it's all bollocks, claims Grand Tufti

From THE TIMES:

Williams admits: 

Three wise men 

do not exist.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, dismissed the Christmas story of the Three Wise Men yesterday as nothing but “legend”. There was scant evidence for the Magi, and none at all that there were three of them, or that they were kings, he said. All the evidence that existed was in Matthew’s Gospel. The Archbishop said: “Matthew’s Gospel doesn’t tell us there were three of them, doesn’t tell us they were kings, doesn’t tell us where they came from. It says they are astrologers, wise men, priests from somewhere outside the Roman Empire, that’s all we’re really told.” Anything else was legend. “It works quite well as legend,” the Archbishop said.

Further, there was no evidence that there were any oxen or asses in the stable. The chances of any snow falling around the stable in Bethlehem were “very unlikely”. And as for the star rising and then standing still: the Archbishop pointed out that stars just don’t behave like that.

Although he believed in it himself, he advised that new Christians need not fear that they had to leap over the “hurdle” of belief in the Virgin Birth before they could be “signed up”. For good measure, he added, Jesus was probably not born in December at all. “Christmas was when it was because it fitted well with the winter festival.”

He said the Christmas cards that show the Virgin Mary cradling baby Jesus, with the shepherds on one side and the Three Wise Men on the other, were guilty of “conflation”.

Dr Williams was speaking live on BBC Radio Five to the presenter Simon Mayo.

COMMENT: Ironically, this little outburst from The Tufti shows just how snuggled up in bed he is with the fundamentalists. There is little difference between the liberal desire to hold everything in our tradition up for scientific scrutiny and the evangelical obsession with treating every jot and tittle in the Bible as if it's the unchallengeable word of God. Both are missing the point, both are blind to the big picture. Both are standing on the beach studying the pebbles when they should be gazing out upon the glorious ocean.

Although there is still plenty of overlap, there are two types of people living in the developed countries and so, also, in the churches - modernists and postmodernists. Those of us who grew up in our faith embracing the freedom of liberation theology and narrative criticism are predisposed to look first for the big picture. Unfortunately, because of snobbery and the old school tie network, those in positions of power within the Church tend to be academics, like the Tufti, who still cling to the modernism that was the defining theme of their education. Modernism is about laws and classical science. Postmodernism is about big ideas, dreams and quantum physics.

These two world views can be understood as two different languages and this is why there will never be any agreement between the lawyers and the liberationists. When they speak I stare blankly because there is nothing in my mind on which I can hang their words. I am sure the same must be true for them when I speak.

But I am happy to be where I am as the alternative is such a boring place to be. I really can't see what the point is in worrying about the reality of our mythology. I accept that things either happened or didn't happen but to deconstruct them without any intention of reconstructing them as new, more powerful myths is pretty pointless and a Grinchy thing to do. When you read a book to a child, that child is not thinking, "Is this a true story?" The child doesn't care. The child is listening to a story and a story exists outside of conventional reality.

Some Christians are children of the Book. Me, I snuggle up in bed with those Christians who are children of the Story - it's so much more fun.