It is impossible to repristinate a past world picture by sheer resolve, especially a mythical world picture, now that all of our thinking is irrevocably formed by science. A blind acceptance of New Testament mythology would be simply arbitrariness; to make such acceptance a demand of faith would be to reduce faith to a work.
A blast from the past, as they say. "They" being only people as old as I am, and as Christian and/or formerly Roman Catholic as I am, who remember the demythologization attempts of Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976), quoted and pictured above.
Although I was embroiled in a physics curriculum in graduate school, I took mental breaks for classes in theology and philosophy. At Fordham, a Jesuit University, you could hardly not do that. Not only was the faculty at the forefront of theological thinking, the guest speakers in special programs were a lineup of the newsmakers in the field. Every day started with a trip to the campus bookstore to see who was speaking and what was on the Latest Releases shelf (no preorders or months-long run-ups to publication in those days).
Who would be the first to read the latest by Harvey Cox? Marshall McLuhan? Hans Kung? Reinhold Niebur? Or a newly translated Dietrich Bonhoeffer? Had Cardinal Bea of Rome issued another ecumenical proclamation after we'd gone to bed?
"Every little 'ism' has a Jevvie (nickname for Jesuit) all its own" was the mantra, and no matter which side of the theological spectrum you prayed on, there was a Jesuit to mentor you.
Demythologization as it was understood then was a hermeneutic approach to religious texts, an attempt to separate historical claims from philosophical and theological teachings. Bultmann introduced the term demythologization in this context, although it was most likely used earlier.
"Demythologizing the New Testament" was the task of stripping the elements of the gospels that had accumulated over 20 centuries. It was "Religion without Myth."
Is this meaning of the word what the LadyKiller admins had in mind when they scheduled the topic for this week? Is it a coincidence that today, July 31, is the Feast Day of Jesuit Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491 – 1556)?
I think not.