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I dispute it, and find myself in the best of company, that of many critical theologians. The question of who Jesus was and what his message was is today wholly controversial. Concerning elementary questions of faith, especially over Christology, present-day Protestant university theologians are engaged in an irreconcilable conflict. I cannot think that this has escaped.. (the theologian's) notice and can only wonder at the way he fulminates from the outdated credal positions of his Church, as if there had been no two hundred years of research by liberal Protestant theologians and no modern historical criticism; as if what he presented as the message of Jesus were not the subject of vehement dispute within the Church. (78:1) ..in the last decades critical theological research has produced results "which are irreconcilable with the Church's teaching positions but remarkably in accord with the teachings of the Baha'i Faith" (Sabet- Heavens Cleft Asunder). In his review (the theologian).. rebuked Sabet by resorting to the pathetic argument that he did not know the facts, even if he had "acquired a smattering of modern theology"-- as if his view were so absurd that it was not worth discussing. But whole sections of traditional Church doctrine have been called into question to such and extent that in Germany, for instance, there is today the threat of a real schism in the Protestant Church. This remarkable fact.. (he) passed over as deliberately as Sabet's quotations from distinguished scholars-- because they did not fit into his scheme of things. Rather than consider 'them', he faulted Sabet on his quoting Karl-Heinz Deschner, instead of going by Martin Luther, and tried to give the impression thereby that Sabet's sole guarantor was Deschner, who is a free-thinker and not a theologian (and so not to be taken seriously).
(78:2)
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