MAY 11, 1959 Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism Joel D. Heck.

MAY 11, 1959

Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism

Joel D. Heck

Historical Background

In 1958, Alec R. Vidler published a book called Windsor Sermons. Fr. Alec Vidler was a noted liberal scholar and Dean of King’s College, Cambridge. One day Lewis was conversing with the Principal of Westcott House, Cambridge, later the Bishop of Edinburgh, The Rt. Rev. Kenneth Carey.

After reading at least part of one of Vidler’s sermons in Windsor Sermons, entitled “The Sign at Cana,” the Bishop asked Lewis what he thought about it. Lewis “expressed himself very freely about the sermon and said that he thought that it was quite incredible that we should have had to wait nearly 2000 years to be told by a theologian called Vidler that what the Church has always regarded as a miracle was, in fact, a parable!”

Historical Background

In that sermon, Vidler had contended that “the Fourth gospel does not call it a ‘miracle’ . . . but a ‘sign’. It should be read more as a parable than as a miracle.” Later in the same sermon Vidler wrote, “So, the water and the six waterpots . . . represent the old order of things, which Jesus, who is God’s agent in the new creation, transforms into wine.” Vidler was using orthodox language while denying the miracle. Lewis saw the danger of the phrase “more as a parable than as a miracle,” which suggested “not a miracle.”

Historical Background

Other of Vidler’s sermons in the same volume demonstrate an ability to speak a lot of words without saying much. For example, in a sermon on Luke 8:25, entitled “Where is your faith?” Vidler does not mention faith in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, but focuses on faith as a set of basic convictions. In another sermon, however, he seemed to affirm his belief in a real devil, while at the same time saying, unfortunately, that “the important question is not whether we do believe in him, but whether we ought to.”

May 11, 1959

Also known as “Fern-seed and Elephants”Location: Westcott House, Cambridge.Audience: a group of students, future priests

of the Church of England