quote of the day …

" The practical problem: Can the necessary demythologization be communicated to the congregation? And here we find a tremendous conflict. There are some people who live in the myth as a reality, without even trying to mediate it to their natural world view, which they of course share with everybody, whether or not they are scientists. Some of Bultmann’s critics say: “Look at the Catholics; they don’t need demythologization! They take all this without difficulty.” This is one group. And many Protestants are the same. The others see the incompatibility of the mythological forms if taken literally with the world view in which they naturally think and live: then they either sacrifice their honesty or throw the whole thing out the window. And often it has been thrown out long ago by their fathers or grandfathers, and they have no idea how a mythological thinking can have any meaning for them. This duality puts the ministers before a tremendously difficult alternative. Must he sacrifice the one group for the sake of the other group, who in the Pauline sense are the weak ones from whom the minister must keep hidden his greater knowledge? This is the great question which of course is also put before Bultmann, and before every scientific theology. Here the existential concern of the whole discussion becomes a real concern not only of the minister, but also of everybody who feels obliged to help anybody else in his religious difficulties. And that means that this whole discussion is far removed from being simply an academic discussion. It is a most existential discussion and one which puts each of you before a decision. "

Paul Tillich
The European Discussion of the Demythologization of the New Testament
Auburn Lecture Series at Union Theological Seminary
10 November 1952

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