the Roman Empire, that’s all we’re really told. It works quite well as legend.”
 The Archbishop added, “The idea that some guy from a small town in the middle east was the Son of God, that he was born of a Virgin, translated water into wine, cast demons into swine, caused the dead to rise, healed blindness, rose from the dead, & ct., is simply wacky.  The idea that he was killed and rose from the dead is also complete madness.  What kind of strange nonsense won’t people believe?”
“I mean, why would He be apprenticed as a carpenter if he had all that frankincense, myrrh and gold?  Maybe Joseph blew it all at the corner pub?  Right!”
He seems like a generally crappy little archbishop. Wonder what they pay him?
59,050 pounds is how much.
I hear steve’s a Mensan.
Dan,
CS Lewis knew the Fat Ghost very, very well.
Now, if Lewis were doing climate modeling…
Wow, Rick. Interesting piece. I would have rejected him just for being a pompous prick, though.
The Archliberal of Canterbury is an excellent example of wishy-washy. Because he’s such a middle-of-the-road kind of guy, his church is falling down around his ears. There’s not much black and white in his world, just a lot of hazy gray.
History will not treat Dr. Williams kindly, I suspect.
What’s more…
…the town of Bethlehem was not THAT little.
…there was every likelihood that it was not at all clear at midnight on the night Christ was born.
…and never in human history has there ever been a little lamb that could say ANYTHING, let alone ask a shepherd boy if he could hear what it could hear. Preposterous!
Just another reason I’m glad I left the Episcopal Church. They’re about this close to becoming Unitarians. You know, the only “religion” that never mentions God.
dan, i didn’t see the quote in the second block of your post in the story you link to. did i miss something?
sorry, 3d block.
The Reverend Dr Williams knows fake.
There are times that being an Anglican isn’t easy. This is one of them. ++Rowan took time off from mishandling the gay bishop meltdown to do this??
Why the surprise? He has been like that ever since he entered the public eye when he first got the job.
It’s also highly unlikely that they were trying to smoke a rubber cigar.
“There’s not much black and white in his world, just a lot of hazy gray.”
‘Cept that the United States is awful. He sees no gray there.
Dan,
I read the transcript of the interview. The Telegraph’s headline is completely misleading. According to the transcript, the Archbishop distinguishes the record of the Gospels from other, later traditional elements that have been added to the Christmas scene.
Your last paragraph I took to be a quotation from the Abp. until I read the actual interview. Please, there are enough unbelieving clerics to pick on without unjustly adding Mr. Williams to the list.
HYPOCRISY!!!! Well, there is somewhere. :-)
T&T
I believe Ronald Knox is apropos here:
— Knox in his 1913 Drydenesque satire, “Absolute and Abitofhell” in which he savages the feckless Anglican divines of his day
Mostly he likes the way his words sound I think.
From the transcript:
SM And the wise men with the gold, frankincense, and Myrrh – with one of the wise men normally being black and the other two being white, for some reason?
ABC Well Matthew’s gospel doesn’t tell us that there were three of them, doesn’t tell us they were kings, doesn’t tell us where they came from, it says they’re astrologers, wise men, priests from somewhere outside the Roman Empire. That’s all we’re really told so, yes, ‘the three kings with the one from Africa’ – that’s legend; it works quite well as legend.
Read the rest, the Telegraph did a number on him.
If he spent the bulk of his loot on wine, women and song, but wasted the rest, I guess I’m cool with that.
I thought a lot about posting this at Kos, but knew that it would not be left there for more than 30 seconds.
As an alcoholic who, about twelve years ago, was literally about a month from dead, here is what I learned, as cliched as it sounds.
The truth will set you free.
I am a great liar, but there was always one person who I could never fool. And that person watched in panic as I slowly ate my own soul.
Religions (religious texts) are never literal, because there are no words to define what they are trying to point us to. Dare I say it? Faith – unprovable faith.
Does this fact make these texts worthy of ridicule? Only by those of little or no faith. And faith is a gift, not something that you get from reading books. It doesn’t come in packages. Faith is unshakeable, as opposed to intellect, which is always subject to insecurity.
Unfortunately, too many people of all stripes miss the allegorical content of any religious text. The story of creation is exactly that – a story. But with an incredible amount of allegorical truth contained in it.
I am not crazy about “churches”, but they do preserve the seed for those who are willing to water that seed, and to be honest with themselves and others. It sounds easy, but it is far from it. Truthfulness is an incredibly painful, and sometimes even terrifying, goal to achieve.
Until a person can do that, they are just another fat bishop.
And no, I am NOT a bible thumper. The bible is as interesting as the Quran, The Book Of Mormon, or even the Urantia book (eat me, Moe – not you B. Moe – Moe Seigel[?])**.
They all point in the same direction, but taking any religious text at face value is a guaranteed way to miss the whole party.
Who remembers “HALT” (he says at 3:30 in the morning)?
“God” isn’t my word, but it appears to be the only word we have. It’s too bad that people who don’t understand have turned the word “God” into a synonym for “Super Santa”.
Oh. And God told me: “NO $1200 HAIRCUTS!”
** See? I can still get miffed, but anger is something better experienced as the wave that it is. Express it, and then let it wash right through. Bye-bye. Anger (as opposed to sarcasm) can also eat you alive. The problem with unreleased anger is that it is forced on those around us and does nothing but cloud our minds even further and make our own lives even more miserable.
Hmmmm…BDS anyone? Where does that anger REALLY originate? My experience seems to show me that Bush has very little to do with BDS. But he is convenient, nes pas?
TLD – Congrats on a well earned 12 years. I have less than 1/2 of that, but I am still going strong.
What is wrong with the Anglican church? Why do they always have to go out of their way to do these things?
I swear, they are out on a mission to debunk Christianity. (And I say that as a backslid Episcopalian.)
Congrats to both of you.
As for the Archbishop, I have it on good authority that the Gospels, especially Matthew (written 50 years after the death and resurrection of Our Lord), are actual transcripts of news reporting from Bethlehem local TV station. The Bishop is wrong and every detail of the Nativity is just not a wonderful allegory/story about grace and redemption and hope when one is at the lowest; it’s the absolute TRUTH as revealed to some Bishop in 70 C.E. (and to no one else).
Joseph Smith and Muhammad claimed the same revelations, but they’re all liars.
Damn Anglicans. They never could get the hang of the beliefs required to be holy.
And this guy is an Archbishop of a Christian church why, exactly?
pablo,
i asked dan earlier about the quote you’re using. I didn’t see the quote in the linked story. I think, in fact, that dan extrapolated that quote because he was being snarky. but tell me if i’m wrong. if i’m not, then i think dan should re-read the story because my impression was quite different. if i’m not, then dan has misled a number of people with this post.
That Joseph, what a stand-up kinda guy! Good thing Mary and Joseph weren’t followers of brother Muhammad, huh? I hear they treat virgins who turn up pregnant a little differently.
I’m surprised the Bishop didn’t mention the story about Christ rolling back the stone, emerging from his tomb, staring into the early dawn sun, and exclaiming: “Oy! Six more lousy weeks of winter!”
If they were misled, they are silly, and should read links before spouting off, when over-the top sarcasm is employed.
The poor old Archbishop got played, to be sure. He was merely spoiling Christmas fun by schooling us on where the literal gospels diverge into elaborated tradition.
Three gifts has been interpreted to mean three givers. Although that doesn’t exclude the possibility of a fourth or fifth king, bearing toe socks and a tin of panettone from the Williams Sonoma Catalog.
There is a Chinese astrologer who recorded the advent of a “King Star” and who dissappeared from the Chinese Court for a couple of years before returning, around the time the star was supposed to show up. Some Chinese claim this man for one of the magi. No mention if lead was one of the gifts, though, so its hard to say.
Just want to point out that the same “deep thinkers” that buy the idea that some guy from a small town in the middle east was the Son of God are the same ones that buy the idea (hook, line & sinker)that Saddam had weapons of Mass Destruction…
Coincidence? Nuff said..
So you atheists and proggs are just superior beings to the rest of the world?
You mean like Christopher Hitchens? HE BELIEVES IN THE SON OF GOD?????
My world, turned upside down it is….
Cuz, you know, only atheist progressive liberals knew that there were no WMD’s!!! It was all of those God bothering Christfascists like Hitchens who knealt before the myth.
YET ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF WHY RELIGION IS DRETROYING THE WORLD!!!!!
um, L.P.A., Merry Christmas.
So you atheists and proggs are just superior beings to the rest of the world?
Yes.. Exactly.. We’re like the Sons of God..
If, ya know, like the whole God thing wasn’t just a a total myth used to keep the dimwitted Jesus-bot, Christo-fascist red state trailer trash in line…
..but if it was real..that’s what we’d be like.
Wow. I am jealous as hell. First we have MENSA steve, and now LPA. We have been blessed with greatness all around us.
Amen to that…
LPA
You may have missed something here.
Cynicism is natural for those who fear the IDEA of God. I would be afraid of a Super Santa Claus too, if I just KNEW that he was up there in the clouds with his grand list of everyone’s names, and a lust for punishing human beings.
And, it’s true. Us Christofascists DID know that there were no WMDs. What makes it so delicious though, is that we were the ONLY people in the WHOLE WORLD who did know. I mean, we even had you Proggs fooled!
But I guess that’s the advantage of having a private line to God.
And you know what else? We even have pictures of God, and know exactly where he lives and what he looks like.
It’s pretty obvious that you are just jealous.
But seriously, if the truth ever occurs to you, I hope your head doesn’t explode. Enlightenment can be pretty intense.
TLD – LPA will get that short warning sound as he approaches enlightenment. You and JD are familiar with what I mean. It’s that loud “POP” when you finally pull your head out of your ass and start seeing the world a little more clearly. Reality is a matter of perception, but some of us have a lot of fog clouding that perception that takes time to lift.
I often wonder at the devastation these young warriors like LPA must feel when they are enlightened to the true make-up of the Democrat Party. If Marcotte really cared she would be trying to prepare them for the rude awakening she experienced.
#30 SarahW
The poor old Archbishop got played, to be sure. He was merely spoiling Christmas fun by schooling us on where the literal gospels diverge into elaborated tradition.
True. It’s nothing I didn’t already know. Rowan Williams may be about as wishy-washy as a clergyman can get, but the Telegraph did a number on him. That’s really disappointing.
There’s a whole lotta stupid in their comment thread, though. Damn.
daleyrocks – The moment of clarity.
LPA and the other Proggs have Trootherdom and Globalwarmingism to worship. That, and themselves, of course.
It is amazing that Iowan Democrats are apparently closet Bolsheviks. You know, the kind of property-seizing dictatorial redistributionst free-love abortion-on-demand atheists that populated the USSR until it collapsed from internal decay.
I forget where it was, but with the primary moved up to Jan. 3, one commentary suggested that seeing 83-year-old Hillary Clinton supporters being picked up during a blizzard by bus for transport to a caucus would be strange. It would be even stranger to hear one the grannies yell at the camera while boarding the bus, “Remember Leon Trotsy!”
LPA – why the hostility on a comment thread about an article on a subject you don’t care about? Seems a bit strange to me.
I think LPA is a parody poster. But you never know. So many of them are far beyond parody these days.
Either we’re all (except Kelly) losing our ability to spot parody, or LPA is too good at it for his own good.
Hahaahaha..! LPA is just me yanking your chains and stirin up the shit for entertainment sake.. The last few hours at work before a 4 day weekend are really boring.. It was intended as parody.. but you’re right.. the real LPAs are just as over the top…
Ah…that explains the strangeness.
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