In December 1983, Dr. John A.T. Robinson, former bishop of Woolwich and most recently Dean of Trinity Col­lege in Cambridge, died at the age of 64 years. Dr. Robinson became famous al­most overnight in the early sixties when he published his controversial book, Honest to God ¹  in 1963. Based on this title, Bishop Robinson himself became known as "Honest John." The book, Honest to God, became one of the ten religious best sellers of the age. More than a million copies to date, have been printed, translated into various languages, and sold at an amazing pace.

During the last years of his life, Dr. Robinson did not stand much in the spot­light of public attention. When he died, he was in many ways already a forgot­ten theologian, and his book could be purchased in any bookstore at a greatly reduced price. The controversy surrounding his book was already long dead. But, meanwhile, his book had served its devastating purpose and the "Bishop of Woolwich" left behind an awful legacy.

In this article we wish to take a brief look at the views of Dr. J.A.T. Robinson and see how he has contributed to the spiritual and moral climate of our time.

A Master Popularizer⤒🔗

Robinson himself could easily be­come a forgotten theologian because he was not an original thinker. He merely popularized the views of other, prominent theologians and made their views acces­sible to a broad public. A famous and original thinker like Karl Barth, for ex­ample, spoke with disdain about the "flat­footed theology" of Robinson, whom he called with typical German flair, "the man of the three beer-glasses with the initials RB, PT and DB." ²  Barth here referred to the three persons from whom Robinson had borrowed his convictions: Rudolph Bultmann, Paul Tillich, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

The above does not mean that Robinson was not sincere in presenting his theological program or that he did not incorporate some of his own views. It does mean that his book is not signif­icant theologically. Besides citing lack of originality, Dr. K. Runia gives another reason why Robinson's book does not have great theological importance: Robinson does not take the traditional Christian theology serious and, instead, makes a caricature out of it.³ A book which only popularizes modern theology without doing justice to traditional the­ology may perhaps have its own effect but cannot be appreciated as a worthwhile contribution of lasting value and new in­sight.

Robinson fully took over Bultmann's program of demythologization.⁴  Bultmann contended that the New Testament has a mythological character with respect to its world view and the history of redemp­tion. The world is seen in three levels (heaven, earth, and hell), while the history of redemption is portrayed as a struggle between supernatural powers, but, ac­cording to Bultmann (and Robinson!), modern man who has been enlightened by scientific knowledge can no longer accept this Biblical rendition. There is "no God up there" and "no hell down be­low." These are the statements which Robinson made famous.

Agreeing with Bultmann that there is no God in heaven, Robinson learned from Tillich where God, then, indeed is. God is in man, as Tillich said, "the Ground of being," the motivating and driving force within man himself. So we can understand Robinson's main concern; his big question was not, "Where can I find a gracious God?" but, "Where can I find a gracious neighbor?" God is not a supernatural Being "up there" but simply the ground and aim of human life, that which is our ultimate concern. God is a dimension of "depth" which basically makes the human existence special and worthwhile. We have here fully a horizontalistic theology.⁵

For the finishing touch, Robinson went to Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer, a Ger­man theologian hanged by the Nazi re­gime towards the end of the Second World War, came to the conclusion that the church should abandon its religious forms, which only obscured the Christian faith, and pay more attention to its func­tion and position in the world. Famous is Bonhoeffer's idea that religion ought to be "dereligionized." Robinson refers to Bonhoeffer especially when he elabo­rates on themes such as worship, prayer, and ethics.

It has been remarked that Robinson went farther than Bultmann, and that he did little justice to Bonhoeffer.⁶  Un­doubtedly, he was most influenced by the philosophies of Paul Tillich. Nevertheless the remark of Karl Barth concerning the "three beer-glasses" of J.A.T. Robin­son was quite on target.

"Honest John's" Message←⤒🔗

We may now try to answer the ques­tion, "What did Bishop Robinson real­ly want to get across to the people?" Ac­tually he wanted to liberate people from their "traditional" belief in the God of the Bible. He popularized the idea that "God is dead," i.e. the God as revealed in the Scriptures. The Bible is nothing more than a human document, subject to error, containing scores of myths which modern man cannot really take se­riously.

Robinson emphatically denied the existence of a God in heaven, who from "above" or "beyond" governs the earth. If the concept "God" is to be retained, it must be reinterpreted altogether. God is "the ground of our existence," the "creative force" of our existence.

God does not have a separate exis­tence. He is the Ground of Being for all things, especially man. God is not a per­son, He is personal, i.e. He is the per­sonal dimension or depth of our lives. Everything here comes to lie in the hori­zontal sphere. For if we are to find God, we find Him not in heaven, but in the personal relationships with one another.

It is in this way that Robinson inter­preted and applied the well-known text, "God is love." Love is the most basic human reality, and wherever people meet, accept, and serve one another in love, there is "God." We must seek and find "God" in our fellow man, in our "gra­cious neighbor." The ultimate question in one's life is not whether one has be­lieved in God, but whether one has loved; not how deep is your faith, but how deep is your love? It is, as Dr. J. Faber re­marked: the order has been turned around: not "God is love" — as the Bible says — but "love" is "god."⁷

Robinson and Golgotha←⤒🔗

At this point we come to a major question, one which Christ Himself once asked His disciples: "But who do you say that I am?" (Matthew 15). Robinson's view is consistent with his ideas about God. He makes a mockery out of the tra­ditional "supranaturalistic" doctrine of the incarnation, as if God came to earth dressed up like a man, some divine figure from the outside pretending to be human, some "Santa Claus." Robinson makes quite a point of the fact that the word "incarnation" doesn't even appear in the Bible, and he ridicules the idea that some supernatural being would descend from heaven to earth to help man. While Bult­mann wanted to demythologize the Re­surrection, Robinson wishes to go one step farther and demythologize the Cross. Christ is not the Word Incarnate, the Son of the Living God, but He is "the man for others," who shows us how to love and whose example we must follow.

To Robinson, the idea of reconcilia­tion on the cross of Golgotha is unreal, unnecessary, and ridiculous. This has to do with his concept of sin. Robinson does not believe that sin is transgression of the law of God (cf. 1 John 3:4). Fol­lowing Tillich, Robinson tells us that sin is a matter of estrangement. We have be­come estranged from the ground of our being, and therefore estranged from our­selves and others. We are to learn to ac­cept ourselves and others as we are. Once we have learned this process of acceptance (a key idea in Tillich's philosophy) we have become reconciled (to life) and enter into new, meaningful relationships with others.

In all this, Christ is the ultimate ex­ample. In Him, according to Robinson, we see a man who is fully one with the ground of his being, a man in whom love is so completely dominant that he is totally open to others, a man who is indeed "the man for others."

The New Morality←⤒🔗

Robinson urges us to follow the in­ner voice of love. There is no God "up there," and therefore He also did not give any binding set of laws for "down here." The Law of Moses must also be seen as mythology.

The only thing which counts is that we let ourselves be guided in every con­crete relationship by the unconditional love of Jesus Christ, the man for others. Love has become the only norm and the dominant motive in our actions.

So Robinson can state that nothing is wrong "in itself." As long as our motive is love, our actions are acceptable. Sexual relationships before marriage could be wrong, but could also be right. Similarly, divorce is not always wrong. It depends completely on the situation how we are to realize Christ's love.

Robinson's ideas in this respect were worked out later in 1966 by J. Fletcher, who called "love" the all-decisive factor to determine what is morally right or wrong, and that the situations determine how we can best realize this love.⁸

In this way Robinson helped to form "a new morality," wherein our ac­tions are not based on the Word of God, but by the inward voice of love. Robinson wished to do away with an existing hypocritical and narrow-minded morality and to replace it by a morality based on the inward voice of the heart. It did not oc­cur to him that the heart of man is cor­rupt. He did not understand that — Biblically speaking — love does not replace the law, but love is the fulfilment of the Law!

Epilogue←⤒🔗

When Robinson wrote Honest to God twenty years ago, there was great controversy. Many were concerned that an Anglican bishop could write such things and demanded that he be defrocked. Others took up the line and even radi­calized it. I think here of theologians such as Harvey Cox and Paul van Buren who claimed that it is not some super­natural being or the church that should be at the center of our attention, but the world. A theology began to prevail which preached only one theme: solidarity with the world.

Today many of the ideas popularized by Bishop Robinson are "old hat." The "theologies" of Bultmann and Tillich have influenced an entire generation of "Christians." And Robinson has the dubious honor of having given valuable assistance to this sad development. The man John A.T. Robinson died in 1983. But the bishop dies in 1963. He sold out the true Christian faith to a humanistic mysticism and very refined, but deeply pagan, pantheism.

What should concern us more is the fact that many of the ideas of modern theology a la Robinson are creeping in­to various churches of Reformed confes­sion. The "closed-world view" (the de­nial of a God sovereign and transcendent) is being adopted in churches with a long­standing Reformed history. Reconcilia­tion is seen more as a change of attitude within man than a matter of full satisfac­tion given by Christ on the cross. Christ is increasingly being portrayed as example of love rather than as only Mediator be­tween God and man. His divine nature is being attacked and ridiculed. The preaching is becoming blatantly political with the message that the structures of society must be changed rather than the heart of man renewed. The new morali­ty with its emphasis on love as a re­placement of the law finds general accep­tance. And behind all this lies the ada­mant denial of the authority of Scripture as the infallible Word of God. Small wonder, then, for example, that women are permitted in office in the church, that homosexuality is made to seem acceptable, and that the World Council of Churches is accepted as a legitimately Christian organization.

The man of the three beer-glasses" is dead. But many are still drinking the deadly brew.