“Director Monique Oomen describes The Last Western Heretic as a timely insight into the ideas and philosophies of the New Zealand's most controversial theologian.
‘At 89, Lloyd Geering is still deeply involved in the debate of ideas about religion and life, and latterly, the very survival of human beings and the planet to which we belong. In fact, he says his brain is more active than ever before.’
Filmed in New Zealand and Israel, The Last Western Heretic explores Professor Geering's world-view through a detailed discussion of nine of his principal ideas. In doing so, he makes simple and comprehensible the powerful theological and cultural ideas underpinning Western Civilisation.
In the documentary, Professor Geering explains his beliefs: God is not a personal being, there is no life after death, the Bible is not infallible, Jesus was not divine but wholly human, the dangers of fundamentalism, and the ethical imperative to care for the planet.
A critic of many conventional religious beliefs, Professor Geering is a Minister Emeritus of the Presbyterian Church, Emeritus Professor of Victoria University of Wellington, where he established the Department of Religious Studies, former Principal of Knox Theological College in Dunedin, and a recipient of the Order of New Zealand. A prolific writer and lecturer, he is the author of numerous books, including Tomorrow's God (reprint 2000), The World to Come: From Christian Past to Global Future (1999), The Greening of Christianity, and his most recent work, an autobiography, "Wrestling with God".
In 1966, while Professor of Old Testament Studies and Principal of Knox College Theological Hall in Dunedin, Professor Geering published an article on "The Resurrection of Jesus" and, in 1967, another on "The Immortality of the Soul," which together sparked a two-year public, theological controversy culminating in charges by the Presbyterian Church of heresy.
After a dramatic, two-day televised trial, the Assembly judged that no doctrinal error had been proved, dismissed the charges and declared the case closed. However the controversy lingered for some years, and has haunted the church ever since.” www.scoop.co.nz, 31/03/2008