ABSTRACT
We theologians, who write books like this one, often learn Greek, Latin and Hebrew. We are drilled in all the methods of critical exegesis and critical thinking. In form-criticism we learn to distinguish between myth and history, between parable and allegory, between the literary structure of the Gospels and a biography of Jesus. We learn in redaction-criticism that biblical texts are the theological product of authors who are responsible to and sometimes in conflict with a narrative community. Yet in our churches almost nothing of this is made fruitful for the people of God. Whilst we are trained in the details of critical theology, our church members still discuss whether or not Adam and Eve, Noah and Methuselah, were historical persons. They still discuss whether or not God could have created the universe in seven days. They still read the Gospels as straightforward biographies and are strengthened in this by our confessions of faith, our liturgies and hymns. And, worst of all, this is considered to be Christian faith. That is why non-believers think that to be a Christian means to give up one's critical faculties.
