Lloyd Geering is remarkable…and not just because he’s 102 years old. A free-thinker, humanist, and existentialist, Sir Lloyd is New Zealand’s best-known and most controversial commentator on theological issues. The author of dozens of books—his A Time to Speak was published just last year—this ordained Presbyterian minister is emeritus professor of religious studies at Wellington’s Victoria University.
In 1967, he was charged with “doctrinal error” and “disturbing the peace and unity of the church”: he denied the immortality of the soul and the physical resurrection of Jesus. His countrymen watched him face down the church—charges were dismissed—in an infamous heresy trial; it was televised.
In Reimagining God, Sir Lloyd, drawing from theology, science, and his own faith journey, “retraces key developments in the Western understanding of God,” progressivechristianity.org reports, and spotlights along the way a succession of mentors, Ludwig Feuerbach, Carl Jung, and Teilhard de Chardin among them. He comes to understand God as “a symbolic term for our highest values—honesty, truthfulness, love,” according to stuff.co.nz.
Among the man’s many admirers is John Shelby Spong: “If one wants to explore Christianity’s future, there is no better guide available today than this unique human being.”
Reimagining God: The Faith Journey of a Modern Heretic
By Lloyd Geering
Polebridge Press, 2014
The previous Featured Book, Brian McLaren’s The Great Spiritual Migration: How the World’s Largest Religion is Seeking a Better Way to be Christian, is now available in the Library.
