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03/27/2004: "LSD used to have the same effect on people"
The Edmonton Journal has an interview with "arguably Canada's most celebrated" theologian (the Canada part is why you've never heard of him), Tom Harpur, professor of New Testament at the University of Toronto. He has a new book out called The Pagan Christ, and he has some earth-shaking, mind-boggling, world-changing news:
In his brief, many of the characters and stories of the Bible, including the very life, death by crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, have appeared much earlier, beginning with the ancient Egyptians and moving through the Greco-Roman Pagan religions among others. In a massive coverup that spread across the first three centuries of the church, leaders systematically destroyed as many references to past similarities as possible. Aiming at the lowest common denominator, they began repackaging and re-branding sacred allegories, myths, imagery, parables and metaphors originally derived from ancient mystery plays as literal biblical "history." For his part, Harpur has "grave doubts" that Jesus lived at all.
Calling Marty McFly: your time traveling DeLorean has been stolen by a UT prof who used it to go forward to the past–say, about 1870. Calling Dan Brown: somebody's been plagiarizing parts of The Da Vinci Code. Better contact your lawyer. Calling Dr. Shrinkmeister: Tom Harpur's off his meds again. He's babbling about Vatican conspiracies, and it sounds like he's accusing the Pope of being a thespian.
The (latest) good news in what Harpur calls cosmic Christianity–in his view an answer to declining church membership in North America and Europe–lies in nurturing the Christ within every human heart. For Harpur, seeing matters large and small through this newly discovered prism has made his faith stronger, more liberated, profound.
Hey, Doc, you've got to do something about this guy. Now he's claiming he's Christ. I'd swear he was just one of those New Age nutballs, but he sounds like he means it.
At the risk of seeming flip, I ask Harpur, who lives in the undeniable God's country around Ontario's Georgian Bay, how something this big could have eluded history's greatest intellects, not to mention his own decades of personal and professional study and reflection.
"People have long studied Christianity in isolation, which has led to an extraordinarily warped perspective. And there has been this terrible superiority complex–Christians are the best, the smartest. Any suggestion that (basic tenets) should be examined more deeply have been laughed at and suppressed to the point that questions haven't been asked. I do think that the Vatican knows secrets it will not reveal.
We're gonna need the straight jacket any minute, Doc. He's talking about being smarter than "history's greatest intellects," seeing things no one else can see, discovering the secret of invisibility...oh, Lord, this is serious, Doc, he's threatening to use his secret decoder ring to contact the aliens and get himself beamed outta here. Get the hypo, Doc, before it's too late!
