http://www.thestar.com/Life/article/212226
[Toronto Star] 12 May 2007--"Religion generally – particularly North American Christianity – is drowning in an ocean of literalism," says Tom Harpur, author of the newly released Water Into Wine: An Empowering Vision of the Gospels.
Harpur challenges readers to spurn the "easy answers" of fundamentalist movements offering salvation to those willing to hand themselves over to the church completely – accepting Jesus as a personal saviour, for instance.
Instead, he argues, the true message of the Bible, and the Jesus stories in particular, is that there is a divine spirit in all of us that can be drawn out if we work hard enough. By examining the similarities of the Bible stories to those in other faiths, Harpur argues that this is perhaps the true message of all religions.
Harpur believes the gospel writers never meant their stories to be taken literally. Instead, they were an attempt to tell in narrative form the personal and spiritual struggles necessary to achieve individual divinity.
He believes, too, that the prodigal generation that turned its back on religion will return if offered a deeper interpretation of gospel stories than provided by fundamentalists.
"Individual divinity"? "Deeper interpretation"? Sounds New Age to me. What did Paul write about preaching "another gospel"? Whether angel or man, let him be accursed?
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