The enigma of liberal theology

"The Easter Enigma" by Michael C Perry is a curious book of liberal theology, attempting to combine nominally traditional Christianity with modern parapsychology.

The author is quite perceptive when he points out similarities between the appearances of the risen Jesus and various ghostly apparitions of the dead. He is less perceptive when he attempts a theological explanation. Essentially, he claims that Jesus wasn't *really* resurrected in a bodily sense, but immediately became pure spirit. In order not to confuse the stupid disciples, however, God let them behold a series of telepathically-induced hallucinations of a seemingly corporeal Jesus. In effect, Perry claims that Christianity is based on a lie - with God as the liar. (He has major problems squaring this circle!)

Of course, there is one major *difference* between the post-Easter appearances of Jesus and regular apparitions. In the case of Jesus, the tomb was empty. Or so the Bible says. The author accepts that the tomb indeed was empty, admits that this creates major problems for the "telepathic" theory...and then drops the matter! He seems to veer towards the opinion that God somehow made the physical body disappear, perhaps by some kind of dematerialization.

I'm not a Christian, but please, this is even more ridiculous than the official version. Note that the author *accepts* the existence of God, miracles and supernatural interventions in the material world. If so, what's the point of substituting the traditional Biblical miracles with a *new* set of equally miraculous events? If God can make a physical body dematerialize and telepathically induce advanced hallucinations in the minds of men, surely he could make a physical human being walk again? Or create a heavenly body that can walk through walls, change shape, etc?

The only enigma here, is the enigma of liberal theology!

The most likely explanation, is that these contradictory notions worked in the author's own environment. Perhaps his hearers did consider the telepathic theory to be more rational than the traditional version. After all, there was a time when parapsychology was near-respectable and came close to being accepted as a science. According to Wikipedia, the Parapsychological Association is still affiliated with the AAAS! The author also claims that the "traditional" view of the resurrection is that the physical body of Jesus was "taken up" into Heaven, which - in my understanding - is not the traditional view at all, especially since Perry seems to believe that this entailed some kind of dematerialization. In sum, the author's intended audience was already untraditional enough to accept some pretty heavy revisions. (I bought this book after reading a text by process theist David Ray Griffin.)

I'm not saying that everything in this book is "bad". The author does make some pertinent observations on how the term "bodily resurrection" can be given several different interpretations (with Paul veering towards the "spiritual" side of the spectrum, while still thinking in terms of some kind of bodily resurrection). He also discusses the remarkably "physical" character of some apparitions of the dead, the Biblical idea of angels materializing physical bodies, etc. He's definitely on to something here - but when he attempts to theologize around it, the whole thing falls flat on the face.