Polebridge Press (Santa Rosa CA 2018) Pbk. 210 pages. £16.
At Easter 1966 the official journal of the Presbyterian Church in New Zealand carried a short article titled ‘What does the Resurrection mean?’ The author was Lloyd Geering, then Principal of the Church’s only seminary, Knox Theological Hall, Dunedin. The article said that the true significance of the resurrection lay in the future hope it represented, a hope expressed metaphorically by the disciples as the resurrection of Christ’s physical body. Lest the point be missed, Geering added that ‘we may freely say that the bones of Jesus lie somewhere in Palestine’.
By the mid-60s such views were becoming familiar – if controversial – in academic circles in Europe and America. Indeed, the quoted words were cited by Geering from an as yet unpublished book by a Glasgow theologian. But they came as a shock in New Zealand, especially when expressed by a senior church figure in an official publication.
In a foretaste of the furore in England two decades later, when Bishop David Jenkins declared that the resurrection was not ‘a conjuring trick with bones’, conservative forces rounded on Geering and a year later he was formally charged in the Presbyterian General Assembly with ‘gravely disturbing the peace and unity of the church’ and ‘grave impropriety of conduct’ on account of his doctrinal statements. The public called it a heresy trial. He was acquitted, but the trial marked the beginning of his transition from the domestic world of the church to a public stage both within and beyond his native land.
In the book under review, Lloyd Geering reflects on his long life (he celebrated his hundredth birthday earlier this year) in conversation with fellow New Zealander Mike Grimshaw, who has been studying Geering and his work for three decades. Preparing for the interviews became a research project in its own right, turning up forgotten material that casts new light on the background to ‘the Geering controversy’. The transcripts of the interviews that give the book its title sit at the heart of the work and occupy rather less than half its pages. They are the jewels, if you like, enhanced by a setting, comprising introductory material that provides historical and biographical background, and two long appendices. The latter consist of a complete list of Geering’s academic reading in the years 1965–1990, and biographical sketches of nearly fifty people mentioned in the text, including Don Cupitt.
Geering taught Old Testament and acknowledges that he is ‘more temperamentally Old Testament than New Testament’, linking this to his focus on the environment and creation spirituality: ‘The Old Testament really keeps you in this world – it is permanent – we are from dust and return to dust. There is no doctrine of life after death in the Old Testament and this is a real step forward compared to the other religions of the time.’ He blames Paul for leading Christianity back into ‘otherworldliness’ and considers ‘the teaching of Jesus is much more this-worldly’.
Asked what happens when we die, he concedes, ‘I see death as a coming to an end.’ This ties in with his attitude to the earthly body of Jesus, and also with a sermon from 1967, where he pointed out that human sciences confirm the Old Testament understanding that ‘man is a psychosomatic creature whose psyche cannot live independently from his body. Man has no immortal soul.’ This view, alongside his words about the bones of Jesus, jointly formed the basis of his ‘heresy’ trial.
For him, he tells his interviewer, ‘God was a sort of unknown – a key to everything. I was never a believer in miracles or supernatural things. I was never a theist.’ As a consequence, he goes on, ‘I was never particularly happy about prayer. I participated because it was the thing to do, but I never practised personal prayer. Corporate prayer, intercessions, these had some meaning, but I never expected God to do anything.’
The appeal of Lloyd Geering for me is not just that he puts into words so many of my own beliefs and experiences, but that he is always open and always positive, as in the following passage with which the interviews close:
‘I never considered resigning from the church or resigning from being a minister. I saw myself as continuing my original call, as I was grateful to the church and to Christianity because it provided a framework to orient myself and a framework for living. That is what Christianity gave me. This is still part of my call.’
Anthony Freeman is a retired priest in the Church of England.