The Westar Institute has a history of systematically
undermining the Biblical witness of Jesus Christ extending back to the
1980’s. So, imagine my sorrow when I
noticed recently that The Presbyterian Community Church of the Rockies were
inviting representatives of the Institute to come to Estes Park to share their
faith-destroying message. Oh, by the way, they are happy to share their message
as long as you are ready to pony up $75 per person. What a contrast to the apostle Paul who
defended the genuineness of his own ministry against false apostles, deceitful
workers, and those who disguise themselves as apostles of Christ (2 Cor. 11:12)
by his willingness preach and teach free of charge. The local advertising has prompted several to
ask me about the Westar Institute and the Jesus Seminar. So, in the next several blog posts I will try
to answer your questions.
So what is the Westar Institute? The Westar Institute was founded in 1986 by
the late Robert Funk. Although Funk
tried to pass off the institute as a scholarly think tank it quickly became
apparent that it was, and continues to be, an agenda driven effort to undermine
the Christian faith that has been honored and practiced for over 2000 years.
Funk’s initial effort at undermining the faith was, not
surprisingly, aimed at hollowing out the focus of faith, Jesus Himself. If this sounds harsh let me assure you that
this was clearly Robert Funk’s goal.
Here is Funk in his own words:
What we need is a new fiction that
takes as its starting point the central event in the Judeo-Christian drama and
reconciles that middle with a new story that reaches beyond old beginnings and
endings. In sum, we need a new narrative of Jesus, a new gospel, if you will,
that places Jesus differently in the grand scheme, the epic story.
Clearly His goal was not to honor the eye-witness accounts
of the person and work of Jesus. Instead
His goal was to create a “new fiction” that replaces the Jesus of the Bible
with a new Jesus and new gospel.
But is this an isolated quote? Am I just taking Funk out of
context? Hardly, here is Funk again:
We should give Jesus a demotion. It is
no longer credible to think of Jesus as divine. Jesus’ divinity goes together
with the old theistic way of thinking about God.
The plot early Christians invented for
a divine redeemer figure is as archaic as the mythology in which it is framed.
A Jesus who drops down out of heaven, performs some magical act that frees
human beings from the power of sin, rises from the dead, and returns to heaven
is simply no longer credible. The notion that he will return at the end of time
and sit in cosmic judgment is equally incredible. We must find a new plot for a
more credible Jesus.
These were not the words of a scholar who wanted to carefully
and objectively evaluate the evidence and draw a conclusion. Rather they were the words of a man who was
setting out to demote Jesus from the divine savior described in the gospels to
a Jesus that was more aligned with his own idea of what Jesus should be.
Although it is shocking that a church should welcome
representatives of an organization with this Jesus-denying agenda it is not
surprising. The apostle Paul admonished
the church in Corinth from departing from the truth of the gospel when he wrote
“For if one coes and preaches another Jesus who we have not preached , or you
receive a different spirit which he have not received, or a different gospel
which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.” (2 Cor. 11:4)
To carry out his agenda to undermine Christianity and undercut
the faith handed down from the apostles Robert Funk created the Jesus Seminar. To make sure that the Jesus Seminar emasculated
the gospels in such a way that the goals of his anti-Christian agenda were met
Funk hand picked a group of mostly like-minded people to sit in judgment on
what the Bible preserves of Jesus’ life and words. Funk cleverly included a few credible scholars
to provide a patina of respectability and objectivity to the Jesus
Seminar. However, if they stepped out of
line they were summarily fired. First
rate scholar Mark Roberts tells of a colleague who was a member of the Seminar
but was fired by Funk when He objected that the methods they used were an
intellectual sham.
One of the so-called experts selected by Funk was Paul
Verhoeven. What were Verhoeven’s
qualifications to sit in judgement of the gospels? Verhoeven is a Dutch television and movie
director, producer, and screenwriter. He
has directed such Christian classics (I am being facetious here) as Diary of a
Hooker, RoboCop, Total Recall , and Basic Instinct. Apparently, his qualifications were to create
R-rated stories. Or, perhaps, Verhoeven
was useful because of his access to the media?
Robert Funk was an expert at playing the media and the Jesus
Seminar became ultimately a PR scheme. In
contrast to the statements He made at meetings of the Jesus Seminar, Funk
publically portrayed his effort as a dispassionate, objective attempt by
scholars to uncover the truth of the gospels.
Not surprisingly the media swallowed it.
By the early 90’s the Jesus Seminar ran out of things to
undermine and slowly faded from sight, until recently. Today, the Westar Institute continues to
pursue Robert Funk’s agenda to undermine Christianity by applying their deceptive
methods to the books the Church has identified as the New Testament. More on this tomorrow.
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