Word: pikes
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Right Rev. James A. Pike has long contended that what Christianity needs is fewer beliefs but more belief. In his previous ventures into pop theology, the resigned Episcopal Bishop of California has been mostly concerned with explaining why he regards such dogmas as the Trinity and the Virgin Birth as beliefs he can do without. Now, in a new book called If This Be Heresy (Harper & Row; $4.95), Pike tries to explain what he does accept and why, summing up his formula for faith in a neat little equation: "data + inference = modest faith-affirmation...
According to Pike, the traditional authoritative sources for Christian doctrine are all suspect. The Bible, for example, is not only shot through with "superstition, sheer evil and flat contradiction," but did not even exist in its present form until several centuries after the founding of Christianity. The bishop similarly dismisses the infallibility of church councils on the ground, among others, that Christian denominations disagree violently on how many there really were; Roman Catholics accept 21 ecclesiastical synods as ecumenical councils, the Greek Orthodox only seven. He also contends that the creeds did not take shape until several centuries after Christ...
With Relevant Data. What this means, argues Pike, is that man today is forced to create his own creeds and dogmas on the empirical basis of what can be proved factually. In line with his formula, he suggests that faith should start not with speculations about God but with the "relevant data" that man can establish about his own existence. Citing the examples of such diverse figures as Christ, Socrates and Unitarian Minister James Reeb, who was bludgeoned to death at Selma in 1965, Pike argues that man can transcend his "occupation of a limited space-time continuum...
...appreciation of man's transcendence, argues Pike, can lead to an empirically based faith in the hereafter. As evidence, he cites experiments dealing with the plausibility of extrasensory perception and clairvoyance that have persuaded him, with only "a modest leap of faith," that "personal survival of death is a fact." Fact though it may be, Pike warns that too much speculation about the mystery of heaven, hell and the afterlife leads nowhere: "It is here and now that we are called to learn, to work, to love, to enjoy-and to grow. There is in this view of things...
...committee was formed last Janu ary in the wake of Bishop James Pike's demand for a heresy trial to challenge those attacking him for speaking out against various hallowed doctrinal beliefs. The church was loath to take so drastic a step, instead named the committee of eleven clerics and laymen to advise the church's presiding bishop on the overall problem of freedom of inquiry within the church. It was headed by Bishop Stephen F. Bayne, Jr., 59, energetic former executive secretary of the Anglican Communion, presently director of the church's overseas department...