Columnist’s View of Jesus Seminar Is Distressing

I am somewhat distressed by the view of the Jesus Seminar presented by Dana Parsons’ column (“Jesus Seminar? Believers Stress the Message, Not Words,” March 6) and K.C. Williams’ letter to the editor (“For Many, Faith in Scriptures Still Firm,” March 17). Both give the impression that the seminar is part of some secular humanist plot to undermine the faith of all good Christians.

Williams suggests that the seminar’s findings portray Christianity as “outdated” and Christ as “irrelevant.” Parsons is even more enthusiastic: “The Jesus Seminar be damned,” he trumpets, apparently secure in his role as defender of the little guy against those know-it-all eggheads who are bad-mouthing God.

The scholars involved in the seminar (their status as “scholars” is upheld by the universities, publications and citizens who benefit from their research) are not motivated by a desire to destroy Christianity.

Like all scholars, it is love for their subject that moves them. Their research is grounded in the belief that a greater knowledge of the origins of the Christian religion leads to a deeper understanding and experience of that faith.

If this is not true--if faith can flourish only in a climate of ignorance, and an unquestioning, literal interpretation of Scripture is the only interpretation possible--then the Christian religion has come to a very sad state of affairs.

Before the believers who feel threatened by the seminar start drawing battle lines, perhaps they should remember that at one time it was considered un-Christian to say that the Earth circled the sun.

WADE ROCKETT, Irvine