Lloyd Geering

"A summary of the history of the universe through the lenses of science and the world's religions"--Publisher information.

Described by the BBC as "the last living heretic," Lloyd Geering has spent much of his life wrestling with God. Of late, however, he finds himself struggling with the absence of God. The rise of nonreligious, secular culture around the world testifies that he is not alone, that the concept of God has become problematical. Should God be abandoned altogether? Can God be reformed, so to speak? Drawing from theology, science and his own faith journey-from his call to ministry, through his much-publicized heresy trial, to decades of public speaking, teaching and writing, Geering retraces key developments in the Western understanding of God. He imagines a new spirituality, one that blends a relationship to the natural world with a celebration of the rich inheritance of human culture.

"According to Lloyd Geering the doctrines of Incarnation and Trinity, which began as attempts to reflect the indwelling of God in human beings, were soon distorted to proclaim the reality of a sacred realm in the heavens. But the collapse of supernaturalism, he says, has produced a new and different pattern of reality: the self-creating universe, the self-evolving human species, and the emerging global consciousness. In light of these changes, he asks, Is Christianity going anywhere ? His answer, simply put, is that Christianity will not survive unless it can be harmonized with the secular global world. He further observes that all religious traditions must incorporate a concern for the present ecological crisis, And, he insists, any credible faith tradition must embrace a secular or humanist spirituality. Geering concludes that the most credible scenario for Christianity s future depends on accepting the Gaia concept as a powerful modern myth that will sustain individual humans spiritually, and our planetary home ecologically." -- Publisher.

"At nearly 99 years old, Lloyd Geering is well qualified to look back over the last century, consider the massive social changes he has lived through, and evaluate such progress as the human race may be making. Born in 1918, Lloyd reflects on the two world wars, the Great Depression, and the changes he has experienced in education, family life, growth of personal freedom, leisure and entertainment, life in the churches, and more."--Back cover.

Such Is Life is an Australian novel written by Joseph Furphy under a pseudonym of “Tom Collins” and published in 1903. It purports to be a series of diary entries by the author, selected at approximately one-month intervals during late 1883 and early 1884. “Tom Collins” travels rural New South Wales and Victoria, interacting and talking at length with a variety of characters including the drivers of bullock-teams, itinerant swagmen, boundary riders, and squatters (the owners of large rural properties). The novel is full of entertaining and sometimes melancholy incidents mixed with the philosophical ramblings of the author and his frequent quotations from Shakespeare and poetry. Its depictions of the Australian bush, the rural lifestyle, and the depredations of drought are vivid. Furphy is sometimes called the “Father of the Australian Novel,” and Such Is Life is considered a classic of Australian literature.

For Lloyd Geering the answer is yes, but not in the most obvious way. In this book he traces the broad sweep of christianity's evolution over the centuries, diversifying as it went and producing the increasingly global and secular culture of today's world. Central to his argument is the rediscovery of Jesus as a Jewish sage, long obscured under the mantle of the divine Christ figure. Professor Geering teases out the implications of the radical Christian notion that God became human, and shows how core values of the Christian Way are being expressed in the human concerns of the secular world.