Reinterpreting Christianity

Press, 12 September 1987, Page 27

Reinterpreting Christianity

Reincarnation and Chriatlanity: Our Spiritual Heritage. By Donald Offwood. Brick Row Publiahing. 1987. 156 pp. $22.95 (paperback). (Reviewed by Colin Brown) This book was conceived and written in an admirable spirit of helpfulness and tolerance. Its author, an airline pilot with an intriguing range of interests including methane digesters, repudiates any burning desire to convert others to his views. In a book of relative simplicity he offers the fruits of his own experience and reflection in the hope that others will be helped in their search for “the meaning of life.” Unfortunately the potential usefulness of the book is diminished by some features of its contents and presentation. Central to the author’s reinterpretation of Christianity is the claim that reincarnation was once part of Christian teaching, but was repudiated by the fifth ecumenical council in 553. This claim has no firm

basis in the writings of early Christian authors and the records of the council concerned. (The matter is succinctly discussed and references supplied in

John Hick, “Death and Eternal Life,” pp 392-4). One of the chapters in Offwood’s book provides a brief account of the rise and development of Christianity. It is enormously difficult to write such

an account, but this attempt is marred by some errors in fact and interpretation together with tendency to focus too exclusively on events which display dogmatism, intolerance, and persecution. These are certainly there, but they do not constitute the whole of Christian history and other aspects are also relevant to any assessment of the religious value of Christianity. About 50 pages of this brief book are taken up with the report of some “seance readings” emanating from a local Christchurch group. These materials, which provide comment on Christian history and doctrines, are offered without any attempt to-face up to Issues relating to the validity of such experiences and the value of any materials purporting to come from them.

The spirit in which this book was conceived and written is, as I remarked at the beginning of this review, wholly admirable; unhappily the results are such as to be open to seriously damaging criticism. This seems a pity because some of the criticism might have been avoided by more careful research and attention to the historical and philosophical difficulties which arise for the positions taken up in this modest, but unconvincing book.