My brother speaks!

My brother comments to the NY Times on this book review of the new book Thine Is The Kingdom.

To the Editor:

Jon Meacham’s review of “Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years” (“Thine Is The Kingdom,” April 4, 2010) fails to acknowledge an active groundswell of serious progressive theologians, ministers and congregants who wholeheartedly take the Bible seriously but not literally. Meacham’s statement that “a foundational belief” of Christianity is that Jesus’ death was substitional atonement for the sins of humankind flies in the face of scholarly research into first-century Christianity by such noted academics as Elaine Pagels, Richard Horsley and John Dominic Crossan. As an active member of the United Church of Christ, I can assure you that I embrace the wisdom that Jesus brought into the world and recognize its power to save (that is, to redeem our humanity and to bring us into alignment with Creation). I can do this without checking my twenty-first century brain at the church door. To assert that knowledge and faith are at odds is to diminish our God-given attributes in service of nothing.

Reed Price
Bainbridge Island, WA