Wednesday night, I spoke at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, in a ballroom in a campus facility – we had, I’d say, around 200 folks there. Thursday night was in the lovely chapel at the Citadel. I’m thinking there were a few more people at the Citadel, but it might just have been the different set-ups that convinced me of this. Good crowds, good question, even though the speaker is having to dig deep these days to not just toss up her notes (which she doesn’t speak from anyway) and shout, "Can’t we all just talk about Wise Blood intead?"

I will say, however, that the press coverage of both the Gospel of Judas and The Jesus Papers is showing me that we’re not done with this, so we can’t be done with it. The question to me is not "attacks on Christianity" – that is just not the way I think about these things. Other people can take up that duty, which is fine. It’s simply the gullibility of a public that is woefully uninformed on history and Scripture and just gobbles up the latest fast food, especially if it comes with a nifty toy.

As I’ve said before, to me, this isn’t about "defending the faith" or even about one’s beliefs about Jesus. It’s about some common sense and acknowlegement of what certain texts can and can’t tell us.

Let’s put it this way: In some ways, it is perfectly logical for a reading public that has been told for decades, even from pulpits, that the canonical gospels are rather unreliable and tell us more about the Church that produced them than they do about Jesus himself, to then deepen that skepticism of the canon and put it and other texts that are far removed in every way from texts with strong apostolic ties in one big stew from which we select what we think will taste good.

But on the other hand, it makes no sense. Because why is the public, which has been taught to be skeptical of the gospels, suddenly not-so-skeptical and hopeful of what these other texts can tell us?

(It is a question to ask scholars, as well. Oh. You’ve been telling us for years not to trust the witness of these texts written decades after Jesus’ death. Now we’re supposed to take texts written centuries after his death as authoritative? How does that work exactly?)

The reporting on the Gospel of Judas has been rather shocking to me, although I suppose it shouldn’t be. I’m hoping for a Get Religion post on this, but the way this text has been discussed in many of these articles is quite irresponsible, shading what they actually are and what they actually reflect, which is a certain rather interesting strand of gnostic Christianity.

But back to my talks and my point. When I first started speaking on DVC, I did a lot of detailed debunking. I don’t do that anymore. In the process of the talk, I do debunk some details, but it’s in a slightly broader context – what’s foundationally wrong with the DVC assertions (sources, assumptions, logic) and why does it matter?

Because I think this goes way beyond DVC. What I’ve seen happen is that there is this growing consensus among a certain percentage of DVC readers that even if the details are easily debunked, the book has something right: Christianity is not to be trusted to tell the truth or to treat people justly.

And that’s worth fighting. First and foremost with our actions, but when necessary, with our words as well.

Oh, and Gashwin has a report from the field…