A New Christianity For A New World
Published February 20, 2005
John Shelby Spong, a retired Episcopal Bishop, has a radical idea for reforming the Christian religion--one that would remove God from the picture. Spong refers to himself as a nontheist, which he argues is not identical to being an atheist. He claims to believe in a God which is not supernatural, but is rather a philosophical concept in the tradition of Paul Tillich's Ground of Being.
The book leads off with a quote from a letter by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian martyred for his opposition to Hitler.
Our coming of age leads us to a true recognition of our situation before God. God would have us know that we must live as men who manage our lives without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15.34). The God who lets us live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is the God before whom we stand continually. Before God and with God we live without God. ... He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us.
This sets the tone for the "death of God" theology which inspired Spong when he first became a pastor in the 1960's. Spong considers as his guiding light John Robinson, an Anglican Bishop who in 1963, published Honest To God, a book which shook up the Church of England by denying the existence of the traditional God, and ruined his career in the process. While the 73 year old Bishop Spong considers himself a follower of the now-deceased Robinson, Spong does not make clear whether he himself has any proteges within the Episcopal Church.
In 1998, Spong posted to the Internet twelve theses in, as he describes it, "Luther-like fashion." With such radical theses, one might reasonable question whether Bishop Spong can claim to be a Christian at all. Indeed, he expresses anxiety that he is following the path of colleagues like Don Cupitt, Lloyd Geering, and Robert Funk who he regards as having become post-Christians. Spong is reluctant to follow them that far.
How can one be a Christian without believing in the divinity of Christ? Perhaps in the same way one can be a Keynesian without believing in the divinity of John Maynard Keynes. One may reasonably question whether the historical Jesus considered himself to be God. But is there any question that Jesus believed in God? According to Spong,
It is important to document the fact that Christianity, at its inception, was pretheistic and only later and with slow developments was it, along with its Lord, overwhelmed by theistic concepts.
Perhaps this is sloppy writing. Critics of the development of Trinitarian Christianity argue that Jesus' concept of God would have been the conventional Jewish one of a supernatural unitarian God, and his apotheosis into God himself came as Christianity spread out of the Jewish community to pagan Greeks and Romans. It's hard to imagine that Spong's nontheistic interpretation of God corresponds to that of the historical Jesus.
- A New Christianity For A New World
- Published: February 20, 2005
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- Section: Books
- Filed Under: Books: Spirituality
- Writer: Rick Heller
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I've seen the Waslch books on the shelf, but haven't read one.
Is Spong some kind of fundamentalist mole, sent to destroy liberal Christianity from within? Doing a helluva job if he is; traditional Christianity sound positively vigorous and vital compared to his watery substitute.
I like what Flannery O'Connor told Mary McCarthy: "If it's a symbol, the hell with it."
Seems to me that without an actual supernatural god there's not much point in calling it Christainity. Let's all just be Taoists and be honest about it.
Dave
Oops -- my comment was intended to answer Rick's post. (Although I can't find a lot to object to in Dave's either.)
John Shelby Spong ideas for reform shouldn't get very far. The only Christian denomination that seems to continually rise in numbers is the Pentecostal one where fundamentalism rules. Dave Nalle said it best a few comments ago: "Let's all just be Taoists and be honest about it."
Rick - nice review, good and rational discussion of the meaning of religion and the meaning of "God."
Very interesting for someone -- like me -- who considers themself to be spiritual without believing in many of the strictures of organized religion.
I think that anyone who takes time to question God, has got to be out of their minds. How on earth can you question God? God is God. Whether the words of the bible are His or not, what matters is whether or not HE is in our hearts. We know that King David was crying out to God in the book of Psalms. Who dares to question God and his works? God is too deep to explain himself. The bible tells us when God spoke. It tells us whom He spoke to or through. His angels(or messengers)were also sent to speak his words. Wow, get a grip people. If you have Faith, then believe in your heart what is truth.
>>I think that anyone who takes time to question God, has got to be out of their minds. How on earth can you question God?<<
We can question God because God gave us the capacity to question him. That suggests that he wanted us to, and therefore it's ok. Untested faith attained without going through a process of questioning and understanding really has no value.
Dave
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Thanks. Rather than a new christianity or a new 'old' religion, I prefer a 'New God' as per Neale Walsh's book. Have you looked at that?