KEY POINTS:
Theologian Lloyd Geering, who was charged with heresy nearly 40 years ago, is still slightly puzzled after receiving New Zealand's highest honour.
Professor Geering is one of two people appointed Members of the Order of New Zealand, an honour limited to 20 living New Zealanders.
The other is potter and educator Doreen Blumhardt.
"To be honest, I'm a bit puzzled about it," he said, adding, "I feel almost embarrassed about it."
The 88-year-old said his initial reaction when he learned he was to be given the honour was, "I didn't feel I'd done anything to deserve it at all."
Nevertheless, he had decided "to accept it, with gratitude, really".
In 1967, Professor Geering was charged with doctrinal error and disturbing the peace of the church in a dramatic two-day televised trial before the Presbyterian General Assembly.
As principal of the Theological Hall at Knox College in Dunedin, he had caused outrage with a sermon in which he refused to accept the immortality of the human soul.
A year earlier he had also offended some religious leaders with articles doubting the physical resurrection of Jesus, but the General Assembly ruled that no doctrinal error had been proved and dismissed the charges.
Professor Geering is holidaying in Cromwell with his wife, Shirley. The couple were also in Cromwell in early 2001 when he was given New Zealand's second-highest honour, the rank of Principal Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
Professor Geering's recently released autobiography, Wrestling with God, is into its second print. "I'm quite happy with that," he said, but added modestly that the book would mainly be of interest to "people who know me".
In an interview several years ago, Professor Geering said New Zealand's high youth suicide rate was a warning that secular individualism had gone too far and that a spiritual vacuum had developed.
This week, he expanded on his comments, saying humans were spiritual beings and he was concerned about the rise of a kind of "rudderless" secularism in which people had lost touch with the past.
A lot of people now "had no connection with the church and are left, as it were, rudderless", Professor Geering said. He predicted that spiritual movements would be much more closely focused on responding to the urgent plight of the Earth, given the realities of environmental damage.
Professor Geering was educated in Dunedin at St Clair Primary School and Otago Boys High School, before gaining a master of arts honours degree in mathematics at the University of Otago.
He studied at Knox College to become a minister and returned there in 1960 to teach, becoming principal three years later.
In 1971, he became the founding professor of religious studies at Victoria University, a post he held until 1984.
In 1976, he received an honorary doctorate from Otago University and in 1988 was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
- OTAGO DAILY TIMES
* An earlier version of this report from the Otago Daily Times about Professor Lloyd Geering said he was holidaying with his wife Elaine in Cromwell. Elaine died in 2001. He was actually holidaying with his wife Shirley. They married in 2004.
