Not too long ago, reports emerged about some rather curious things that the archbishop of Canterbury had been saying. As it was told to me, and I’m sure to many others, the archbishop had said that doesn’t believe in God but does believe in Jesus. That’s a rather curious thing for any priest to say, let alone for an archbishop to say. In fact it’s a curious thing for any Christian to say because we believe that in God as a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and we also believe that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, the Son. So, if someone doesn’t believe in God, but does believe in Jesus, it begs the question who do they think Jesus is? If they don’t believe in God, they surely can’t believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and neither can they believe that he is God incarnate, the Word made flesh, as St John puts it in the prologue to his Gospel, the one whose birth as a human child we’re preparing to celebrate in a few weeks’ time.
When I was told about what the archbishop had said, I did find this a very, very strange thing for him to say and so I decided to see I could find out just what the archbishop had said and, perhaps more importantly, what he meant by what he’d said. The first thing I found out was that these comments weren’t made recently. The archbishop had made them in an interview for the BBC in 2014 so quite why this report should reappear now, I’ve no idea but nevertheless, it has. The archbishop’s comments were made in answer to the question of whether, as a prominent faith leader, he ever had doubts. The archbishop said that he did, in lots of ways. But what’s really caused the issue I think is that he went on to say that, during prayer a few days earlier, he’d said to God, “Look, this is all very well but isn’t it about time you did something – if you’re there…”, which he did accept was something people wouldn’t expect an archbishop to say. Later in the interview though he expressed the certainty of his belief in Jesus by saying,
“We know about Jesus, we can’t explain all the questions in the world, we can’t explain about suffering, we can’t explain loads of things, but we know about Jesus. We can talk about Jesus – I always do that because most of the other questions I can’t answer.”
And when asked what he did when life got challenging, the archbishop said,
“I keep going and call to Jesus to help me, and he picks me up.”
In a sense then, the archbishop has been misquoted; he didn’t actually say that he doesn’t believe in God. What he did say was that, when he sees the problems and troubles of the world, and God apparently doing nothing about them, he sometimes has doubts about the existence of God. He did say though, that he has no difficulty believing in Jesus. But whilst the archbishop may have been misquoted, what he said was still rather odd for a priest and bishop to say. Leaving aside some rather confusing theology, it’s a strange thing for an archbishop to say because it’s something even non-Christians could say. And indeed it’s something many non-Christians very often do say.
I’m sure that, in the past, many of us will have had to endure conversations with people who have insisted that Jesus never existed. Thankfully though, that doesn’t happen now, at least in my experience, because very few people these days hold that view. There’s no doubt now whatsoever that Jesus was a real-life human being who lived in the Roman province of Judea around 2,000 years ago. At the present time, there are 83 people whom we read about in the Bible whose existence has been confirmed by non-biblical evidence, and Jesus is one of them. So these days, nobody, even the most vehement anti-Christian, can really doubt the existence of Jesus.
But at times, the Scriptures also set out to show the historical authenticity of the events they’re describing. In this morning’s Gospel, St Luke sets out to show the truth of John the Baptist’s ministry by setting it in a non-religious historical context (John is also someone whose existence has been confirmed by non-biblical sources by the way).
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.
That would put the beginning of John’s ministry around 28AD according to our calendar and we know from other sources that all of these political figures held the positions Luke says they did at that time. And Luke tries to do something similar when it comes to Jesus’ birth:
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration before Quirinius was governor of Syria.
It’s clear that Luke doesn’t know the exact year of Jesus’ birth because Augustus reigned from 31BC – 14AD and Quirinius was governor of Syria between 6AD and 7AD when there was a census that led to a revolt over taxes. But it’s also clear that Luke is trying to establish beyond any doubt that these things did take place, that they were real, historical events, and these people were real, historical figures.
Today, archaeological and historical research have caught up with Luke and there’s no longer any doubt that Jesus was a real historical figure, one that all people can believe in. But believing in Jesus as a real historical figure and believing in God are two different things and it’s quite possible to believe in Jesus and at the same time doubt, or even deny, the existence of God.
It simply depends on who you believe Jesus is.
If you believe Jesus was simply a man, then you don’t have to believe in God to believe in Jesus. But that’s not an option for a Christian. We believe that Jesus was more than simply a man. We believe that Jesus was both man and God, fully human and fully divine. So a Christian who says that they don’t believe in God but do believe in Jesus, is denying their own faith. A Christian who says that they doubt the existence of God but believes in Jesus is, at best, confused about their faith because how can you doubt the existence of God whilst at the same time believe in the existence of the second person of the Trinity? It’s tantamount to saying that you don’t believe in the Father but do believe in the Son. Whose Son is he then? Questioning God’s existence because God doesn’t seem to answer prayer but then praying to God’s Son; what is that saying, exactly? That the Father doesn’t answer prayers, but the Son does? But if we call on Jesus, the Son of God, because God doesn’t listen, or perhaps isn’t even there, who do we think we’re praying to? Aren’t we still praying to God? And if we think Jesus, the Son of God, then lifts us up and helps us to go on, who do we think has answered our prayers other than God? So for a Christian, any Christian, doubting or denying the existence of God whilst at the same time affirming their belief in Jesus is a very confusing, and confused, thing to do that leads us into trouble.
As Christians we’re called to profess our faith and proclaim the Gospel. But how can we profess our faith if we’re confused about it ourselves? How can we profess our faith if the things we say deny our faith? And how can we proclaim the Gospel if we doubt the existence of God? We might be able to do the good works Jesus urged us to, but the Gospel is more than doing good works. Isn’t the heart of the Gospel, the ‘Good News’ we’re called to proclaim, salvation and eternal life to all who do God’s will and believe in the one he sent, Jesus, his Son? And isn’t the vindication of all that Jesus said and did, his Resurrection from the dead and Ascension into heaven? Isn’t that what he said would draw all people to him? Who do we think raised Jesus if it wasn’t God the Father?
It may well be possible for some people to doubt or deny the existence of God but still believe in Jesus, but not for us. As Christians, belief in God and belief in Jesus go hand in hand and we simply can’t have one without the other. We may well wonder why the world has to be the way it is, so harsh, cruel and unjust. We may very well wonder too at times why God doesn’t step in and do something about it. But as Christians, we know too that when he did, people seemed to like things the way they were rather than the better way he showed them because wasn’t the one he sent, Jesus, his own Son, treated in the most, harsh, cruel and unjust way?
Through his words to the Christians in Philippi, which we read today, St Paul says that he prays with joy for the way they had helped to spread the Good News. Let’s pray that we can be like them too. Let’s pray that, whatever goes on in the world never causes us to separate our belief in God from our belief in Jesus because if we do allow that to happen, we stop proclaiming the Good News and then, we’ll no longer be able to be the messengers of hope and of a better way for the world, that we’re called to be.
Amen.
The Propers for Advent 2 can be found here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 