L Roberts - Thank you. The examinations we do of these theologies, at least as I present them, is to look at their internal consistencies and then how they relate to Church doctrines and positions in a general sense. So there is a sort of internal almost philosophical-logical look and then something of the ongoing politics. In the Jenkins case the latter was about his suitability when he had such a strong God-acting set of beliefs, and yet was roasted by people who continue to use him as a position for a boundary fence (and he is put outside).

I'd be interested to know which church: via adrian@pluralist.co.uk. You, of course, are not obliged to go along with an identified theology of a particular congregation and the idea is you don't have to. But pastorally there should be some connection and dialogue.

Sounds like a nice group to talk about hese things together Pluralist.

Religous people have an unfortunate tendency to take their opinions and those of their denomination or party 'as gospel'.  You do a good job in reminding posters here that religion is not factually based, not a science. Thank you for that.

Funnily enough I have been invited to take a service at the local Unitarian and  Free Christian Church and am looking forward to putting something together for the occasion.  (Though their theology seems to be more conservative than mine own !)

Conversation from this morning, after the service in the church I attend (Anglican). A very theologically and biblically aware Lay Reader, a retired priest, a retired Methodist minister somewhat up the candle (who gave the sermon as his ordained wife led the service). I asked a question - did they think the first gospels or collections were sayings gospels: is Q a sayings collection like the Gospel of Thomas. Answer yes, but the need for a biography like structure was there for the early communities. Not one person assumes anything other than what I called a pseduo-biograophy is anything other than a construction, one mentioning Psalm 22 as one source for the construction.

This idea that somehow this is just historical reconstruction doesn't wash. The empty tomb is not the highlight of the gospels, but a reconstruction into the narrative of the bodily bit. Paul, who inherited the language of the body and resurrection, ended up speaking of a 'spiritual body'. And he was doing this earlier than these gospel constructions. The sayings provided word pictures and the biographical constructions provided life pictures.

As the once Methodist preacher said in the sermon itself (which I understand will be put on the church website - that was my suggestion but I'm not doing it), first the Christian tradition, then the canon.

David Jenkins himself might regard the summary, but I didn't argue that point. I argued whether he was set up by the programme's narrative, and I think he was. He was set up by a contrast between the 'dramatic change' but a poll of the public that intended to impress the oppositve of the dramatic change against what David Jenkins (in what was already recorded) was going to say. It is the technique. Even 'good journalism' programmes can set people up, even with a fair summary.

Ted Harrison's book carries the actual words from Auckland Castle. The implication is that the resurrection (for David Jenkins) is beyond a counjouring trick with bones, in that a conjouring trick with bones only proves that. But he did not say there "more than" or "not just" - just implied that it ought to be, and was, more.

What he thinks about the resurrection is not a mystery. He thinks there was one, is one. He thinks God acts. He thinks that the various appearances of the text point to God acting. This is clear. It is different from those who take a mythical view of the outcome of people generating conversation to each other in a more thorough way (like me, for example) for whom then either it is a disproof of reality or agnostic and for whom the Christian language is translatable into secular language - for example God moving the world towards the Kingdom of God on earth becomes people acting ethically (and consistently with the New Testament myths) to produce a more ethical world. Jenkins is clear, however, that the resurrection is God acting, a proof of sorts, and did it through Jesus, in his reality and the reality of the world both then and now.

Well the usual explanation is that the earliest resurrection texts are of the appearances, and then there is a later tradition that is about an empty tomb. Jenkins's mistake, I think, is to get involved in silly debates about if the body was stolen, moved or whatever, when basically once a crucified body under control of the Romans is taken down it is dumped in a quicklime pit. You won't identify any body days later never mind years later when the appearances tales are going around. But a messianic figure ought to have a tomb, and there was no tomb worship. But what is also important from the view of the earliest Christian communities is not that he is the first of the resurrected, thus the messianic figure, but why he does not continue to appear. He doesn't via a whole different set of myths of ascension and the uniquely Christian one of second coming (though Islam took it). When did it happen - over the years as Jews expecting the end grabbed hold of tales of messianic figures, and Jesus is the one we receive. He wasn't the only one going around at the time. Remember that when Paul would have been in Jerusalem at the time Jesus was killed he took no notice whatsoever. He wouldn't have been interested.

Jenkins's beliefs are far more God directed and traditional than mine, or Geoffrey Lampe, or Maurice Wiles, or Don Cupitt - we can all read the same texts and look at them just as thoroughly. Jenkins takes the 'risk' - as he believes God takes the risk - that they are evident of God acting. Yet other Christians attacked him because he didn't tick all the boxes, and he has become a measure of unacceptability.

Ted Harrison's book. It has two aspects. One is its argument, and the other is the pages of verbatim transcripts, especially of the Credo programmes (the first on theology, the second on more economic matters), but it also carries that nugget on Radio 4 that led Jenkins to later write in The Telegaph that this was "much more" than a conjouring trick etc..

Pete Broadbent represents himself, but he does have an ability to be succinct, and he says "tough" if you want a liberal exploring bishop because that is not the purpose.

Some of us take a view that Christianity is a broad beast. It can be all those credal details, but one has to be careful because that can exclude many early Christians never mind afterwards. There is no doctrine of the Trinity in the Bible, for example, only the beginnings of what might be called an 'economic trinity' which could have gone in any direction, and only later did this view cohere. So Christianity can be other things too, and in terms of modernity it could be those who have a view about Jesus as an exemplarist about what God might be - loving, ethical, sacrificing - but there are others who think more, and such is Jenkins, that God acted in Jesus and continues to act in history, and that history as a reality today is no less God intended than yesterday, including ways of thinking.

We know how myths escalate, and that is part of it. Jenkins thus takes a very strong view of God acting, in a way not necessary from the texts or from how we think today. He has the problem of connecting how we think and how they thought (with miracles and the supernatural). Yet Jenkins is excluded because he doesn't tick boxes, like an empty tomb or a virginal conception, given that virgins don't conceive and bodies when dead don't resuscitate. The brain rots very quickly indeed when dead, and the body is good for nothing. Yet despite this Jenkins thinks theological stories of appearances mean God acted to produce a transformed being that continued to meet people.

It is ridiculous that such a person should be excluded from leading people when he is tackling some important issues of doctrinal faith and belief and how to maintain the notion of God acting in history. He certainly holds views I don't hold, for example.

And on escalating myths, ten years on the web is full of texts that a) say that he said 'conjouring tricks with bones and that b) what he actually said was "not just" a connjouring trick with bones. But he never said 'not just' and his "more than" that he did say was a later article. What he said was as in the radio programme recorded. The Internet alone is not the place to find the truth of the matter - I went round and round looking for this statement and a date, and eventually found it in Harrison's book (published in 1985) - but the Web is out equivalent of escalating stories.

The argument that Jenkins was originally 'stitched up' is mine and not Ted Harrison's. I've ignored Ted Harrison's main argument was that Jenkins represented common theological views but lacked communication skills. The question I asked was, given the programme transcript, was he set up - and he was, nicely achieved via a poll of the public that was not made comparable with public views before that might have supported an earlier statement about a dramatic change in understanding these issues, and indeed was used to contradict. Set up against these views on the details, Jenkins then came in to show he didn't match up to them - and yet because he worked on the basis of belief in past ways of understanding, the interviewer finding that difficult changes tack as if Jenkins is NOT making sense in today's forms of knowledge. But that's not how the media works.

All this I'm writing after a sermon from a Reverend Bob as known to Terry Wogan Radio 2 listeners, a very communicative minister, ex-congragationalist who took a Unitarian church with six people and baptised with a roof leak on to his head and now last service enjoyed 180 with a baby naming and up to 80 on an ordinary Sunday. The very small Unitarian denomination is studying carefully why some churches suddenly turn around - and there is one in the Midlands that has undergone a similar transformation too. So Harrison's argument is not irrelevant at all, but I'm going on each month about theological arguments that fail, sometimes because they fail to achieve what they want, and sometimes because the institution reacts so badly.

Because of my use of these discussion boards, including this thread (and one other), and some points made by Bishop Pete Broadbent here, in my presentation about David Jenkins to the In Depth Group at St Mary's Barton-upon-Humber, as part of the continuing set of discussions, it might be of interest to some here that this paper is read. There are probably some surprises. Well, it's open to anyone. I have blogged on this too, as a sort of summary.

David H: I'm sorry to be blunt, but your comments about David Hallett are both wrong and discourteous. You write:

In Didsbury his main innovation was the home group and he managed to accommodate both a music group and choir

but you fail to mention:

• forming and developing the Team Ministry
• leading the churches into charismatic renewal while remaining authentically Anglican
• reordering Emmanuel church
• developing and extending shared ministry

- these are just the ones I can remember from my visits there.

The comments about the more robust faith of the other ordained leaders are especially discourteous - how do you know?

By all means diagree with +David over his support for David Jenkins - but don't damn his whole ministry over this! It is possible to disagree profoundly with another Christian and still God at work in their ministry you know....