Religion: Myth & the Gospel (Contd.)

The idea that some Christian Scripture is mythological rather than historical, though held by many Protestant theologians, has kicked up a flurry of controversy around San Francisco's outspoken Episcopal Bishop James A. Pike (TIME, Feb. 24). The issue has its counterpart in Roman Catholicism. Cautious by comparison with Bishop Pike—who suggests that even the ancient doctrine of the virgin birth is a mythological way of presenting the paradox of Christ's simultaneous humanity and divinity—Catholic proponents of the idea avoid the word myth. But the new view of the Gospels is highly unsettling to Catholic conservatives, and so widespread among college...