In their book A Religious Atheist?, Raymond Pelly and Peter Stuart attempt an overview of the voluminous writings of Lloyd Geering. No one could accuse them of being unduly sympathetic to his work, and so it’s not surprising that their eventual conclusion is negative. The main problem is that they have little understanding of why his views have developed over some 35 years in an ever more radical direction. The heterodox path is a hard one, and never chosen wilfully or lightly. Indeed, it’s never actually chosen at all: we simply find ourselves drawn inexorably in particular directions given the sort of people we are.
Reason may have a walk-on rationalisation part, but it’s probably not what got us to where we’ve ended up.
It’s a matter of being attracted to the company of some people rather than others, and it may be impossible to say why. There will be those who find Lloyd Geering a highly congenial intellectual and spiritual companion, whilst others would do anything to avoid him. The latter should therefore steer well clear of In Praise of the Secular, his latest publication. In it, as in all his work, he asks the questions that come naturally to intelligent and sceptical 21st century people, but which the churches almost always shy away from.
In his writings he shows that it really is possible to take the modern world and all its questions with the utmost seriousness, whilst at the same time putting religion at the heart of life. For Geering there is no contradiction between faith and science, because they are doing very different jobs – such that to try and treat them in the same way is in effect a category mistake.
Instead of religion having to retreat into a ghetto in order to survive, he wants it to get out into the world and confront its critics head-on. Having survived a heresy trial in 1967, his reputation (and infamy) both inside New Zealand and much further afield grew steadily. And although there are many points of contact between Geering and Don Cupitt, neither is derivable from the other, having travelled their own antipodean paths completely independently of one another.
Far from trying to defend religion against the inroads of science, Geering enthusiastically embraces the secular, a word which originally meant simply ‘this-worldly’. To be secular in this sense (the sense that Geering advocates) is to take the world of scientific knowledge with the seriousness it deserves.
Einstein famously said that it’s important to put things as simply as possible – but no simpler. In similar vein, Geering urges us to take the truths of science with the seriousness they deserve – but no more than that. If you want knowledge, science is the place to go – in fact, it’s the only place to go.
Religion doesn’t give us peculiarly exotic knowledge, but a vision of what’s possible, and a community through which we can try to realise it.
Echoing Tillich, Geering writes that ‘humans show themselves to be religious whenever and wherever they take the questions of human existence seriously’, which means that ‘the only truly non-religious person is one who treats human existence as trivial or meaningless’ (p10). To wrestle with the Big Questions is (by definition) to be religious – whatever conclusion you may come to. Given the almost universal human tendency to look for meaning, and to hope for fulfilment, there is no reason to suppose that religion is on the point of disappearing. The challenge is to unshackle the asking of such questions, from the banal dogmatisms that are the public face of most churches.
For Geering a secular state is religiously neutral, rather than opposed to religion. It corresponds to Karl Popper’s ‘Open Society’, and steers a vital middle course between theocratic fundamentalism and militant atheism. ‘Fundamentalism is distrustful of human reason. It cannot enter into open dialogue because its dogmas must not be questioned’ (p39).
Fundamentalism, whether religious or atheistic, cannot tolerate pluralism: for the fundamentalist the truth is knowable – and essentially simple. It is a protest against the complexity of the world, and offers a route map that is so clear that is doesn’t require (and indeed cannot accommodate) any kind of individual thinking.
In Praise of the Secular is a stimulating romp through a great deal of territory, and offers an ideal introduction to Geering’s thinking. It can be thoroughly recommended to anyone who would like support for the religious enterprise, and who is capable of thinking outside the ecclesiastical box.
Tony Windross is Vicar of St Peter's, Sheringham, Norfolk. His book The Thoughtful Guide to Faith was published by O Books in 2004.
This book is available for £6.00 inclusive of p&p from: Stephen Mitchell, All Saints' Vicarage, The Street, Gazeley, Newmarket CB8 8RB