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Removing Halos
Mary Fuller
When in late childhood I joined the Presbyterians-a denomination my parents favored and which claimed to be the predestined favorite of God-I had to learn a statement of belief known as the Apostle's Creed. Actually I already knew it for our whole church congregation stood and recited it every Sunday a.m.
It began "I believe in God" and as a child I did (and still do but in a different way now that I am a great grandmother). Then this creed went on to other beliefs such as the "Communion of saints". I had nothing against saints-after all St. Nicholas was another name for Santa Clause-but I was skeptical about the communion part, if "communion" meant Saints actually communicate. I'm still skeptical.
And near the end when I had to say I believed in the "resurrection of the body" I kept my mouth shut for I found that totally unbelievable and still do.
No one ever told me I was repeating the Nicene Creed of AD325, or that before that date it wasn't necessary to believe in the supernatural in order to be a follower of Jesus and his message. No Sunday School lesson explained that Emperor Constantine imposed this creed to unify his Holy Roman Empire.
It was H. G. Wells who enlightened me. Which is extraordinary since he is best known for such fantasies as "War of the Worlds" a horror story that panicked listeners when it was dramatized on the radio in 1938.
Herbert George Wells does not appear as a famous U.U. on our sweatshirts but I believe he was one of us, a doubter. He doubted the justice of the class distinction that prevailed in England at the time of his birth (in 1866), when people knew their place in Society and mostly kept in it.
Well's family was mostly lower middle class when his mother went to work as a housekeeper on the estate of an aristocrat there was no nanny for Bertie to stay with, so he had to go along. But he spent the days reading in the manor's extensive library and Wells considered this self-education significant in his eventual rise above his origins.
Parents of his class usually sent their sons to be apprenticed to a trade. Wells ran away from the drapery shop he was sent to to take examinations that earned him a scholarship at the Normal School of Science in London where they trained Science teachers. One of the Professors there was Thomas Huxley who had been a friend of Charles Darwin.
It was a background that prompted the science-fiction romances Wells produced when he began writing for a career.
His stories are full of amazing predictions. In London during World War II he survived the bomb which he had in 1913 foretold would be the war weapon of the future. His story "The World Set Free" forecasts atomic warfare, "First Men on the Moon" describes a lunar landing. "The Time Machine" contains an accurate account of aerial warfare he wrote 4 years before the Wright brothers made their first successful flight.
Wells hob-nobbed with an assortment of the rich and famous, as a correspondent for the London Times. He lunched with President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, and with President Franklin Roosevelt in 1934. He interviewed Lenin and Stalin, and argued with both about Communism and the ideal World State he himself hoped would come about eventually.
The private life of H.G. Wells is less remarkable, though it also raises eyebrows. It is his views on religion that belongs in this U.U. church, and I would like to read some of his "stuff" about the real Jesus and his message as Wells viewed it in the chapter on Christianity in his Outline of History. Here is his take on Jesus the person.
Wells On: Jesus the Person
Jesus is much wronged by the unreality that Christian art has imposed on him. He was a penniless teacher who wandered about the countryside, living on casual gifts of food. Yet he is always depicted clean, combed and sleek, in spotless raiment, erect and motionless as though he was gliding through the air.
The miraculous circumstances of his birth are at best unnecessary to his teachings, as are the genealogies that link him through Joseph to King David-for according to the legend Jesus was not the son of Joseph at all but was conceived by a virgin.
Well On: The Message of Jesus
The doctrine Jesus preached which he called the Kingdom of Heaven is certainly one of the most revolutionary ideas that ever changed human thought.
The Jews were persuaded that their Father Abraham had made a bargain with God that would bring them to final predominance on the earth.
But Jesus taught that all men were equal in the eyes of God the Father of all. The kingdom would come when men recognized their one-ness as humans with the same origins, struggles and destinies.
It would come when love overcame hate, when "an eye for an eye" became turning the other cheek, when mercy was held above justice.
Wells On: The Crucifixion and Resurrection
Wells' description of the Resurrection reminds me of Peter Bruegel, the Flemish artist who was so good at depicting the ordinary.
The first time I saw his painting "Carrying the Cross" I knew that was the way it really was, as far as I'm concerned.
Bruegel puts the event on a human level: the people are going to a public execution moved by curiosity, just as folks flock to a big fire or accident.
Jesus is almost obscured by the crowd. He has fallen with his cross and someone is helping him right it.
Some people are satisfied with having had a look at the notorious condemned and are returning home.
Along the way children are playing as kids do. Two boys are trying to hitch a ride on the cart carrying the thieves. Some children have found a puddle and are dabbling in it unaware of anything else.
Here is what Wells says it was like after the crucifixion.
We are told that a great darkness fell upon the earth and that the veil of the temple was "rent in twain". It is difficult to believe that nature indulged in any such comments. It is more likely that a darkness closed upon the hill and the distant city set about the preparation for the Passover, the watchers returned home and only a small group of mourners troubled whether Jesus of Nazareth was dying or already dead.
Wells On: The Aftermath of the Crucifixion
The disciples were plunged into despair until a whisper came among them, and rather discrepant stories were rumored:
That the body of Jesus was not in the tomb in which it had been placed and that first one and then another had seen him alive! Soon they were consoling themselves with the conviction that he had risen from the dead, that he had shown himself to some and had ascended visibly into heaven. Witnesses were found to declare that they had positively seen him go up visibly through the blue.
Soon their wishful thinking convinced them that he would come again in power and glory.
And in this bright revival of the dream of the supremacy of Abraham's tribe, the real message of Jesus was lost.