I attended the SBL conference in Denver this month and spent several days engrossed in observing panel presentations and voting on new motions for the Westar Institute. I’m a member of the SBL and a Westar fellow. But I’ve rarely been able to afford to attend. A generous patron grant covered my expenses this time. Though I’ve been to regionals before. I presented a paper at one in Notre Dame, and debated the historicity of Jesus at another in Azusa.

In this and following blogs I’ll be writing about all I experienced there in respect to religious studies.

This year, a Westar colleague wanted me to attend the Westar meetings. For those who don’t know, the Westar Institute operates seminars of qualified scholars in which consensus votes are taken on various motions and propositions. Most famous of these was the Jesus Seminar, where scholars discussed and voted on which sayings in the Gospels Jesus actually said, enjoining ever after the wrath of angry conservatives who balked at their disappointing results. But alas, their conclusions reflect mainstream scholarship: in all probability, Jesus actually said very little that’s attributed to him.

The Westar Institute is a large body of highly qualified scholars. Including women (there were at least a handful in every seminar, making up maybe 15%), but few minorities (the Seminars, like the SBL conference generally, is pretty white). Only fundamentalists boycotted membership. Then complained they weren’t represented. Go figure. But that’s as it should be. Fundamentalists cannot be objective scholars in these matters. They are faith-driven, and bound by personal and community pressure, or even outright employment or professional contracts, not to question the Bible’s errancy or “accepted” meaning. (See Volume 1 of Fitzgerald’s Jesus: Mything in Action for the evidence and data.)

That first seminar originated their quirky voting system of “red” for definitely (reflecting the image of the “red letter” Bible), pink for maybe, grey for maybe not, and black for definitely not. They’ve since completed many other seminars, including on the deeds of Jesus, the book of Acts, Paul’s epistles, and more. They are currently working to finish up a seminar on rethinking early Christianity, and another on alternative theologies.

I bounced between both all Friday (the SBL conference proper beginning the next day). On the Christianity Seminar they discussed gender and sexuality in the first centuries of Christianity. I attended the section on sexuality, and though I read all the papers on the gender section and was sure they had that well in hand, I had to jump over to the second half of the God Seminar to see what that was all about. The papers I read in advance of the meeting, by numerous scholars, were all in aid of producing a book on what they are calling “Post-Theism,” and this included forms of atheistic naturalism and secular humanism.

Here’s the breakdown…

Previous Seminars

In previous years this Seminar has reached a number of interesting conclusions about early Christianity, most I agree with but some I don’t, but perhaps the most interesting example is that they’ve concluded Gnosticism didn’t exist. They have concluded that’s a modern, made-up category that gets wrong what was actually going on in early Christianity. There was no such thing as “the Gnostics.” There were simply diverse Christianities, with no unifying principles, and no conception of what modern scholars mean by “Gnosticism.” And what are often regarded as gnostic elements were found all over, even in orthodoxy, and not separated out into any distinct sect. I reached this conclusion on my own years ago, and now to see them thoroughly demonstrate it is quite refreshing. When numerous scholars independently get the same unexpected findings as you, it’s usually indicative we’re right.

Among the conclusions I don’t agree with is their resolution that the canon wasn’t decided in the second century. I think they’ve goofed on definitions of terms here, and confused “settled” with “originated” and “officially” with “effectively.” And perhaps are using the word “canon” differently than most people mean. I find the arguments of David Trobisch in The First Edition of the New Testament far more convincing. I also think the Westar resolution that early Christians identified as “refugees and immigrants” is too forced, anachronistic, and eye-rollingly politicized. And I even agree with the politics this is lamely attempting to serve. I just don’t think strained revisionist history is an appropriate way to deal with it. They are usually much better than this at getting the facts and context right.

Of course many sects and communities had their own canons, in the sense of authoritative book collections establishing doctrine; and the first canon was Marcion’s. The only surviving canon, the one we know, was created mid-second century to respond to Marcion’s. It was slightly fluid around the edges (there were a few texts that were included or excluded with some irregularity), but in core it was created in one instance of publication before the end of the second century, by a single editor or committee of editors, and never changed since. For example, once the core Paulines and the four Gospels were put together, there was never any disagreement ever again in the sect using that edition as to their canonical status. And defenses of that status were being written even before the close of that century. There just weren’t “official” declarations by any central church authority yet, and the resulting canon was only settled in its core, the edges solidifying later over time.

Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure the few disconnected examples of refugee and immigrant status and narratives they found in early Christianity all have more esoteric and less politically significant causes and significance. For instance, Matthew’s Nativity narrative is not a comment on the struggles of refugees. It’s an emulation of the Moses and Out-of-Egypt hero narrative. Jews often spoke of their mythical past as refugees…which actually meant looters, mass murderers, and genocidal conquerors. It did not convey any deeper sympathy with “the refugee” as a type of person. Likewise, that Jesus was as awesome as Moses, and as embattled by evil, did not signify we should be nice to refugees. I doubt that was on Matthew’s mind as he composed that tale. And no early Christian author expresses having gotten any such notion from it.

Early Christianity and Sexuality & Gender

The motions being decided this time related to what early Christians actually thought and were actually debating in regards to gender roles and human sexuality. The gist of the findings, which I pretty much concur with, are that:

There was more diversity in early Christian movements than emerged as the self-declared “orthodoxy” centuries later. Both in regards to attitudes toward sex and beliefs regarding gender roles in private life and in church leadership.

Some churches gave women some leadership and teaching roles. And all the passages in the NT and Church Fathers railing against that were actually protesting a real practice, to prevent it spreading to their churches.

The original egalitarianism of Paul may not have been thoroughgoing, but it went far enough to be uncomfortable to later generations, and eventually was erased by that emerging “orthodoxy.” In part by forging letters and interpolating passages making Paul voice anti-egalitarian views.

Many Christians were extremely anti-sex and some regarded even sex for pleasure within marriage as “fornication,” contrary to the common law meaning of that word in English. In fact, “fornication” was being used to refer to a lot of things, some not even involving sex. Like idolatry, or choosing doctrine according to one’s pleasure.

The Greek word translated as “fornication,” porneia, a word at root meaning prostitution, or perhaps more evocatively “whoredom,” more commonly meant any kind of illicit sex. But what constituted “illicit” sex varied a lot and was constantly argued, both within and without Christianity.

This overthrows a previous consensus that Christians were more united on these things, e.g. that they were largely in agreement that “fornication” only meant prostitution, extramarital sex, and homosexual sex. The propositions were adequately demonstrated. The old consensus was wrong, and driven largely by anachronistic “reading in” to ancient texts what actually wasn’t there. Or wishful thinking, e.g. ignoring the time-tested principle that people usually don’t outlaw or rant against things that aren’t actually happening.

Another proposition, that we should stop translating the word “porneia” with the English word “fornication,” I voted “maybe not” on, as when I questioned them, no one could provide an adequate alternative practice. What we have to do is simply explain that the word is more ambiguous than commonly thought. Any other alternative amounts to doing that anyway, yet even more awkwardly. I don’t know if my remarks had any impact on other voters.

The Future of God Seminar

The concurrent seminar on God and the human future was about contemporary theology rather than ancient history. They were past the stage of voting on motions, and prepping to complete a book on its findings. But what I found myself in the middle of here were dozens of established experts, both professors of theology and pastors of major churches, who were decidedly not conservative.

I usually only deal with conservative and centrist Christians because liberal Christians are so wishy washy and mushy void of substantive beliefs beyond the ethical and political sphere, and their ethics and politics usually mostly align with liberal secularists of various stripes and thus are less of an urgent threat to society. At least in respect to their religion, as their religion really doesn’t provide any basis for their views, whether friendly or toxic. As I’ve often said of liberal Christians, they have no text. They’re just making it all up as they go along. So arguing with them is never any different than arguing with a secular philosopher. They don’t resort to citing Scripture or the Holy Spirit or “historical facts of faith” for authority on anything they espouse. So really, they are just atheists in practice, who dress up as theists.

Consequently I often forget how many of them there are.

They agreed not to discuss their beliefs at the seminar (“that’s confidential,” as one of the fellows told me). Rather, they instead chose to develop a book containing essentially a thorough buffet of options for people who can’t believe in the “old man in the sky” version of God but need some kind of God concept to believe in (for some reason). Without advocating for any of them. Just saying, “Hey, look, historically theologians and philosophers and religious leaders have proposed all these alternative ways of imagining God, so if any of them appeal to you, here you go!”

This included everything from pantheism and panentheism (both naturalist and woo) to “God is a metaphor” stuff to native religious worldviews and alternative god concepts like “weak theism” and “process theology” and “anatheism” and “religious naturalism” and so on. The book will be nothing if not interesting. It will essentially be the most thorough encyclopedia of non-traditional theisms ever published. So if you’re interested in exploring liberal theology and its weirdness and perplexity, this will be the book for you. (It should have a title like “Varieties of Post Theism”.)

It’s not clear yet to me if the book will include simply “atheism” as an option. But the fellows seem intent on trying to keep “God” and godist vocabulary in the picture. When they will own the atheist option as on the table, they prefer the word “nontheism” and have distaste for New Atheism. Hence they call their project “Post Theism.” They’d rather the word God be redefined (as, say, “the universe,” or “love,” or “a metaphor for sovereignty,” things like that) than that it be abandoned.

Partly because they think this reaches an important constituency, people who want to believe in something they for some reason will still want to call God but can’t choke down the “supernatural conscious agent” idea. And this may be true: half of all “nones” are unaffiliated wishy-washy “believers” and not actual unbelievers; and the nones are expanding precipitously, especially in the younger generations, which means where every institution’s future lies. So there is definitely a target demographic for this new product upgrade.

But also partly, I suspect, because they can’t let go of it all. They are too attached to the aesthetics and the feels. They can’t just admit it’s all bollocks and we should do away with the whole shebang. We should instead convert churches into secular community centers devoted to philosophy and philanthropy. But “I will get fired” was the typical refrain at that notion. You can’t run a church, and get away with pushing that transition. And what on earth will a professor of theology do when they admit there is no theo- to have an -ology of? “Hey, I study an absurdly narrow collection of fictional characters and thought experiments, please don’t eliminate my position,” doesn’t sound like a winning proposal.

Be that as it may, I think this is going to be a significant trend atheists should be prepared for. There will increasingly be these liberal “there is sort of not really but kind of in some way a god” Christian leaders, both thinkers and pastors, who will be competing with atheists for members and support from the growing “Nones” community. You may find yourself having to argue with them. You should be well informed when you do. Their forthcoming book on Post-Theism should be ideal for the task. Also useful already, I recommend the sections of Hector Avalos’s book The End of Biblical Studies that cover liberal Bible scholarship, and likewise the sections of Malcolm Murray’s The Atheist’s Primer on liberal theology and apologetics. Meanwhile, too, is the second half of my article What’s the Harm.

Both of these topics, the way the Westar Seminar is seeking to transform the consensus on early Christianity and its work towards rethinking new versions of theism for a more liberal constituency, can easily be brought up in my December course starting this weekend on Counter-Apologetics. Indeed, Murray’s Atheist’s Primer will even be the course text. If you have questions about how to understand or combat or make use of these things (and you may find yourself with a lot of those questions, after reading Westar’s seminar reports on these subjects, linked above), that course would be an ideal place to bring them up and get a full and useful discussion.