LONDON -- The controversial bishop of of Durham, the fourth-ranking Anglican bishop, has characterized the Resurrection of Christ as merely a 'conjuring trick with bones.'
'I am bothered about what I call God and conjuring tricks. I am not clear that God maneuvers physical things,' Bishop David Jenkins said when questioned on his questions about the Resurrection.
'A conjuring trick with bones only proves that it is clever as a conjuring trick with bones,' he said in the interview released Saturday in advance of a Sunday broadcast on British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
Jenkins emphasized that he feels the belief in the mysteries of Christianity should not be a prerequisite for membership in the church.
'My faith in God forces me to raise these questions about the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection,' he said. 'I am not saying people do not get onto God through these various things. I am saying it should not be laid down that you must get onto God that way.'
The comments brought immediate and angry reaction from Conservative Member of Parliament Nicholas Winterton, among others. Winterton called on the bishop -- who was installed only in September -- to step down for his 'diabolically blasphemous' beliefs.
'The bishop of Durham is a dangerous joker who by some error has been allowed to creep into the congregation of bishops,' said Winterton.
'I much prefer the word of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John because they were there -- and David Jenkins wasn't,' said Lord Hailsham, the lord chancellor who has responsibility for administration of Britain's courts.
The bishop defended his comments, saying, 'If people are afraid to explore, they can ask themselves whether they really have any faith at all.'
Jenkins, a 59-year-old professor of theology at Leeds University, is no stranger to controversy.
In the past year he has been in trouble for suggesting that the Virgin Birth, divinity of Christ and Resurrection did not have to be taken as absolute facts by Christians. Last month, he criticized the government's handling of the 7-month-old miners' strike.
Despite a 12,000-signature petition against his consecration, he was installed in the fourth-ranking office of the Church of England, which is the mother church for the world's Anglican communication, including the American Episcopal Church.
'Because I am a passionate Christian believer and a responsible Christian leader, I am naturally taking the opportunities open to me to invite people to explore Christian faith,' he explained.
Jenkins says in the radio interview that the gospels must not be taken as 'literal, newslike accounts of set events.'
He has expressed doubts about the historical basis for affirming Christ's Virgin birth, his Resurrection from the dead and his miracles because he believes these were stories added afterChrist's lifetime by early Christians.
'...To insist that, in order to be a Christian, you have to think in the way in which the New Testament people thought -- still less that you have to think in the way the fourth-century people thought -- is simply a lack of faith in God,' he said.
