The President of Marymount Manhattan College joins Bishop McGrath

An editorial commentary in the St Louis Post-Dispatch by Judson R. Shaver, President of Marymount Manhattan College, proclaims that the Gospels are not true, that the passion narratives are not historical.

This is similar to Bishop Patrick Mcgrath's article I commented on earlier.

Shaver states:

[H]is (Mel Gibson's) film is unhistorical and replicates the Gospels' shifting of blame from Rome to the Jews.

This blame-shifting is part of a broad strand of Christian anti-Semitism that begins in the New Testament and runs through modern, well-intentioned Christian thought.
...
While scholars find it difficult to establish exactly what Jesus said or did, there is no reason to believe that he rejected Judaism or the Jews.
...
The fact that Christian anti-Judaism is rooted in some New Testament texts has both created the sickness and delayed the cure. We cannot deny the sinful events in our history or the members of our fellowship who fall far short of the Christian ideal; neither can we can reject our scripture.

Shaver, however, seems to have rejected that Scripture was divinely inspired, and at least our understanding of Sacred Scripture as taught by the Church (See Dei Verbum)

He goes on to write:

If we can't abandon the New Testament or even its truly regrettable passages, I believe we can learn to read scripture differently.
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Christians forgot that the Gospels, with their passion narratives, were originally the literary and theological creations of Jews.

Of course, we must read them and interpret them, not with the mind of the Church, but according to our own sensibilities - much like the ECUSA has reinterpreted Scripture to say that homosexuality is NOT an abomination to God. I just wonder how these people who advocate heretical* positions obtain jobs at allegedly 'Catholic' schools?

But wait a second - we soon find out what he is really saying...

Many of us know better, (regarding the true way to read the Gospels) but millions of Christians don't - including, I fear, Mel Gibson and the large evangelical audience his film will attract.

The truth is Shaver appears to be a member of an elitist group, formerly known centuries ago as the Gnostics - those who have been given special insights and powers that God did not want to share with us "common" and unenlightened people. Only those who have been granted special insight are capable of understanding the Gospels, not as historical in the events that are narrated, but "theological reflections"...

Lord, have mercy on us!


* CCC 2089 Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it. "Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him."