By Rowan Williams
A few days ago, I finally
got my copy of the
Gospel of Judas that
people have been talking
about. And no, in case you’re
wondering, it didn’t make me
tear up the New Testament and
start looking for a new job.
It’s actually a fairly conventional book of its kind— and there were dozens like it around in the
early centuries of the Church. People who weren’t
satisfied with the sort of thing the New Testament
had to say spent quite a lot of energy trying to
produce something which suited them better.
They wanted Christian teaching to be a matter
of exotic and mystical information, shared only
with an in-group. So a lot of these books imagine
Jesus having long conversations with various
people whose names are in the Bible but who we
don’t know much about. This, they claim is the
real thing — not the boring stuff in the official
books. Don’t believe the official version, they say.
The truth has been concealed from you by sinister
conspiracies of bishops and suchlike villains, but
now it can be told.
I suppose that explains why there’s always such
an interest in stories about ‘lost’ books coming to
light. Think of the massive international industry
around the Da Vinci Code: it’s exciting to think of
conspiracies and cover-ups when trust in traditional
institutions is low. The same sort of thing seems to
have happened with the history of the Church and
its Bible.
But here’s the problem. We’re familiar with a
world of cover up stories; we’re on safer ground
with their cynicism and worldly wisdom; they are
less challenging and don’t force us to confront
difficult realities. And, like any kind of cynicism, it
actually stops us hearing anything genuinely new or
surprising. We need to stop and ask ourselves from
time to time just why the cynical version is the
one that appeals to us — is it just because we can
cope much more easily with the picture of a world
that always works by manipulation and deceit?
Don’t we want to see anything more challenging?
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unavoidable death, he trembles and cries, but goes
on with it.
When the Jesus of the Gospels comes back from
the dead, he doesn’t go and crow over his enemies,
he meets his friends and tells them to get out there
and talk about him — about what his life and death
have made possible, about forgiveness, making
peace, being honest about yourself, checking
the temptation to judge and condemn, tackling
your selfishness at the root, praying simply and
trustingly.
This is flesh and blood. It’s not about exotic
mysteries. It is about how God makes it possible
for us to live a life that isn’t paralysed by guilt,
aggression and pride. It asks us to come down to
earth and face what’s wrong with us. Is it surprising
that some people found this too direct, too inyour-
face to cope with? No wonder they preferred
to go on about the names of angels and the secrets
of how the world began.
What if this character is not just
another guru?
Let’s ask ourselves why we’re sometimes more
comfortable with such stories about conspiracies
and stories about mystical gurus. Is it perhaps
because when we turn to what the Bible actually
says, Jesus challenges us pretty seriously? What if
this is a story we haven’t really listened to before?
And what if everything could be different because
of this particular story?
That’s the question we ought to be asking at
Easter. What if this surprising character in the New
Testament is not just another teacher, another guru,
but someone who really could change the world?
Everything truly can be different because of the
real story of Jesus, the Son of God.
Well, that is the real front-page story, bigger than
any story about the discovery of a lost document
and ultimately more exciting than any number of
conspiracy theories.
And that’s perhaps why the Bible story is still
being told two thousand years on, by people who
have discovered that the world and their lives really
have changed.
Rowan Williams is the Anglican Archbishop of
Canterbury. This article first appeared in the London
Mail on Sunday newspaper on Easter Day.
Are we just too lazy to recognise something really
fresh, something that hints at a bigger and a better
world?
The people who wrote the Gospel of Judas
were trying to persuade their readers that everyone
before them had got Jesus wrong, and that the
folk who ran the churches were only in it for
their own profit (never mind that these leaders
and their followers regularly faced death for what
they believed, just as some believers still do now, as
we’ve been reminded in recent weeks). This story
in itself was an easy option, something that couldn’t
ever be completely disproved but would create a
climate of mistrust.
But why were those writers not satisfied with
what the Bible says? It becomes a lot clearer when
we compare the Jesus of the Bible with the Jesus of
these other documents.
He doesn’t suffer fools - especially
religious fools - gladly
In the new ‘gospel’, Jesus is made out to be a
mystery man, a guru. He laughs mockingly when
the disciples try to understand what he’s about.
He is said to reveal the mystic names of heavenly
powers, and to explain how the universe was
created by inferior angels. He claims that the soul
is only a very temporary dweller in the body. And
Judas is told repeatedly that only he understands
Jesus, not the other, dimwitted, disciples. It’s the
standard kind of teaching you expect from gurus
of a certain sort.
Now turn to the New Testament. Here is the
real Jesus who actually has a recognisable human
setting. His favourite method of teaching is to tell
sharp and sometimes satirical stories of ordinary
life, with a sting in the tail. He doesn’t suffer fools
(especially religious fools) gladly, but he has all the
time in the world for those who are thought to
be failures. He is a straightforward, not a cynical
man. He likes being with children. He knows his
disciples don’t fully understand him and sometimes
it makes him angry, but he goes on loving and
trusting them. When he’s faced with a horrible and