Thread: Purgatory: Is Jack Spong Dishonest and Wrong? Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by JimT (# 142) on :
 
The election of a gay bishop has spawned several postings here about the unprosecuted heresy of Spong, who purportedly lacked the integrity to leave the church when he lost his faith. If there is any heresy, it is Tillich’s non-personal God, as Spong has said. If there is any lack of integrity, it is among those who still embrace Tillich privately, but proclaim a personal God to a flock “not ready for the truth.” The following quotes come from Why Christianity Must Change or Die and Here I Stand. They are my primer on Spong, prompted by what I think are many misconceptions about Spong's beliefs and integrity.

Spong was willing to play politics with political conservatives, inside and outside the church. He was willing to play the literalist game with literalists who tried to block his confirmation as bishop. But I cannot see why he should be villified. I might have admired him more if he had left the church when some said the only reason why he was staying was a paycheck. But I still admire him for forcing people to either support or attack his stand.

Spong on Tillich and His Devotees

Tillich did preach in both the Union Seminary Chapel and the Harvard Chapel on a fairly regular basis, but the audiences who heard him in these rarefied academic setting were hardly your typical pew sitters. These theologians never had to deal with the reactions of ordinary folks who felt that their spiritual leader was destroying their faith. That would be the job of graduates like myself. Most graduates, I was to learn, however, would not rise to this challenge. They would graduate, pack up their seminary notes, and revert to the piety of their youth, undergirding their preaching with traditional religious understandings…I vowed that I would be different when I finally became a priest.

Spong on God

God, the source of life, calls us all to live fully. God, the source of love, calls us all to love wastefully. God the Ground of Being, calls us all to have the courage to be ourselves. So when we live, love, and have the courage to be, we are engaged in worship, we are expanding our humanity, we are breaking out of our barriers.

Spong on Jesus

Underneath the prevailing theistic images of God, we see a divine presence called spirit within us and most spectacularly in Jesus of Nazareth. We find our spirits touched by his spirit, our lives enhanced by his life, our being called to a new level by his being…Beyond the boundaries of theism, which have limited us for so long, we discover a startling revelation of God at the very center of human life, and Jesus, the spirit person, stands at the heart of that revelation.

Spong on Eternal Life

I want to make it clear that it is out of this same understanding of both God and Christ that I can state that I believe I do now, and will forever, share in that ultimate gift of life that is both transcendent and eternal…My conviction about eternal life, however, is not just a pious dream standing in hope at what seems to be the ultimate barrier of death. It is also attached to my understanding of God as the Ground of all Being…I [am] a believer who lives in the being of God, who loves with the love of God, and who anticipates some sense of eternity in which my being, differentiated and defined by the power of love, is joined with the being of others who are at one with the Ground of all Being.

Spong on Worship

Honesty compels me to admit that most of my difficulties with the words and concepts of worship arise from the fact that these words assume the truth of the theistic definition of God. In the traditional understanding of that word, I am not a theist. I do not believe that I have been a theist since the time that my theological life first began to be shaped by the aforementioned Christian scholar named Paul Tillich in the early fifties.…My life has thus been spent processing Tillich’s nontheistic thinking as it interacted with the received theistic tradition of the Christian faith…[see Spong on God for more on worship]

Spong on The Creeds

Our task is neither to literalize nor to worship the words of yesterday’s theological consensus. It is, rather, to return to the experience that created these creedal words in the first place and then to seek to incorporate that experience in the words that we today can use, without compromising its truth or our integrity as citizens of this century.

Spong on Primacy of Scripture

I have never ceased to make the Bible my primary textbook.

Spong on The Value of Truth and Integrity above Unity

I [believe] the church should meet the issues of our world head on and that truth [is] more important to me than church unity. Unity is a very secondary virtue. Faithfulness and integrity [are] primary.

Spong on His Integrity During Election and Confirmation to the Episcopate

The big issues of that day were the ordination of women to the priesthood and the proposed revision of the Book of Common Prayer. When these apparently divisive questions were asked of me, I responded as simply and bluntly as I could. If I was to be elected, I certainly did not want it to be on some false premise. So when asked about the ordination of women, I said “I favor it. Next question.”…When asked about the revision of the 1928 prayer book, I responded, “I helped to write it, so of course I’m in favor of its adoption.”…A man who introduced himself as “Father Wantland” [but] had been ordained to the priesthood without attending an accredited seminary…set about to check out my orthodoxy over the telephone. He read me some passages from antiquity that I immediately recognized as the writings of Arius, the protagonist to Athanasius in the battle to formulate the creeds in the early fourth century…I told him he was reading from Arius and why I believed that Arius’s understanding of Christology was inadequate. He was pleased and Oklahoma's standing committee voted to concur with my election. I did not have a chance to tell him that I also believed Athanasius’s understanding of Christology to be inadequate. Bill could only deal with one litmus test at a time.

[ 01. November 2003, 21:50: Message edited by: Erin ]
 

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Posted by shareman (# 2871) on :
 
Spong has published his twelve theses on the web, but to avoid copyright difficulties, I will abbreviate and paraphrase them. They're available all over the public domain, so I don't believe there's any copyright infringement.

A Call For A New Reformation
1. Theism can't be used to define God.

I'm not sure what this means, but why? Why can we not think of God as outside ourselves? That's just a statement of lack of faith.

2. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.

Again, why?

3. The biblical Creation story is mythology and is nonsensical in a post-Darwinian world.

This statement is hubris. Of course the Biblical story of the Creation of perfect humanity which fell is myth, but it is, IMHO, perfectly in keeping with Evolution. We humans have an understanding of guilt and sin which is different from that of even our closest primate relatives. Chimps know right from wrong, and can be psychologically damaged by ill treatment, so they do have a long term memory of things that can effect their emotional well-being. What there is no evidence for is chimps bearing a long term burden of guilt. Whatever the event in our evolution that Genesis refers to as eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, it is the thing makes us different, it is the Fall. That's what myth IS, for God's sake, a means of expressing profound truth in an understandable way.



4. The virgin birth...(is)impossible.

Well, yeah, but why should it be impossible for God, the "ground of all being?" This is merely a statement of lack of faith.

5. The miracle stories of the New Testament can't be accepted in a post-Newtonian world.

Why? Only if you believe Spong's premises about God being understood "non-theistically." Many of the miracles are about making people ritually pure, healing the sick, for instance, who were kept out of the Temple because if their impurities. Jesus came to reunite us with God (cf. the idea in the thread about was the veil of the temple torn?). His healings did just that, in an earthly sense. Why is "a post Newtonian world" so important? God made the laws of Physics, God can break them. Again, miracles are only a problem if you don't believe in an Almighty God in the first place.

6. The view of the cross as a sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea...

This is perhaps the most disturbing. It is amazing that a bishop should be so out of touch with the human condition. Continuing with my point about our human quality of guilt, Spong seems to ignore the fact that we humans carry longterm guilt. Every human society has a concept of atonement for wrongdoing. When we apologize, we say "How can I make it up to you?" This idea that we must in some way do something to make up for past sins is universal in human culture. What about the sins we can't make up for? That's where the guilt comes in. What about the guilt we carry that we don't really deserve to carry? The Cross says that it is all forgiven. The price demanded by our need to atone in order to be whole again has been paid for us. This is a basic part of being human, not some bizarre Semitic concept.

7. Resurrection is about Jesus being "raised into the meaning of God."

I'm not altogether sure what this means, but it strikes me as just being the logical conclusion to be made from Spong's concept of a non-theistic deity. I reject that concept, and I reject this. Why should the Resurrection not be an event in human history? Who even says the Resurrection IS in human history. The Orthodox have a concept of Easter being the Eighth Day of Creation, when Christ makes all things new. (Orthodox Shipmates, please clarify). We are told in Scripture that the Kingdom is all around us. I believe that, God being outside time itself, the Kingdom IS, in a way, already here. It exists in that place beyond time. Christ, being God, could thus be outside time, yet visible within it if He was Resurrected into the Kingdom. (Not clear, because I can't adequately frame the concept).

8. The story of the ascension assumed a three-tiered universe...

As did the Apostles, so it was logical for Christ to be seen going up. He could have gone sideways, He could have just winked out, but how would the Apostles have understood that? God, the man needs a sense of the abstract.

9. There is no external, objective, revealed standard writ...

Yes there is. For Christians, it's called the Bible. Interpretation will always happen, and people will always argue over it, but it's still there!

Prayer:

He says it cannot be a request to a deity to act in history in a particular way. Why not? I don't ask God for much, actually, except the strength to deal with what He sends me and to trust that He knows what's best, and He gives me that strength. For others, it's a comfort to ask God for help. They get help, maybe not what they're looking or maybe it only comes after long pain and questioning of the whole idea of God, maybe it leads to a crisis of fatih if it's not the help we think we need, but again, where's faith in all this?


As for guilt as a motivator of behaviour, well, it seems the Christian message is about freedom from guilt. I know guilt has been used as a means of "crowd control", but come on, if this layman can understand that as a perversion of the Gospel, why can't a bishop?

All human beings bear God’s image and must be respected for what each person is.

No quarrel there.

For me, Spong's greatest sin is hubris. He seems to think that modern science has, or will have, all the answers. He seems to think that he is right and two thousand years of Chistian thinkers are wrong. Of course the fact that science and religion ask different questions seems never to have occured to him. I think he's wrong, and his ideas are not very comforting to me. I think he's dishonest because he denies the message of the faith, and has rephrased it some way that makes sense to his worldly understanding. What's worse is the arrogance that says the Church has to change because he doesn't believe any more, and that must all follow in his disbelief. I don't believe in the teachings of Hinduism, that's why I'm not a Hindu. I have great respect for the faith of my Hindu friends, and they have great respect for my faith. As one friend says "I think Hinduism is best, you think Christianity is best, what's the problem with just accepting that?" If Spong doesn't believe any more, I have no quarrel with that, but he should take off his mitre and walk away. You don't HAVE to be Christian, you know. But then again, there's no Church pension, is there. I wonder what he'd do if he worked for a weapons manufacturer and then became a pacifist.
 

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Posted by strathclydezero (# 180) on :
 
Was Thomas made any less of a disciple when he 'lost' his faith?
 

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Posted by Jerry Boam (# 4551) on :
 
I can't believe no one is taking you up on this!

(well there you go, two posts while I was typing!)

When I first was drawn to Christianity a few years ago, I thought I was going to love Spong. He held views I found sympathetic on a broad range of issues and his Tillich based "ground of all being" stuff fit with some of my Buddhist perspectives nicely.

But I got irritated with his narrow definitions of theism and determined opposition to a personal aspect to God. He seems to say, over and again, that the only theistic conception possible is the bearded guy in the clouds. And he argues against a personal aspect to God as such a person could only have the qualities that his staunchest opponents ascribe to their image of God.

I came away from reading several of his books with the overall impression of a wonderful man who was somewhat damaged and distorted by his constant battle with narrow minded conservatives and simplistic theologies.

I am still learning about this faith and working through what I believe about it, but I have no vehement disagreement with him on any point.

I would disagree with his precise and limited imagining of Jesus, but not very strongly.

I am looking forward to the stronger comments that must be coming.

[ 08. August 2003, 21:53: Message edited by: Jerry Boam ]
 

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Posted by shareman (# 2871) on :
 

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Originally posted by strathclydezero:
Was Thomas made any less of a disciple when he 'lost' his faith?

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Originally posted by shareman:

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Originally posted by strathclydezero:
Was Thomas made any less of a disciple when he 'lost' his faith?

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But he got it back. And he didn't demand the rest of the gang follow him into disbelief.

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Yes ... but he was not rejected during the time he did not have belief.

Regardless, Spong is a different league next to a man he claims as one of his former mentors, the former Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway. Spong recycles ideas familiar to anyone who has studied theology while Holloway is an original thinker who is not afraid to ask new and difficult questions and feels no need to find easy answers. For me this is the key to liberal Christian thought, finding new ideas and breaking new ground.
 

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Posted by Merseymike (# 3022) on :
 
Nor did Spong. I don't agree with everything he said, but I recognise a 'bogeyman' when I see one.
 

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Posted by Wm Duncan (# 3021) on :
 
I haven't read him, but haven't heard any quotes by him that weren't part of the mainstream of Christian theology in Europe/America in the last century. The anti-modernist backlash puts him in the limelight, but that doesn't make his thought particularly novel or outside the fold of Christian faith.

I don't think it's up to him to leave the church if he doesn't believe he's "lost his faith" -- but rather, that he's honestly and faithfully addressing its questions. If the church determines he's lost its faith, then he might be removed.

Wm Duncan
 

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Posted by JimT (# 142) on :
 
I thank people for responding. It's not possible in a thread to fully discuss each piece of Spong's theology and I apologize for inviting that by giving a long list of beliefs. I tried to hit on what I thought most people would think essential for evaluating someone as "heretical." Also, I wanted to touch on "honesty" by showing that he was consistent from his collegiate days.

I do think it is a fair cop to accuse him as seeing the world in terms of only two options: Southern US Fundamentalism, in which he was raised, or Liberal Existentialist Theology of the 1950's, which he essentially converted to as a seminarian. He is a product of his times and of his past. I am a product of similar times and a similar past so it is easier for me to have sympathy with him.

But I will ask this question about "losing one's faith." If a Fundamentalist changes from a literal view of Adam to a mythic view, has he "lost his faith" or "grown in faith?" What about an evangelical who changes from a theistic view of God to a nontheistic one? Internally, the person says, "I've not lost my faith, I only now see it clearly and in a new light." Outsiders who have not made the shift say, "No, you've simply lost your faith." Is that a fair statement to make?
 

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Posted by jugular (# 4174) on :
 
I have read most of Spong's work and see it for what it is - populist literature intended to provoke thought and discussion about a new form of orthodoxy. Nothing in it is new to anyone who has studied theology, but his writings have a resonance about them which challenges the church into new ways of being.

To my mind, +Spong is primarily an ecclesiologist rather than a theologian. He has little or no original material, and eschews the term "liberal". He is better described as progressive orthodox, and his method of argument is rooted in evangelical theology and methodology.

I think that he is right in claiming that history will condemn him, not for being too radical, but for not being radical enough.

Did I mention he's coming to my church in October?

 

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Posted by Jerry Boam (# 4551) on :
 

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Originally posted by JimT:
If a Fundamentalist changes from a literal view of Adam to a mythic view, has he "lost his faith" or "grown in faith?"

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What about an evangelical who changes from a theistic view of God to a nontheistic one? Internally, the person says, "I've not lost my faith, I only now see it clearly and in a new light." Outsiders who have not made the shift say, "No, you've simply lost your faith." Is that a fair statement to make?

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Originally posted by Jerry Boam:
But then I would ask them about their definition of theism and if there might not be a theistic position that encompassed their perceptions of a nontheistic God--or perhaps some middle ground between a theistic and nontheistic position.

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I am such a person. Thank you for asking the question; I will try to answer.

"Theistic" means to me "personal" which is to say, "a metaphysical entity with a mind, a will, and an intention; also, with an ability to communicate it's thoughts, will, and intentions conversationally." I have never experienced this with a non-biological being. The notion that God always listens, answers symbolically or by causing something to happen, or simply waits a very very long time to respond because he somehow knows that you need to find it out for yourself or do it yourself or whatever paints a picture of a cat who likes to toy with a mouse. I can imagine no "personal" picture of an all-powerful God that does not make him a bad person for the way he communicates, controls, and assents to the suffering of his creatures and creation.

My philosophical and theological problems are solved by positing a non-person that manifests itself in the visible universe. I cannot imagine a "half-person" who created me and does not speak to me intelligibly while assenting to my suffering, but I am listening if you are talking.
 

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Posted by JimT (# 142) on :
 
Sorry to double-post, but I greatly appreciate jugular's insight. I almost said that Spong actually appears to me to be a Neo-Orthodox, like one of his other mentors, Reinhold Niebuhr, and that he synthesizes 20th century academic orthodoxy into layman's terms as part of his educational mission, which he always made primary as a priest and bishop.

But I didn't think anyone would take me seriously. Suggesting that the Ship's poster-boy of heresy could in any way be "orthodox"...well I just thought it would be a hailstorm. Leave it to the Ship's Rebel.

I am half considering signing up for a Borg seminar that will include Spong in the upcoming academic year. Why the himself might make an appearance and give his assent!
 

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Posted by TheMightyTonewheel (# 4730) on :
 

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Originally posted by strathclydezero:

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Originally posted by shareman:

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Originally posted by strathclydezero:
Was Thomas made any less of a disciple when he 'lost' his faith?

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But he got it back. And he didn't demand the rest of the gang follow him into disbelief.

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Yes ... but he was not rejected during the time he did not have belief.

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I've attended two Spong talks, and both times he resorted to dehumanizing his opponents instead of addressing their arguments. (On one occasion, a liberal philosophy professor wrote a response on Spong, saying he would be unlikely to pass one of the university's second-year philosophy courses).

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Originally posted by Merseymike:

Of course he is a populist ; he would be the first to say that is his aim. Nothing wrong with that.

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Originally posted by Lou Poulain:
[QUOTE]
Populizer?

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Originally posted by RuthW:
I read Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism and partway through every chapter I could have drawn a heavy black line and written "Here's where he starts just making things up."

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Originally posted by jugular:
Could you please offer some proof for that Tonewheel? +Spong's autobiography says that during his tenure the diocese increased its average attendance by 2% and that the diocese was in a much more secure financial state when he left than when he arrived. One of you is wrong. Or do you live in the diocese of Newark?

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Originally posted by St. Cuervo:
So Spong's biography claims average attendance increased 2%? Dr. Crew's numbers on membership wouldn't disprove that. It is possible that the average attendance increased while the membership decreased. This is part of the phenomena known as "post-denominationalism" where more and more people attend parishes regularly but do not join.

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I would also note that it is probably flawed to try to use numbers to justify theology. A growing parish or diocese is not necessarly a sign of one that is discipling its members into greater Christlikeness. Conversely a shrinking diocese or parish may be shrinking because it has takes some unpopular, but very Christlike, stands on certain issues. So it is hard to use numbers by themselves without knowing more.

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Originally posted by fatprophet:
ECUSA must be for those people who have a questing spirituality but don't want any dogma, no absolute theological truth, no concept of orthodoxy as opposed to heresy. Indeed it's religious nature has disolved and blended in completely into the popular post-modern spirituality that is all pervasive, a vague belief in something vague and a commitment to the ideals of love and goodness without angels, demons, heavens and hells, and without a God.
(if God is not an objective reality, then whatever Tillich says, there is no God)

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Originally posted by RuthW:
But you need to consider how membership is counted in the ECUSA. Attending and taking communion are what make you a member; notice that Louie Crew's page doesn't say "members" - it says "communicants." You can be confirmed if you want (and must be if you want to be an officer of the parish), you can transfer your letter from one parish to another if you want, but the thing that actually counts, as far as we are concerned, is coming to church and taking communion three times a year.

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It would be good to have quotes from the talks and some more specific information to support this too. For instance who is this professor and where does he teach?

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(Er...I didn't know this would be required! ) The first talk was at Queen's University in 1990, and it's not transcribed anywhere, but I wasn't aware that fact would preclude its authenticity. The talk DID happen, and I'm simply explaining my impression of it.

The second talk was in 1993 in Vancouver, called Christian sexual ethics: a dialogue with John Stott and John Spong produced by Anglican Video in association with Diocese of New Westminster, Regent College and Vancouver School of Theology. Toronto: Distributed by Anglican Book Centre, 1993. (28 min., 30 sec.)

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It wouldn't surprise me to find someone with a good genuine academic reason to criticise him but when you don't give names, references, links etc. it can sound a bit like repeating a smear, which I'm sure is not the impression you want to give.

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Quotes from the talks to demonstrate your point would be nice too.

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Originally posted by jugular:
Could you please offer some proof for that Tonewheel? +Spong's autobiography says that during his tenure the diocese increased its average attendance by 2% and that the diocese was in a much more secure financial state when he left than when he arrived. One of you is wrong. Or do you live in the diocese of Newark?

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Originally posted by RuthW:
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of the state of New Jersey grew 8.6% between 1990-2000. The counties which are part of the diocese of Newark grew in population variously - a low of 2.0%, a high of 11.7%, with an average of 8.07%, between 1990-2000.

So the overall population of the diocese of Newark grew, while the number of communicants in its parishes shrank.

New Jersey stats

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Ruth, I'm so sorry. I just submitted a horribly unfortunate cross-post. Perhaps we should share the research load in the future.


 

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Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 

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Originally posted by St. Cuervo:
So, RuthW, would say that Dr. Crew's numbers on "communicants" and Bishop Spong's (as reported by jugular) reference to "regular attendance" refer to the same thing?

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Don't ECUSA churches keep lists of members entitled to do things like vote people onto committees? Or is that the same as communicants? In which case presumably they'd have to record the names of communicants in some way??

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Originally posted by St. Cuervo:

So, RuthW, would say that Dr. Crew's numbers on "communicants" and Bishop Spong's (as reported by jugular) reference to "regular attendance" refer to the same thing?

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Originally posted by JimT:
Every historian does this when they try to truly recreate the past. Spong, Wright, and Borg ...

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Originally posted by RuthW:

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Originally posted by JimT:
Every historian does this when they try to truly recreate the past. Spong, Wright, and Borg ...

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Spong is hardly an historian!

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Originally posted by RuthW:
[QUOTE]This is so insulting I don't know where to begin. I'll try not to let it intrude on my thoughts tomorrow morning while I am contemplating the Real Presence in the Eucharist.

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I am not sure why you are so insulted Ruth. Though I am sorry if my post is open to being interpreted in an insulting way .

What I said could be positive for some people, negative for others. There are lots of people out there who have a questing spirituality that is not satisfied with traditional dogma.
However if you personally think traditional doctrines are important, it is probably just as well to realise that your denomination and house of bishops do not.

Or are we saying that Spong is to ECUSA only a tiny aberration that everyone has decided to avoid thinking about?
I'm afraid that I'm one of those people (like Spong himself) that believes that if one knows the truth one should fight for it and that truth excludes its opposite.
If Spong is telling his church that its traditional theology is unacceptable, then equally the church has a right (if it wants) to tell Spong that his very untraditional beliefs or interpretation is equally unacceptable. If you believe truths then you must vigorously defend them (without shedding any blood of course) or you betray them.
 

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Posted by fatprophet (# 3636) on :
 

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Originally posted by Jerry Boam:
I have to disagree with your comment about God as "objective" reality. God is the subjective reality par excellence. God is not an object of any kind. God is neither an external thing, nor an internal thing. God is not part of spacetime. If God exists then it's spacetime that is part of God. You seem to be siding with Spong in suggestig that he has to be either some version of the bearded guy floating around in drag or nothing that can be described in theistic terms.

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Originally posted by fatprophet:
I must say that I believe to the contrary that God is the OBJECTIVE reality par excellence. God is the only real real from whom all other objects are derivative or reflections.

<snip>

Of course there is a distinction between subjective perception and the "thing in itself".

<snip>

A purely subjective God would only exist because of us. An objective God means that we would only exist because of God. I somehow think the latter is more Christian.

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Originally posted by TheMightyTonewheel:
His primary market were the survivors of American fundamentalist subculture, most of whom will listen to anything that comes off as critical of their parents' beliefs.

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…and TheMightyTonewheel has provided some basis for his rambling dissing, I’ll make a response.

Tonewheel has two objections:

1. Spong is a terrible philosopher.
2. Spong’s diocese shrank while he was there.

What evidence does he give? The evidence of “terrible philosophy” is “He frequently relies on imprecise language and charged rhetortic instead of arguments to make his points.” The real knock then, is not against his philosophy, nor his philosophical powers but his presentation. Yet the link he provides says this, “And in fact, only he was on the side of 'mere Christianity' he would be one of the outstanding witnesses of our age. For one thing, he has courage, and his presentational skills are absolutely brilliant.” Further, the same article covers a wide range of topics and quotes including, “What I'd like to be is at the point of life, that I'm so affirmed by the love of God, that I would be willing to give my life away for anybody.” And what do the headlines for the article scream? African Christians? They're just a step up from witchcraft. Talk about dehumanizing your opposition and using charged rhetoric. Spong has seen African priests lay hands on homosexuals to cast out demons. He says they do this because of a shortage of time in a post-scientific age. So the author dehumanizes Spong with the rhetorical question, “How far are such words removed from the colonialism of the past when Europeans shamefully talked about Africans as savages?”



If Spong’s diocese shrank, that proves nothing. Jesus’ ministry shrank to 12 on the night he was betrayed.

I don’t suppose there is any hope of extracting an apology from Mr. Mighty, but it would do me a world of good to hear one for the crack about gullible ex-Fundamentalists.
 

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Posted by J. J. Ramsey (# 1174) on :
 

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Originally posted by JimT:
Now that I’m past this little piece of humor…
The evidence of “terrible philosophy” is “He frequently relies on imprecise language and charged rhetortic instead of arguments to make his points.” The real knock then, is not against his philosophy, nor his philosophical powers but his presentation.

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But I will ask this question about "losing one's faith." If a Fundamentalist changes from a literal view of Adam to a mythic view, has he "lost his faith" or "grown in faith?" What about an evangelical who changes from a theistic view of God to a nontheistic one? Internally, the person says, "I've not lost my faith, I only now see it clearly and in a new light." Outsiders who have not made the shift say, "No, you've simply lost your faith." Is that a fair statement to make?

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Hmmm…I think that depends on a lot of things.

(Declaration of variables: Lee=person in question; A=orig. belief; B=new belief.)


--Is Lee moving from belief in something false to belief in something true?

--Did Lee really believe A? Does she really believe B?

--Why is she moving? Because of new insight, or being told that “everyone knows A is stupid and out of fashion”, or because her friends believe B, or because her parents believe A?

--Did A help Lee somehow in getting through life? Will B?


To outsiders who believe A, she may well have lost her faith—because she’s lost –that- faith.

It’s also possible that Lee will move away from A, but not find B—at least, not right away. She may check out C, D, A’, ZZ, etc. She may just decide to spread her wings for a while!

(I tried to move this away from the specific fundamentalist to non-theist progression Jim set up, so the ideas would apply to movement between any two beliefs. People do move in all sorts of directions!)


And:

quote:

---

Some minds fill it in with a miraculous and supernatural set of miracles culminating in the physical resurrection and ascension and other minds fill it in with a growth of the natural into the supernatural in the minds of those who were witnesses at the time. There is a heavy black line where everybody makes things up, except for the truly dogmatic agnostic who says they can't be sure of anything at all.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimT:
Now that I’m past this little piece of humor…

quote:

---

Originally posted by TheMightyTonewheel:
His primary market were the survivors of American fundamentalist subculture, most of whom will listen to anything that comes off as critical of their parents' beliefs.

---

…and TheMightyTonewheel has provided some basis for his rambling dissing, I’ll make a response.

Tonewheel has two objections:

The evidence of “terrible philosophy” is “He frequently relies on imprecise language and charged rhetortic instead of arguments to make his points.” The real knock then, is not against his philosophy, nor his philosophical powers but his presentation.

---

quote:

---

And what do the headlines for the article scream? African Christians? They're just a step up from witchcraft. Talk about dehumanizing your opposition and using charged rhetoric.

---

quote:

---

If Spong’s diocese shrank, that proves nothing. Jesus’ ministry shrank to 12 on the night he was betrayed.

---

Yyyyeah...but it sort of took off from there. The point is that Spong believed his version of Christianity would help the church "change or die". It was his theory that these changes would prove popular and help the church define itself.

quote:

---

I don’t suppose there is any hope of extracting an apology from Mr. Mighty, but it would do me a world of good to hear one for the crack about gullible ex-Fundamentalists.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Louise:
I've seen several posts recently where Spong was used as a kind of shorthand for heresy, so I'm always curious with these 'bogeyman' figures as to whether people can stand up what they say about them.

---

quote:

---

I'm a little confused though, you mention an English teacher who moderated a debate I thought it was a 'liberal philosophy professor' who criticised him.

---

Well, he has more than one critic. I've been at two Spong talks, the first at Queen's University was responded to by a non-Christian philosophy professor. I can only wish I had the article: it was called "Methinks the Bishop protests too much", and I remember it for it's pithy quote saying Spong couldn't pass one of his second-year courses.

The second talk was actually a debate with John Stott in Vancouver, and was moderated by Maxine Hancock, the english professor. Later, she wrote an article in Crux Magazine that I quoted. I'll get it tomorrow and post it (or send private e-mails if it winds up to be too unwieldy).
 

---

Posted by TheMightyTonewheel (# 4730) on :
 
I found an even better example of Spong's style:

Spong article on John Stott published on Beliefnet

Quoth Spong: John Stott is quoted as saying that "the great tragedy of the Church today is that evangelicals are biblical, but not contemporary, while liberals are contemporary, but not biblical." It is a nice try, a clever, evenhanded approach, but it does not work. It is not biblical to read the Bible in a superstitious, ill-informed manner. It is not biblical for John Stott to justify every prejudice, to whitewash chauvinism, racism, homophobia, and a not-so-subtle hatred for everyone who does not affirm the evangelical value system.

This kind of writing is almost exactly what you hear on a grade 6 playground. It's just claim after claim after claim. Stott's approach doesn't work, it's not biblical, it's racist, homophobic, blah blah blah. No examples, no arguments, no nothing. You might just as well say someone is racist because they're racist. (Incredibly, in this 1500 word attack on Stott, Spong can manage to quote Stott only once, the line I referenced above). I mean alot of this stuff is just made up. Evangelicalism is dying? He can't be serious.

John Spong was a curiosity. The media was really interested in a Bishop that talked the way he did. He turned theology into kind of a circus sideshow. Ocassionally, he said some really interesting things, and I loved the way to talked about how God was a mystery and too big too fully understand. But John Spong's impact will ultimately like his arguments: a mile wide but only an inch deep.
 

---

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 
fatprophet, do you really not see that saying we in the ECUSA only have "a vague belief in something vague" is insulting? And do you think if that's all we have there would have been people in church this morning in the blistering heat?
 

---

Posted by JimT (# 142) on :
 
Tonewheel, thanks for the apology. I hear what you and JJ are saying about Spong's style of communication in the media. He uses the media and the media use him. But it is unfair to characterize the man's philosophy solely on magazine articles, interviews, and posting on the internet. Spong is far more deliberate in his books than in interviews, as everyone is.

What particularly galls me about the media charge of racism is that He was revulsed by his father's racism and began working hard and bravely on black civil rights as a teenager. The racist charge is too low.

And Erin, what would you expect a Presbyterian bishop from South Carolina who wrote a book entitled The Cruelty of Heresy: An Affirmation of Christian Orthodoxy to say about any progressive liberal? I'm betting Jesuitical Lad is right there on the same page with the good doctor. Now if Marcus Borg had said it of Spong, I might raise an eyebrow. But Fitzsimons? Typical conservative/liberal banter, that's all that is, and it deserves zero attention from anyone.

More than the heretics of the past, Spong reflects 20th century theologians like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Reinhold Niebuhr whose theology strongly stressed our role in revealing God as active members of the Body of Christ doing the work of Christ. Jugular is correct in labeling him more ecclesiologist than theologist. Spong worked for two tumultuous decades in the black civil rights movements and paid a personal price for it. Once a homophobe, he worked for the next two decades in a similar capacity for gays after his interactions with them and research on the subject convinced him that this too was a matter of civil rights. His admirable efforts were inspired more by theologians of the 20th century than by heretics of prior centuries, and he is more fairly characterized as an implementer of modern theology rather than an unconfessed heretic.
 

---

Posted by Erin (# 2) on :
 
Since when is Allison a Presbyterian? Hell, he was one of the ordaining bishops of the Anglican Mission in America.

However, the point remains -- Jack Spong offers no new revelation. All of his twelve theses (ha ha HA!) are reincarnations of ancient and modern heresies that have been dealt with by the church already.
 

---

Posted by TheMightyTonewheel (# 4730) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimT:
Tonewheel, thanks for the apology. I hear what you and JJ are saying about Spong's style of communication in the media. He uses the media and the media use him. But it is unfair to characterize the man's philosophy solely on magazine articles, interviews, and posting on the internet. Spong is far more deliberate in his books than in interviews, as everyone is.

---

quote:

---

And Erin, what would you expect a Presbyterian bishop from South Carolina who wrote a book entitled The Cruelty of Heresy: An Affirmation of Christian Orthodoxy to say about any progressive liberal? ... Now if Marcus Borg had said it of Spong, I might raise an eyebrow. But Fitzsimons? Typical conservative/liberal banter, that's all that is, and it deserves zero attention from anyone.

---

JimT, you're doing exactly what I've been criticizing Spong for doing. It's not valid to say Fitzsimmons was wrong about Spong simply because he's Fitzsimmons. That's not a reason. It's an argumentum ad hominem: the practise of picking some personal feature or weakness about somebody and using it to dismiss everything they say. It's It doesn't matter whether Marcus Borg said it, or Fitzsimmons said it, or some schmuck from a pig farm in Toldeo said it. Because the question is not who said it, the question is whether it's true. A word to the wise: evaluate arguments and ideas on their merits, not on whether the person who made them aggravated your prejudices.

In Christ.
 

---

Posted by jugular (# 4174) on :
 

quote:

---

Since when is Allison a Presbyterian?

---

quote:

---

All of his twelve theses (ha ha HA!) are reincarnations of ancient and modern heresies that have been dealt with by the church already.

---

The death of theism has not been "dealt with" by the church - just go down to your local theology faculty and find how many academic theologians are addressing this very issue. Not to mention at a grass roots level where people ask questions like "How can a loving God allow suffering?" and are no longer satisfied with the pat answers

Belief in a literal "virgin" birth have not been "dealt with" by the church, unless you count such models of outstanding theology as the doctrine of the immaculate conception.

Also, to use the word "heresy" as a term of derision is fraught with difficulty. Anti-theism is a relatively new concept, and much modern theology flows out of this new style of thought. (I am conscious that many mystics have been anti-theist down through the ages, but their views have not achieved mainstream awareness). Anti-theism lies at the heart of Spong's theology, and is not a "heresy" that has been "dealt with" by the church at all. The 12 theses are not terribly radical. As Spong himself claims, he is not making up something new, he is simply bringing contemporary thinking out of the academy and into the church at large.
 

---

Posted by jugular (# 4174) on :
 

quote:

---

Because the question is not who said it, the question is whether it's true. A word to the wise: evaluate arguments and ideas on their merits, not on whether the person who made them aggravated your prejudices.

---

quote:

---

They liked Spong because he was colourful, not because he was prophetic.

---

quote:

---

whatever it was Spong had cooking in that noggin of his, it wasn't sticking to the ribs in his own Diocese.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by jugular:

quote:

---

Since when is Allison a Presbyterian?

---

Er, I believe its called hyperbole.

---

quote:

---

The death of theism has not been "dealt with" by the church - just go down to your local theology faculty and find how many academic theologians are addressing this very issue. Not to mention at a grass roots level where people ask questions like "How can a loving God allow suffering?" and are no longer satisfied with the pat answers

Belief in a literal "virgin" birth have not been "dealt with" by the church, unless you count such models of outstanding theology as the doctrine of the immaculate conception.

---

To the first point: you'll have to forgive me if I don't consider denomination-based, theological eggheads permanently ensconced in the ivory towers of academia to be "the church". When I say "dealt with by the church", I am speaking of the ancient councils. My apologies, I assumed that was understood.

To the second: I'm not sure which church you're talking about, but the one I'm familiar with has most assuredly dealt with the Virgin Birth. I refer you to your local Nicene and Apostle's Creeds for confirmation. As for the Immaculate Conception, that is highly tangential to the Virgin Birth and is relevant to one particular group's understanding of the Incarnation.
 

---

Posted by jugular (# 4174) on :
 
Oh, for fuck's sake! Hyperbole is the deliberate use of exaggeration to make a (usually satirical) point.

Allison was referred to as Presbyterian because of his anti-episcopal actions and reformed evangelical theology. By deliberately exaggerating the description, JimT drew attention to the fact that the author clearly had a pre-existing bias and agenda. It is a well-worn debating technique, and one which anyone with half a brain can work out.
 

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Posted by jugular (# 4174) on :
 
Now to the substance of the debate.

Erin wrote:

quote:

---

you'll have to forgive me if I don't consider denomination-based, theological eggheads permanently ensconced in the ivory towers of academia to be "the church". When I say "dealt with by the church", I am speaking of the ancient councils. My apologies, I assumed that was understood.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimT:
And Erin, what would you expect a Presbyterian bishop from South Carolina who wrote a book entitled The Cruelty of Heresy: An Affirmation of Christian Orthodoxy to say about any progressive liberal?

---

I rather liked that book. In fact I thought it was very good. I recommend it to people.

I almost thought that I understood the Monophysite controversy for a few days after I first read it.
 

---

Posted by Erin (# 2) on :
 
The only point I get of yours, jugular, is that you are either unaware that personal attacks belong in one place only, and Purgatory ain't it; or think that you are exempt from the rules. If that was Jim's point, it was a piss-poor way of illustrating it, and insulting to the Presbyterians on the board (which is, again, not allowed).

As to your other statements -- just because a theological belief was used as a weapon doesn't automatically mean it was wrong to start with. And no, I do not believe that we are getting any new revelations in this day and age that contradict the fundamentals (i.e., the creeds).
 

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Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
Re the question of Right and Wrong
As it applies to Bishop Spong
And his notions of... lots of things,
Here my little poem sings:
I will sing to the highest Heaven
That I agree with Iga (Kevin)
And I will shout to deepest Hell
That I agree with Erin as well.
When others say that which I would
My posts are shorter -- and that's good.

David
PS: I think Allison's book is good
But then, as with Lewis, I guess I would
 

---

Posted by JimT (# 142) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Erin:
If that was Jim's point, it was a piss-poor way of illustrating it, and insulting to the Presbyterians on the board (which is, again, not allowed).

---

quote:

---

[Name of bishop-elect], through these promises you have committed yourself to God, to serve his Church in the office of bishop. We therefore call upon you, chosen to be a guardian of the Church's faith, to lead us in confessing that faith.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Erin:
If that was Jim's point, it was a piss-poor way of illustrating it, and insulting to the Presbyterians on the board (which is, again, not allowed).

---

I read the reference to Bishop Allison as a "Presbyterian" as a compliment...



Who wouldn't want to be known for doing things "decently and in order"?

St. C.
 

---

Posted by Erin (# 2) on :
 
According to jugular's highly creative and completely groundless interpretation of the mix-up, it would not have been intended as a compliment.

But it's no matter, because that wasn't the intent.
 

---

Posted by Nightlamp (# 266) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by jugular:
Oh, for fuck's sake! Hyperbole is the deliberate use of exaggeration to make a (usually satirical) point.

<snip> It is a well-worn debating technique, and one which anyone with half a brain can work out.

---

quote:

---

If a Fundamentalist changes from a literal view of Adam to a mythic view, has he "lost his faith" or "grown in faith?"

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimT:
Still, it is obvious that Fitzsimons has a traditional view of heresy that would no doubt find Tillich, Borg, and many other 20th century Protestant theologians "heretical."

---

quote:

---

This is my real point in response to Erin's criticism of Spong as recycled heresy: there is no doubt that Spong is a heretic in the eyes of the 6th century Roman Catholic church.

---

quote:

---

There is also no doubt that Erin would undoubtedly be branded a heretic by any 6th century council for asserting that Adam was merely a mythical creature and not the first Man created by God, as described plainly and factually in Genesis. NT Wright would be a heretic as well.

---

quote:

---

It may be argued that this is an heretical view of heresy, but the fact remains that the standards of "heresy" must change as time moves forward or we are frozen in past world views with their limited circumspection of Truth.

---

quote:

---

To the modern evangelical, the "one time" miracles begin when one turns the page from Malachai to Matthew; prior to that, the Bible is myth and legend.

---

quote:

---

They deride Fundamentalists for failing to see this.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by jugular:
Not least because a literal virgin birth has been used as a tool to demean women to being mere vessels and to de-feminise God.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by jugular:
I have read most of Spong's work and see it for what it is - populist literature intended to provoke thought and discussion about a new form of orthodoxy.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:
Originally posted by JimT:

quote:

---

They deride Fundamentalists for failing to see this.

---

We do? Where do we do that? I'd like to see one single quote from an "evangelical" mocking a "fundamentalist" for thinking there is history in the Old Testament, or that God could work miracles before the Incarnation.

---

quote:

---

Our task is neither to literalize nor to worship the words of yesterday’s theological consensus. It is, rather, to return to the experience that created these creedal words in the first place and then to seek to incorporate that experience in the words that we today can use, without compromising its truth or our integrity as citizens of this century.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Erin:
Are you telling me that Spong does NOT deny a Virgin Birth or the literal Resurrection?

---

quote:

---

And Erin, if Spong's position on the creeds is the problem, what is the specific problem? Here is Spong's position on the creeds from Why Christianity Must Change or Die:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------
Our task is neither to literalize nor to worship the words of yesterday’s theological consensus. It is, rather, to return to the experience that created these creedal words in the first place and then to seek to incorporate that experience in the words that we today can use, without compromising its truth or our integrity as citizens of this century.
-------------------------------------------------

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Erin:
According to jugular's highly creative and completely groundless interpretation of the mix-up, it would not have been intended as a compliment.

But it's no matter, because that wasn't the intent.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Erin:
If they deny the Virgin Birth and literal Resurrection, then no, they cannot be bishops in the ECUSA. Besides, I believe that both Ruth and Karl have enough integrity that they would not sign a document that they cannot uphold and teach.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:
Does Spong explain how we can "return to the experience that created these creedal words in the first place"?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Erin:
If they deny the Virgin Birth and literal Resurrection, then no, they cannot be bishops in the ECUSA. Besides, I believe that both Ruth and Karl have enough integrity that they would not sign a document that they cannot uphold and teach.

---

Why, thank you!

For the record: I have doubts about the virgin birth, but don't really care one way or the other. And if I didn't think Jesus physically threw off the winding sheets and busted himself out of the tomb (w/ or w/o angelic assistance) I would have been sleeping in on Sunday mornings all these years.

Anyone who wishes to make me bishop may kiss my ring. Anyone else ... well ...
 

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Posted by goddessoftheclassroom (# 3400) on :
 
If I may join in?

Jesus said (to paraphrase) that He had come to fulfil the prophets, not overturn them. The Old Testament foresaw the Virgin Birth ("and lo, a virgin shall conceive"). Now, logically, if one accepts that Jesus was/is/will be the Messiah foretold, one must accept that He did fulfil the prophets. It is mentioned several time in the Gospels that Jesus does certain things so that the prophets would be fulfilled, such as saying "I thirst" on the cross (and that is why someone lifted the vinegar-soaked sponge to Him).

I accept Christ as the Messiah, and therefore I accept the Virgin Birth and Resurrection as literally true. I supposed one could accept Christ's teachings without accepting these two events as truth, but I don't understand how one could accept Christ as God's Son, as predicted in the Old Testament, and yet reject these tenets.

And yes, I'm a newbie, and if I've over-stepped, I'm sorry.
 

---

Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
Welcome to the ship, GoddessOTC.
Glad to have you with us.

Some might suggest that the early (New Testament) Christians got to write the story to fit the predictions (prophecies). Some might be considered heretical for saying that too, but that's the theory.

P.S. No "Overstepping" whatsoever.
 

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Posted by Divine Outlaw-Dwarf (# 2252) on :
 
And then again some of us would say that, whilst the stories are clearly authorial creations, the virgin-conception tradition predates the gospels and (we may believe) is historical - note for example that Mary's virginity is a problem for Matthew, who wants to trace Jesus' Davidic descent via. Joseph - if Matthew were writing from scratch with an entirely free hand he would hardly not have Joseph as the natural father.
 

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Posted by goddessoftheclassroom (# 3400) on :
 
Thanks, Mad Geo.

Your argurment about history's being written by the victors, er, early Christians, is fair enough, but my point is that either Jesus IS/WAS/WILL BE the Messiah foretold or he isn't (etc). If he is/was/will be, no editing to fit the facts (or prophecies) would have been (etc.) necessary; if he isn't...well, he was just a carpenter who knew how to talk and inspire incredible loyalty for a show that only ran three years (or so).
 

---

Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by goddessoftheclassroom:
Thanks, Mad Geo.

Your argurment about history's being written by the victors, er, early Christians, is fair enough, but my point is that either Jesus IS/WAS/WILL BE the Messiah foretold or he isn't (etc). If he is/was/will be, no editing to fit the facts (or prophecies) would have been (etc.) necessary; if he isn't...well, he was just a carpenter who knew how to talk and inspire incredible loyalty for a show that only ran three years (or so).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimT:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:
Does Spong explain how we can "return to the experience that created these creedal words in the first place"?

---

Yes, it is much the same as returning to the Old Testament and trying to extract truth from myth; study the times and the language and then attempt to discern what motivated the words. I would think we do the same when we return to the story of Adam from a modern perspective.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimT:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:
Does Spong explain how we can "return to the experience that created these creedal words in the first place"?

---

Yes, it is much the same as returning to the Old Testament and trying to extract truth from myth

---

I am extremely skeptical.

Many years ago I read several books, written by people of different viewpoints, about the "search for the historical Jesus". Surprise, surprise. Each concluded that Jesus was exactly the kind of person the author had thought he was.

I honestly don't think anyone can achieve the necessary detachment, much less acquire the necessary background knowledge, to discover for himself what Jesus was really like.

Moo

---

quote:

---

Our creedal goal is not to believe that Jesus ... was a unique divine/human hybrid being.

---

quote:

---

At one time in history, when the miraculous was deemed more common than it is now

---

quote:

---

when the seed from the father was considered what we would think of as a fertilized egg with the mother as a passive incubator, this creedal explanation made sense

---

quote:

---

Today, we know that we are not separate creations from animals but their near relatives as destined to physical death as they are.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Erin:
Actually, Spong the man is welcome to whatever belief he wants to have. I really couldn't care less. The problem I have is with a bishop who, having vowed to uphold the faith as defined in the creeds*, subsequently turns around and says it is all a crock of shit. Yet he still remained a bishop. I find that position lacking in integrity.

---

I hope I won't ruin Erin's day by saying I completely agree. Thank you, Erin.
 

---

Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
In the interest of addressing the first part of "Is Jack Spong Dishonest and Wrong?":

I went to our neighborhood Global Bookstore Megacorporation last night and picked up Spongs latest book "A New Christianity for a New World". Let me give you an excerpt from the beginning of his book:

quote:

---

I am a Christian.

For forty-five years I have served the Christian Church as a deacon, priest and bishop. I continue to serve that church today in a wide variety of ways in official retirement. I believe that God is real and that I live deeply and significantly to that divine reality.

I call Jesus my Lord. I beleive that he has mediated God in a powerful and unique way to human history and to me.

I beleive that my particular life has been dramatically and decisively impacted not only by the life of this Jesus, but also by his death and indeed by the Easter experience that Christians know as the resurrection.

Part of my life's experience has been spent seeking a way to articulate this impact and to invite others into what I can only call the "Christ-experience". I beleive that in this Christ I discover a basis for meaning, for ethics, for prayer, for worship, and even for the hope of life beyond the boundaries of mortality. I want my readers to know who it is that writes these words. I do not want to be guilty of violating any truth-in-packaging act. I define myself first and foremost as a Christian believer.

---

I would love to go on quoting, cause from there he starts to persuasively state where he parts ways with the standard Christian model (my words). Something I can definitely relate to.

I think that those words posted in one of the most public ways possible (a book) establishes his credibility with me that he is in no way "dishonest" that I can discern from the writings of his that I have had the pleasure to browse.
 

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Posted by Divine Outlaw-Dwarf (# 2252) on :
 
Um, this Christian doesn't refer to 'our Easter experience' as the Resurrection. I refer to the Resurrection as the Resurrection! Spong's views on which are subject to the criticism voiced in a sermon by the author of my current sig.:-

"To believe that God creates the whole universe and holds it in being over against absolute nothing, but to find it tricky and unworthy of belief that he should raise a man from the dead to a human life of glory seems eccentric."

Herbert McCabe, God Still Matters, pp. 227-8.
 

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Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
Whether your views are right or wrong, or Spong's views are right or wrong are not what I was addressing.

I was addressing whether he was being honest about himself and his views and per the quote I provided IMHO the answer is Yes.
 

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Posted by Divine Outlaw-Dwarf (# 2252) on :
 
The man clearly holds his beliefs with integrity. The issue is whether he has integrity in belonging to a credal Church. My point is that orthodox Christianity does not merely affirm an Easter experience, although that is clearly our point of epistemic access to Easter-belief, it holds that there is a real 'object' of this experience, Jesus Christ, risen from the dead.
 

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Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
I appreciate the acknowledgement that "The man clearly holds his beliefs with integrity" as that is the point.

Someday maybe all Christians may realize that we do not hold onto the same beliefs, that those beliefs are not static, and that conserving old beliefs in the face of new information may appear to some Christians to be logically (or even intuitively) flawed.

Someday....
 

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Posted by Erin (# 2) on :
 
Perhaps. But if you don't believe in the written creeds of our faith, then by God you should have enough integrity and honesty to quit drawing a paycheck for upholding them.
 

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Posted by fatprophet (# 3636) on :
 
I entirely agree Erin.
 

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Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 
quote from JimT

quote:

---

Moo, you have shifted the discussion away from the creeds to the mind of Jesus. The crucial point we were discussing is that Spong is a slam-dunk recycled heretic because rather than accept the literal Virgin Birth and literal physical resurrection, Spong instead says that these are legends testifying to the complete uniqueness of Christ in the minds of his followers: namely, that he was the purest embodiment of Truth and Love known. Our creedal goal in Spong's view is thus to believe that it is possible for us individually and corporately, via deep and personal contact with the life of Christ as revealed in the Scriptures, to become the embodiment of Truth and Love.

---

quote:

---

Our task is neither to literalize nor to worship the words of yesterday’s theological consensus. It is, rather, to return to the experience that created these creedal words in the first place and then to seek to incorporate that experience in the words that we today can use, without compromising its truth or our integrity as citizens of this century.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Erin:
Perhaps. But if you don't believe in the written creeds of our faith, then by God you should have enough integrity and honesty to quit drawing a paycheck for upholding them.

---

quote:

---

"I believe that God is real and that I live deeply and significantly to that divine reality."

---

quote:

---

"I call Jesus my Lord."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
You don't just fire a bishop. You have to try them for heresy.

You don't have to like the creed, Mad Geo. But bishops vow to uphold the teachings of the church, including the creed.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mad Geo:
And with all the supposed violations of creed he did, they couldn't try him for heresy?

This doesn't pass the sniff test, elaborate please.

---

quote:

---

dontya think the church he was Bishop in woulda fired his butt, if he was soooo out of line with their version of Christian belief?

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Lou Poulain:
Or the third alternative -- Spong's alternative if you read him closely -- is that he assents to the creed but sees the credal affirmations as pointers to spiritual meaning rather than a list of literal facts.

I ascribe to this. I don't believe, for example, that the Virgin Birth is a literal fact, but is rather how we say that Jesus is of God. It doesn't make Spong a heretic but rather a non-literalist.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lou Poulain:
I would judge they would NOT be saying the same thing, or possibly meaning the same thing.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mad Geo:
Which brings me back to what I said before:

quote:

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dontya think the church he was Bishop in woulda fired his butt, if he was soooo out of line with their version of Christian belief?

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SO basically he was out of line with some people, but not so out of line that they would try him for heresy.

Sounds like he was onto something to me!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lou Poulain:
he assents to the creed but sees the credal affirmations as pointers to spiritual meaning rather than a list of literal facts.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mad Geo:
The problem of the "written creed" is that people like to make them rules by which to evaluate other people by. I don't like the "written creed" standard of ejecting people, in fact I don't really like ejecting people out of church at all.

If one HAS to have a creed it should be simple like:

quote:

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"I believe that God is real and that I live deeply and significantly to that divine reality."

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and

quote:

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"I call Jesus my Lord."

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quote:

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Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
Which is something that could be construed as a distorted reading of the creed and an abuse of its semantics.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Lou Poulain:
I would judge they would NOT be saying the same thing, or possibly meaning the same thing.

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Based on what?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Lou Poulain:
I would judge they would NOT be saying the same thing, or possibly meaning the same thing.

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Based on what?

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quote:

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Are we stuck in the old ways of metaphorical burnings-at-the-stake, or can we engage in reasonable discourse, clergy or not?

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quote:

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Originally posted by gbuchanan:
like, Arius was taking a realist interpretation of God, and Spong a non-realist one. The latter understanding didn't exist in the former time, and would probably be incomprehensible or meaningless - at least, I think that's what Lou's suggesting...

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quote:

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Originally posted by jugular:
At the end of all things if coming into the presence of God is determinate on subscribing to the Nicene Creed in every detail, or of accepting a set of propositions, then neither I nor Spong will be welcome. If, however, we are serious about being the Body of Christ, we must be prepared to constantly re-evaluate the meaning of our lives and of God in the light of revelation, and to be disturbed, confused and inspired by what we find.

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quote:

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I don't think we have to define the church propositionally to say that there are certain truths (e.g. the creed) which its members are expected to hold in common.

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quote:

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The Boy Scouts aren't defined by the Scout Oath and the Scout Law, but if you can't say them in good faith, maybe you should find something else to do with your weekends?

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quote:

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vowed to uphold the faith as outlined in the creeds

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quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
I can’t respond to it other than to acknowledge that a person who easily believes the traditional concept of Jesus as God proven by Virgin Birth and literal resurrection, along with a personal God who forms a Trinity with Jesus is going to see Spong as a non-believer.

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quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
The Episcopal churches I attended for 12 years were not like the Catholic church without a pope. They were Unitarian churches with robes (except for the Rite I 8 o’clockers).

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quote:

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Is not the primary message of the Easter narratives that even the barrier of death must not deter us in our quest for life and love? (p. 146)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Erin:
Saying that the Virgin Birth and Resurrection are "spiritual metaphors" is most assuredly NOT upholding the creeds, much less the tradition and faith of the church.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by gbuchanan:
like, Arius was taking a realist interpretation of God, and Spong a non-realist one. The latter understanding didn't exist in the former time, and would probably be incomprehensible or meaningless - at least, I think that's what Lou's suggesting...

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So? How does that make it any less heretical?

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quote:

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Originally posted by jugular:

quote:

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I don't think we have to define the church propositionally to say that there are certain truths (e.g. the creed) which its members are expected to hold in common.

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Expected by whom? God? This sounds like a God who gets frightfully angry and wrathful everytime somebody threatens to rethink the creed. Is that what we're talking about here? A God who gets upset because s/he is not defined using a council statement?

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quote:

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So, even if you are "in Christ" transformed by the spirit, seeking justice, experiencing the presence of God as revealed in scripture, an integral part of the church community and loved and respected by millions, many of whom view you as a prophet - you should piss off and do something else?

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quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
But if it is illegal for a bishop to see the creeds as metaphor, it is illegal for me.

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quote:

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Originally posted by jugular:
I don't think we have to define the church propositionally to say that there are certain truths (e.g. the creed) which its members are expected to hold in common.

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quote:

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Expected by whom? God?

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quote:

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Moo, when I read Spong’s admonishing us to “recreate the experience of the creeds” I believe he means to put ourselves in the minds of those who sat down to write the creeds after reading the Gospel texts that had evolved for a few centuries.

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quote:

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He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

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quote:

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Originally posted by TheMightyTonewheel:
I can just imagine the writers of the creeds sitting down and saying to themselves, "Ok, we've got to write these creeds really clearly, so anyone can understand them. I'm telling you, plain-as-the-nose-on-my-face kind of clear. There should be no doubt about what they say or what they mean. ..."

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Actually, that's about right. Look at, say, the Athanasian Creed, which is profound, important, and, well, repetitive. No loopholes, as it were. "...But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal. And yet they are not three eternals but one eternal. As also there are not three uncreated nor three incomprehensible, but one uncreated and one incomprehensible. So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Spirit almighty..."

And a look at the history of the time shows why this was, in my view as an orthodox Christian, needed; because any point which this and the other Creeds makes can and has, through its denial, been developed into a serious heresy -- so they had to hammer out exactly what was meant by the notions of Jesus' Incarnation, by the Trinity, and so on.

David
 

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Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 
What David said.

The creeds are written very very precisely; not so as to define, or even describe, all of the faith; but so as to make it impossible for someone who held to any one of a very large number of heresies to say them honestly.

They are heresy filters. That's what they were for.

They are also prayers, and liturgy, and part of the collective memory of the Church, and statements of defiance, and battle-cries.

But they are certainly intended to be precise.
 

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Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:

quote:

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Originally posted by ken:
Originally posted by JimT:

quote:

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They deride Fundamentalists for failing to see this.

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We do? Where do we do that? I'd like to see one single quote from an "evangelical" mocking a "fundamentalist" for thinking there is history in the Old Testament, or that God could work miracles before the Incarnation.

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Ken, you did it, along with me, to several fundamentalists on the Noah thread. You were every bit as mocking and scathing as Spong ever was. I really don't feel like pulling up a specific quote to embarrass us both.

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quote:

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By JimT: I just can't stand there and say the creeds every week, substituting in my personal rewrite.

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quote:

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Originally posted by TheMightyTonewheel:
Jim, I think the point many of us are making is this: metaphors are literary devices, we know how to spot them, and the creeds aren't metaphors.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ken:
If I was scathing it was against yeccies who deserved it - and that is nothign to do with their view of the OT as history it is to do with their view of God as a liar.

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quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
He appears to both defend and attack the creeds at the same time because although he clearly wants elements eliminated, he proposes replacement with something that preserves what he feels is the core of Christianity: Christ the embodiment of Truth and Love, Christ the Example.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Erin:
...Christianity has defined its own core: that Jesus is God Incarnate. Hell, I can rename a dog a table, but the rest of the English-speaking world would think I was a raving loon.

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quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
This expansion of definition is similar to NT's: the daddy who is going to spank you if you don't do what he says, found in the literal words of the creed and at the ends of Fundamentalist street preachers bullhorns, is too limiting and in fact inaccurate.

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quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
He suggests that the conception of God be expanded beyond simply Father, Creator and Judge. God, Spong says,

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quote:

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Originally posted by Erin:
But that expansion is a personal one. It's an interpretation which, IMO, the creeds do not lend themselves to. (emphasis added)

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I think that "IMO" is both honest and crucial. This is a matter of opinion and opinions differ. In a case of differing opinions over what is an acceptable interpretation of the creeds, surely it is the role of the church to judge the truth of the matter? That the ECUSA did not formally do so implies that Spong's opinion falls within an acceptable range.
 

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Posted by Erin (# 2) on :
 
Well, if the church was in the habit of actually using its testicles, I would agree with that, Scot. But let's face it -- the ECUSA wusses out on the fundamentals while making huge ordeals over the extracurricular.
 

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Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
... continuing to agree with Erin...

David
... without even making a poem about it...
 

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Posted by Laura (# 10) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Erin:
Well, if the church was in the habit of actually using its testicles, I would agree with that, Scot. But let's face it -- the ECUSA wusses out on the fundamentals while making huge ordeals over the extracurricular.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Laura:

Chast: re: no poem. Thank you. The Management.

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I have been praised by Laura!
O happy day of -- URK!
 

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Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Divine Outlaw-Dwarf:

Like others, I am unimpressed by Spong. In as much as he raises valid questions, about the being and action of God, for example, these have been dealt with by far more profound thinkers than Spong, often several centuries ago. [/QB]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Merseymike:
But as has already been said, he is a populist writer rather than a particularly original or academic thinker. He does communicate his views effectively, however, to a 'mass' audience.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Divine Outlaw-Dwarf:

quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
He suggests that the conception of God be expanded beyond simply Father, Creator and Judge. God, Spong says,

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Who has ever claimed that God is 'simply' Father, Creator and Judge?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Erin:
But let's face it -- the ECUSA wusses out on the fundamentals while making huge ordeals over the extracurricular.

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quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
When times change, the judicial activist is happy to take original concepts, expand their meaning beyond the literal words and literal intent of the original authors, and apply it to the changed times. Strict constructionists insist that if an issue goes beyond literal meaning and intent, it requires Constitutional amendment. However, even a judicial activist realizes that they can't twist "the right to bear arms" into "the necessity of eliminating arms" because times have changed a people no longer need guns in their houses.

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quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
It is the creed which reduces God to simply these three concepts

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quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
It may just be that the proper way to view Spong is not the Hypocrite Who Became Bishop but the Bishop Who Refused to Descend to Hypocrisy.

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quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
I do believe that Spong realizes in defending the notion that firm belief in the scientific knowledge of conception and evolution requires us, in the face of the creeds, to posit ridiculously that "born of a Virgin and resurrected" means "born of a non-Virgin and died."

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quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
I would encourage anyone who wants to decide exactly how lightweight he is to read his books in his own words and to read other's criticisms. I've not yet read many criticisms. What I have read basically says that this historical development is completely speculative or downright incorrect and Spong's arguments fall apart without this exact chronology.

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quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
Paul's epistles: mid 60's. No empty tomb, no bodies returning to this life....

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quote:

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Mark: written 70 CE. Schillebeeckx suggests the empty tomb story was originally a recitation of liturgy, not historical fact. The visitors come to the empty tomb to commemorate the death of Christ and a liturgist, representing an angel, tells them that Christ is “risen” and no longer here.

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quote:

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Matthew: written in middle 80's CE. Matthew was a scribe trained in “midrash,” which involves connecting persons of importance in the present to important persons in the past...

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quote:

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John: written and revised, perhaps in layers, from the time of Paul to Luke.

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quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
Paul's epistles: mid 60's. No empty tomb, no bodies returning to this life, except for one uncorroborated story that Paul and 500 others actually saw Christ after his death.

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quote:

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Mark: written 70 CE. Schillebeeckx suggests...

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quote:

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...“midrash,” which involves connecting persons of importance in the present to important persons in the past

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is not a correct description of midrash at any point in known history.

3.There is precisely nil evidence that John was "written and revised, perhaps in layers". None, not a skerrick.

4. None of this is Spong's original work - that isn't a criticism by the way. The thing is, as far as I know no Proper Historian™ has bothered to refute Spong, not because they can't, but because there is no point in wasting time knocking down sandcastles. So really all you're ever going to get is people who are reasonably lightweight arguing against what he writes, because a Proper Historian™ would not be interested. They aren't even interested in attacking the positions he bases his arguments on, because they've mostly been dealt with ages ago.
 

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Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
<M.G. goes home to break out his Historical Jesus books.>
 

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Posted by JimT (# 142) on :
 
Spong's source for midrash in Matthew:

Michael Goulder, Midrash and Lection in Matthew, (London: SPCK, 1974).

Spong does not name a specific book for citing the possibility of a "layered" writing of John. His chapter on John seems to have mainly used

Reginald Fuller, The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives (New York: McMillan, 1971)

In looking back at the chapter, it appears that I misread a line about "assertions of the Johannine community" to mean that Spong was considering the possibility of multiple authors. I was quickly condensing a 300 page book and may have made other errors as well. I have not read the book for more than five years.
 

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Posted by David (# 3) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
Spong's source for midrash in Matthew:

Michael Goulder, Midrash and Lection in Matthew, (London: SPCK, 1974).

---

I already knew that

There's a very good corrective for that view here. Indeed, I was very surprised to find something of that quality on the internet!

Now this rebuttal (and the one published by France and Wenham, I think they were editors on that) have been around since the early 80's, and really there hasn't been anything reworked since. I'm reasonably sure that Goulder has pretty much abandoned that side of his work***; I really have seen nothing in the literature that suggests the idea being revisited. I could be wrong though.

Interestingly, if I remember correctly Spong didn't even know of Goulder's work until the early 90's! And come to think of it, doesn't Spong claim a definition of "midrash" that is admittedly nothing like midrash? I'll see if I can dig a web document out to support that - there's plenty of pop-critiques of Spong out there, and I don't own any of the books myself.

quote:

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Spong does not name a specific book for citing the possibility of a "layered" writing of John. His chapter on John seems to have mainly used

Reginald Fuller, The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives (New York: McMillan, 1971)

---

quote:

---

In looking back at the chapter, it appears that I misread a line about "assertions of the Johannine community" to mean that Spong was considering the possibility of multiple authors. I was quickly condensing a 300 page book and may have made other errors as well. I have not read the book for more than five years.

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Damn fine effort for that amount of elapsed time. I think you made fewer errors than were in the original


*** Goulder's real work seems to be in showing that Q is unnecessary - his early work on lectionary and midrash was done with the idea that if he could show that Matthew used that methodology he'd have shown that Q wasn't required as a source.

Here is some more recent work. FWIW, Goulder is an Anglican priest turned atheist.
 

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Posted by rebekah (# 2748) on :
 
Reading Spong's autobiography Here I Stand might help to understand him more (despite the hubris of the title!!)

I found the first half inspiring, as he deals with institutionalised racism in ECUSA and the psychiatric problems of his wife. Later, he reveals himself as becoming a rather unpleasant self-absorbed vitriolic character.

He is light-weight, and a lot of his earlier work is lifted (without attribution) from an earlier writer whose name escapes me at the moment sorry, but I remember being shocked by the apparant plagiarism.

When he visited Perth (my then home city)I thought that he was addressing some real questions that bothered and troubled people, but that his answers were not deep or rigorous enough.

For example, his claim that Jesus was married, probably to Mary Magdalene, was based on John's account of the wedding at Cana. Spong said that the only wedding HE'D attented with both his mother and hos friends was his own, so this must have been Jesus' wedding!All this shows really is that Spong hasn't lived in a samll community. Scholarship it ain't!!
 

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Posted by David (# 3) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by rebekah:
For example, his claim that Jesus was married, probably to Mary Magdalene, was based on John's account of the wedding at Cana. Spong said that the only wedding HE'D attented with both his mother and hos friends was his own, so this must have been Jesus' wedding!All this shows really is that Spong hasn't lived in a samll community. Scholarship it ain't!!

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quote:

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Originally posted by David:

quote:

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Originally posted by rebekah:
For example, his claim that Jesus was married, probably to Mary Magdalene, was based on John's account of the wedding at Cana. Spong said that the only wedding HE'D attented with both his mother and hos friends was his own, so this must have been Jesus' wedding!

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Sorry, that's too bizarre. Can you provide a cite?

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quote:

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Mary Magdalene in this Gospel [John] was first presented as the sole woman at the tomb. Next she was presented as the chief mourner. Then she was portrayed as laying a claim to the body--an action appropriate in the customs of Jewish people only for the nearest of kin. Was John hinting that the romantic liaison between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, whispered about through the centuries, was in fact real? Was he portraying Mary as Jesus' wife and now his widow? It makes for a fascinating and, I believe, life-affirming speculation, powerfully and innocently lifting women into the account of the resurrection.

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quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
I understand this is hugely problematic to the last 2000 years of Christians studying the Bible from the standpoint that in contains real, objective truth, given once by God for all to believe. I understand the scorn and indignation that causes them to say things like, “this is just an excuse to twist God into saying what you want him to!” I understand that it leads to the possibility of people coming to the communion rail with utterly and completely different views of what they are doing and what is going on.

But I also know from 18 years in a parsonage and 10 years on the vestry that this huge plurality of significantly different views does in fact exist and it does because more people ground the scriptures in their faith than ground their faith in the scriptures. You can declare it heresy, you can mock it as “lightweight”, you can rail against it as “stubborn and rebellious,” you can warn of the peril it creates to the Eternal Fate of the deceived “non-believer” but you can never, ever, legislate it out of human nature nor out of the church.

---

I do agree that this plurality exists; the question of whether it is a good thing, when it comes to the claims assented to in the Creeds in particular, and especially by a Bishop, is another matter.

David
 

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Posted by JimT (# 142) on :
 
Chast, my dear friend and brother in Christ. I could almost believe that a personal God with a plan for revealing Truth in Love prompted you to make your post after mine. I can think of few other Shipmates with as much kindness fused with a thirst for righteousness. You know I mean that sincerely and I have no cause to bring you into embarrassment or criticism.

Yet, the Truth requires me to say that I can think of no better example of grounding faith in scriptures than your explanation of how you justified certain "specific physical" acts as “non-sexual” acts thus allowing your self-classification as a “celibate” homosexual (see how closely I followed your exact usage of words? ). It stretches even my exceptionally nimble imagination to speculate that you went about your Biblical exegesis without presuppositions and predefined values. True, sexuality is not creedally defining to Christianity. Spong goes all the way to redefining the creeds in a New Reformation for those who cannot see God as a Person and thus have a radically different view of Jesus as the Incarnation of God. I accept it as open to debate whether the Reformed entity could be thought of as "Christian."


 

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Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
Dear Jim,

Sorry, I don't think the parallel holds.

David
 

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Posted by rebekah (# 2748) on :
 
Sorry, can't provide a cite for Spong's Mary magdalene story, I heard him say it one of the two times I've heard him in person.

I know that everyone (even me probably) has a tendency to ground their biblical understanding in their faith rather than vice versa, but the problem is when a popular author actually models that rather than models the other way around.

Haven't figured out how to do the quote format in a reply yet, am humble apprentice, but will learn.
 

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Posted by Jonm (# 1246) on :
 
I know that NT Wright deals with the theory discussed by Rebekah above in his book "Who Was Jesus" (indeed he actually quotes the passage) so there must be a reference in there, but I can't lay hands on my copy at present..

Jonathan
 

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Posted by John Holding (# 158) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by David:

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimT:
Spong's source for midrash in Matthew:

Michael Goulder, Midrash and Lection in Matthew, (London: SPCK, 1974).

---

I already knew that

There's a very good corrective for that view here. Indeed, I was very surprised to find something of that quality on the internet!

Interestingly, if I remember correctly Spong didn't even know of Goulder's work until the early 90's! And come to think of it, doesn't Spong claim a definition of "midrash" that is admittedly nothing like midrash? I'll see if I can dig a web document out to support that - there's plenty of pop-critiques of Spong out there, and I don't own any of the books myself.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Laura:
Why can't certain folks seem to accept that she may have been truly a follower, and not just a girlfriend groupie?

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quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
If “God took human flesh” and “was fully human in every way” doesn’t it seem odd, or an omission, or an incompletion, if he did not experience sex or child-bearing or family-rearing?

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No, not really, unless one wants to argue that to be fully human one has to beget offspring...
 

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Posted by Jengie (# 273) on :
 

quote:

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If “God took human flesh” and “was fully human in every way” doesn’t it seem odd, or an omission, or an incompletion, if he did not experience sex or child-bearing or family-rearing?

---

quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
If “God took human flesh” and “was fully human in every way” doesn’t it seem odd, or an omission, or an incompletion, if he did not experience sex or child-bearing or family-rearing?

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So people who have not had sex or children are not fully human?

Jesus as a human could not experience every possible aspect of humanity - he didn't get old either.
 

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Posted by humblebum (# 4358) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Jengie:
The only reason we assume he did not is we read it through Christian culture. Jews on reading the New Testament assume that Jesus was married and had children. Why? Simply because it does not say he did not. Same record differing culture.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimT:

My response was that I could see a perfectly understandable reason for the speculation about Mary M. that is based not on a desire to somehow degrade her nor to turn her into a girlfriend. It could be based simply on probability and expectation, as Jengie said.

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quote:

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Qutoing Jim's quote:
...It makes for a fascinating and, I believe, life-affirming speculation, powerfully and innocently lifting women into the account of the resurrection.

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quote:

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...the postmodern academy sees questions like this bubbling up in fresh ways means those of us who do want to be holistic about how we read the text can say there are some insights here that we've got to factor in. We won't go with a newly limited way of doing this but we'll take all their insights and put them in the larger pot and see what sort of meal we can make out of it.

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quote:

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......Those are my goals. Can they be acheived? Or is this the fantasy of one who can see the dying embers of a faith-tradition and even of a life's work, but is unable to admit that they cannot be revived? I leave that for my readers to decide. As for me I beleive that this is the only way I can continue to be faithful to the baptismal vows I took do long ago: "To follow Christ as my Lord and Savior, to seek Christ in all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being."

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mad Geo:
What if Spong is being true to his earlier baptismal vow in the face of his perceived error of the creeds?

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quote:

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The more I've thought about it, the less I have liked the position that he should assume himself wrong if the church cannot bring itself to challenge him officially.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mad Geo:
Okay, so if he is acting moral, why again should he step down?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Erin:
It's simple, Mad Geo -- the ECUSA does not try people for heresy. For whatever reason, they don't.

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quote:

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It was my first heresy: my first deviation... The Trial of William Montgomery Brown

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mad Geo:
So he can "moral within the context of his understanding", not be "wrong" enough in the eyes of the church to be tried, and STILL should step down?

---

Acting "in a moral way within the context of his understanding" -- that is, from an orthodox point of view, he could be doing the best he knows how even if he is utterly wrong about the nature of God and the like -- is not the same as holding to the Creeds. An atheist, a polytheist, a Mormon, or any other person can be acting in a moral way within the framework they know. It does not make any of them qualified to act as a bishop in a Creedal church.

As for "not be[ing] 'wrong' enough in the eyes of the church to be tried," I don't believe that this is the case. It's just that we don't "do" heresy trials as such these days. I don't think that we would hold a heresy trial for anyone at the moment, regardless of their belief. But this has been posted about by many other people who know more about it than I do.

And, yes, I think he should still have stepped down regardless of whether or not the church held a heresy trial; he made a commitment and a public statement to uphold the Creeds, and then did not, and even publicly directed efforts against their content. And the Creeds are still there and read every Sunday as part of the Communion and other services. It's not a minor thing.

PS: Crossposted with everyone else.

[ 19. August 2003, 21:53: Message edited by: ChastMastr ]
 

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Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by ChastMastr:
An atheist, a polytheist, a Mormon, or any other person can be acting in a moral way within the framework they know. It does not make any of them qualified to act as a bishop in a Creedal church.

---

Depending on the creed their church holds, of course. My apologies to any atheists, polytheists, or Mormons who hold to a creed appropriate to their religion or church. Obviously other people hold to creeds of one kind or another...
 

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Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
So a Bishop, presumably acting in the capacity of a leader of his church, sees that the creeds may be in need of change, and acting within the context of his understanding posits that the creeds may need to be changed or even abandoned, is not tried by a church that has adequate procedures for such things, and he is supposed to step down?

How would such a leader conduct change within the church (even the creeds) exactly?
 

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Posted by TheMightyTonewheel (# 4730) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mad Geo:
So a Bishop, presumably acting in the capacity of a leader of his church, sees that the creeds may be in need of change, and acting within the context of his understanding posits that the creeds may need to be changed or even abandoned, is not tried by a church that has adequate procedures for such things, and he is supposed to step down?

How would such a leader conduct change within the church (even the creeds) exactly?

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quote:

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Originally posted by TheMightyTonewheel:
The point is -- other than Spong, who says the creeds need to be changed? It seems to me that change happens in large organizations when there is either a groundswell of consensus (which Spong didn't have), or the political will of those in authority (which Spong didn't have either).

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quote:

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The idea of Spong deciding on his own that the creeds need to be changed is precisely equivalent to the idea of a line supervisor at Kelloggs deciding the recipe for Rice Crispies needs to be changed.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ley Druid:

quote:

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Originally posted by Erin:
It's simple, Mad Geo -- the ECUSA does not try people for heresy. For whatever reason, they don't.

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But they did...

quote:

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It was my first heresy: my first deviation... The Trial of William Montgomery Brown

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quote:

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Originally posted by RuthW:
They do try people for heresy...

The thing is, people have to get together to make the charge, and this just hasn't happened in Spong's case. I imagine because no one's decided he's a big enough threat to the church to make this important.

---

I imagine however they tried it, they'd lose. If they tried him and it didn't stick (for whatever reason), then Spong would gain face. If they tried it and he was defrocked, then he'd be a martyr.

Likewise, when nobody writes to refute him, it's because he simply can't be refuted. Whereas if people do write to refute him (e.g. Can a Bishop Be Wrong?), it means his ideas are so powerful and innovative that they're frightening people and the other bishops have to reassure them.

Heads Spong wins, tails tradition loses.
 

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Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
Okay so now we have a leader Bishop, that is not tried by a church that DOES try people for heresy, does not have enough people that disagree with him to challenge him and have him tried, and he is supposed to step down?

I think I am seeing a trend here....

Why again should he step down?

I am wondering if he was ahead of his time and not enough congregation disagreed with him. I can assure you that were he to say the things he does in the church I was raised in, he woulda been run out on a rail.

I don't think this is a congregational testicular problem as earlier proposed.

What's the real deal with ECUSA here guys and gals?
 

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Posted by IanB (# 38) on :
 
Scot asked:

quote:

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I'm curious, are the ECUSA bishops allowed any scope for free thought, or are they restricted to saying only that which has already been said and approved? If they have scope for free thought, how are they to know when they've gone too far?

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quote:

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What's the real deal with ECUSA here guys and gals?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mad Geo:
I care because I am getting answers that do not hang together, number 1.

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But many of us in the ECUSA think that they do hang together.

Some of it may depend on one's perspective. Those of us who think Spong is an 'Orrible 'Eretic seem to see it as the church not disciplining itself; those of us who think Spong is a Great Reformer seem to see it differently.

Not sure what else to say, really.
 

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Posted by JimT (# 142) on :
 
With respect to the latest posts, I’d like to touch on the willingness of the Episcopal church to try leaders for heresy and modern calls for re-examining the creeds. Ruth is 100% correct that there was a recent heresy trial in the Episcopal Church: it was Spong’s assistant, Rt. Rev. Walter Righter. Spong describes this a great deal in the last chapter of his autobiography. This is the best link I can find to the actual trial documents.

From what I can gather, conservatives who were smarting over the ordination of women and white hot over the ordination of openly gay priests scraped up just enough votes to start a heresy trial, not against Spong who ordained Robert Williams as a priest, but against Spong’s assistant for ordaining Righter to the diaconate. Spong’s ordination of Williams is specifically mentioned in Righter’s heresy of ordaining a homosexual deacon:

quote:

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On December 16, 1989, The Rt. Rev. John S. Spong, Bishop of Newark, ordained to the priesthood The Rev. Robert Williams in the Diocese of Newark, knowing him to be a practicing homosexual, living in a partnership with one James Skelly… Not all members of the Church agree with this position, as they did not when the resolution was adopted in 1979. Nevertheless, short of action by the General Convention, it is the stated and authoritative position of the church at this time.

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quote:

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On August 25, 1994, Respondent (who was then a retired bishop) was present in the House of Bishops at General Convention meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana, and joined in the signing of ``A Statement of Koinonia'', made by The Rt. Rev. John S. Spong, in which Respondent acceded to the following statement:

We pledge ourselves to ordain only those persons whom the testing and screening process reveals to be wholesome examples to the flock. But let there be no misunderstanding, our lives and our experience and bishops have convinced us that a wholesome example to the flock of Christ does not exclude a person of homosexual orientation nor does it exclude those homosexual persons who choose to live out their sexual orientation in a partnership that is marked by faithfulness and life-giving holiness.

The public action and public teaching of Respondent is therefore:

(a) A practicing homosexual can be properly ordained to the ministry of The Episcopal Church.

(b) Respondent will not be bound by teaching statements of The Episcopal Church declaring it impermissible to ordain practicing homosexuals.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mad Geo:
I care because I am getting answers that do not hang together, number 1. One person says the church didn't have the stones to throw him out, then someone said they did, and so on.

Number 2, I care because the person in question, specifically, Spong, I feel has a point for general Christianity, and that point happens to originate from ECUSA. So while I might not normally "concern" myself with their internal politics, it is very relevant here, since many here appear to be amongst his opponents.

Having read Spong, I am seeing where he is very concerned with what he is doing. He seems to be very concerned about Christianity, very concerned about what Christians are doing, and what Christians are saying that appears to be questionable.

I see him as leading.

The fact that ECUSA did not eject him, I find intriguing. In my book, that speaks well of them as an organization.

---

So he's a Bold Prophetic Voice, and the fact that he wasn't tried for heresy either confirms that or results from that? Is that your point, then?
 

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Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
I should add that just because someone may be guilty of heresy, and even deserving of a heresy trial, it doesn't make the motives of those bringing them to trial right or good, and a technical victory over anti-Creedal heresy may be an ultimate spiritual loss due to the attitudes of the participants and observers and to the setting of dangerous precedents. I'm a Tedious Traditionalist in many respects, but I'm often embarrassed and saddened by much of the behaviour, statements, and actions of those who speak, or claim to speak, for Tradition.

[ 20. August 2003, 17:05: Message edited by: ChastMastr ]
 

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Posted by rebekah (# 2748) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by ChastMastr:
I should add that just because someone may be guilty of heresy, and even deserving of a heresy trial, it doesn't make the motives of those bringing them to trial right or good, and a technical victory over anti-Creedal heresy may be an ultimate spiritual loss due to the attitudes of the participants and observers and to the setting of dangerous precedents. I'm a Tedious Traditionalist in many respects, but I'm often embarrassed and saddened by much of the behaviour, statements, and actions of those who speak, or claim to speak, for Tradition.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Moo:
JimT, I am puzzled that you call Walter Righter Spong's assistant. Righter was the retired bishop of Iowa; Spong was the retired bishop of Newark (New Jersey).

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quote:

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On January 12, 1972, Respondent was consecrated as Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Iowa...[took a vow to uphold church teaching]

On September 30, 1990, Respondent (who was then Assistant Bishop of Newark) ordained to the diaconate one Barry L. Stopfel, in the Diocese of Newark...[who was homosexual, thus committing heresy count one by defying church teaching]

On August 25, 1994, Respondent (who was then a retired bishop) was present in the House of Bishops at General Convention meeting in Indianapolis...[signed the Koinonia Statement, thus committing heresy count two by defying church teaching]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mad Geo:
I care because I am getting answers that do not hang together, number 1. One person says the church didn't have the stones to throw him out, then someone said they did, and so on.

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quote:

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Originally posted by RuthW:
Look, it's not like we've got heresy police running around looking for people to put on trial in ecclesiastical court.

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Which, if we wound up with such a thing, could be one ghastly precedent to set in the ECUSA.

I've often wondered about the predicament we're in. On the one hand we don't really do anything to stop bishops from straying from, and encouraging others to stray from, the Creeds; on the other hand, thank God, we don't have heresy police as such. And we know exactly what it can be like to have them because we saw that some centuries ago. Though I do admit that, without the secular power it later gained, the Inquisition was a quite different matter, I still wonder if the passage about the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24-30) applies here -- that it's better to let God sort the wheat from the tares in the end than to try to do it ourselves and risk becoming spiritual McCarthyites in the process.

Even if one grants the full weight of the position I and others hold -- that Spong is guilty of grave heresy -- the question of how to handle it without risking doctrinal paranoia in a church structure such as the ECUSA is by no means resolved. Or so I suspect...

David

[ 20. August 2003, 19:29: Message edited by: ChastMastr ]
 

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Posted by Ley Druid (# 3246) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by RuthW
The trial of Bishop Righter was only the second in the entire history of the ECUSA (officially split from CofE in 1789). The only other trial was in 1924; a bishop was tried for heresy and deposed when he publicly stated his preference for communism over Christianity.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ley Druid:
Aren't you oversimplifying the trial of the Rt. Rev. William Montgomery Brown,

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quote:

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and thereby overlooking obvious parallels to Spong?

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quote:

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You can not imprison God within a literal creed, not mine, nor yours -- Brown

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quote:

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Originally posted by IanB:
Which brings us full circle to Spong, where "imported presuppositions of the enlightenment" flash like gaudy neon signs. That would be tolerable were it not for the unending stream of invective about those who disagree with him. His acidulous put-down of poor John Stott was deplorable. And, I might add, for the last couple of years, theological liberals have been high on his list of targets. If he is genuinely concerned about how Christians treat each other, perhaps we could start here. Hell, you yourself are able to conduct a vigorous, reasoned debate without descending into this stuff - why can't he?

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quote:

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Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:

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Originally posted by Mad Geo:
I care because I am getting answers that do not hang together, number 1. One person says the church didn't have the stones to throw him out, then someone said they did, and so on.

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Look, it's not like we've got heresy police running around looking for people to put on trial in ecclesiastical court. The trial of Bishop Righter was only the second in the entire history of the ECUSA (officially split from CofE in 1789). The only other trial was in 1924; a bishop was tried for heresy and deposed when he publicly stated his preference for communism over Christianity.

It's not a matter of having the "stones" to put someone on trial, as you so elegantly put it. It's a matter of whether enough bishops - as it's bishops who present heresy charges - want to put the church through the painful controversy and division that a heresy trial would bring.

Personally, I think it would have made a lot more sense to try Spong for heresy instead of Righter. Spong's publication of his opinions most likely does violate the canons of the church, whereas homosexuality is actually not covered in the canons, which is why Righter was acquitted.

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If the Bishops actually did not want to put "the church through the painful controversy and division that a heresy trial would bring". Well I guess that is THEIR leadership perogative to decide that for the congregations.

Kyralessa said:

quote:

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So he's a Bold Prophetic Voice, and the fact that he wasn't tried for heresy either confirms that or results from that? Is that your point, then?

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quote:

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.....Spong's beliefs, which he does not always live by, are of interest to me and I have wanted a discussion like this for quite some time. I'm hoping to convince people that perhaps Spong might be some sort of sheep in wolf's clothing, if they can get past the yellow fangs and eyes.

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quote:

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Originally posted by IanB:
Actually, there is an interesting sidenote on this bit. Spong himself ordained an openly gay guy, who within 1 month of being ordained priest publicly decried monogamy or faithfulness of any sort. He then went on to suggest that Mother Theresa "ought to get laid".

Spong's reaction? - He sacked him.

Ian

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mad Geo:
If the Bishops actually did not want to put "the church through the painful controversy and division that a heresy trial would bring". Well I guess that is THEIR leadership perogative to decide that for the congregations.

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It sure is. That's the way the episcopal system works. And no need to be about it, unless of course you don't think God ever says "yes" when we ask him to work in our system of church government.

quote:

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No, the fact that he wasn't tried for heresy makes me wonder if he had a point (or a number of them) and the church/Bishops could not bring themselves, or more importantly their congregations, to disagree with him enough to try him.

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quote:

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...makes me wonder...

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quote:

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I'd bet the rent...

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quote:

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Originally posted by RuthW:
But you keep posting what sounds like pretty much the same speculation / suspicion again and again, Geo - that the ECUSA doesn't disagree with Spong enough to put him on trial. And we keep telling you, that's not how the ECUSA works.

Here's a bishop they thought about trying and didn't - just censured him: Bishop Pike: "His radical theology rejected dogmatic interpretations of the Virgin Birth and the Incarnation, questioned the basis of theological concepts such as Original Sin and the Trinity, and challenged the infallibility of scripture."

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mad Geo:
I keep posting similar speculations because I keep getting handed more information, just like what you just posted.

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But that's not what you're supposed to do! You're supposed to say, "Ah, yes, you've been right all along."

quote:

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What an interesting church with interesting leadership!

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quote:

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Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:

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Originally posted by Mad Geo:
I keep posting similar speculations because I keep getting handed more information, just like what you just posted.

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But that's not what you're supposed to do! You're supposed to say, "Ah, yes, you've been right all along."

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Oh come now, Ruth, you should know me better than that by now! Although I will admit, <looks both ways for Erin> you and Presleyterian are the two that might squeeze those words outta me.

P.S. Are we night owls or what? We've been tag teaming the boards tonite big time!

[fixed code]

[ 21. August 2003, 14:09: Message edited by: Scot ]
 

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Posted by IanB (# 38) on :
 
Just trying to return to JimT's OP here. Is Spong dishonest or wrong?

I won't belabour the business of him remaining within a creedal confession - it's been done to death already. Rather, I suggest a look at his thinking.

Some years ago, I remember trying to get to grips with what he actually meant by some of the things he says. I confess to a personal difficulty with phrases like "ground of all being" - they are so vague they could mean almost anything. I came to the conclusion that in one area at least, he was using words in a way that nobody else does. Specifically, he uses the terms "transcendence" and "immanence" like nobody else. In effect, what he has done is to limit the meaning of immanence, and redefine transcendence so it now means the part of immanence that was taken away.

I remember quite a long exchange on the old boards about this. Subsequently, I was told that this redefinition was not his, but Tillich's. Be that as it may, it raises enormous problems for me - how do I know that what he says means what I think he says? Heaven knows that's a difficult one at any time, without hidden redefinitions going on. Of course, what it does is enable him to use these ideas and related ones in an orthodox-sounding way.

So why the problem with transcendence? In the real world, both things and ideas transcend other things/ideas all the time. If it wasn't for transcendence, there would be no advances in human knowledge, as there could be no paradigm-shifts. What it does is to make his concept of God contingent entirely upon creation. If the universe were to explode tomorrow, God would explode with it (if you see what I mean). It's a form of pantheism. I know he has been tackled on this, and his reply is that he is a panentheist, not a pantheist, but as I say, his idea of transcendence is radically different to what is generally understood.

So in this matter at least, I suggest that he is dishonest, though I fully grant that he did not start this. He has made it his own however.

On a second point, what is all this stuff about the bankruptcy or limitations of theism? If he means that western theology has been over-reliant on the cataphatic method, he has a point. This does try to define and limit God. But that's not theism. From the earliest days, the church has insisted that concerning the nature of God, there is nothing whatever we can say. He is simply beyond affirmation and negation. Excepting, of course, in how He reveals himself to us. I seriously doubt whether Jack Spong could take this on board, however, as it would need a firm understanding of God's transcendence, and that has been ruled out a priori .

This leads into a much broader area, which covers presuppositions, worldviews and frames of reference. I'm reminded by Rudolf Bultmann's oft-repeated question "How can we believe in a physical resurrection in an age that has (insert domestic appliance of choice - the original was electric razors, I think)…". But this sort of thing relies unquestioningly on a buy-in to an enlightenment natural/supernatural dualism. Surely the entire gospel story causes us to question what "natural" should mean, and suggests very strongly that what is at fault is our limited experience and expectation of what is natural. What I think caused the fatal blow to this way of thinking is not (sadly) theology itself, but the philosophy of science, as it tried to grapple with issues such as wave/particle dualism, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and quantum mechanics in general. The concepts of pure facts, the detached observer, and strong realism (philosophically referred to as naïve realism, but I don't want to upset anyone) simply could not be sustained any longer. Miracle stories may or may not be incredible in a post-Newtonian world, but he hasn't yet spotted we are no longer in a post-Newtonian world.

The point here is that much of Spong's rhetoric relies on the "no longer can we believe…" principle. In actual fact, the tide is running the other way. No longer should we assume that the restrictions we have placed on our terms of enquiry, on the limits of acceptable questions and answers can be regarded as valid, let alone normative. The dishonesty is in claiming the restrictiveness as being with us (classical theists) - rather it is with him.

One final point for the time being. He weighs in against "literalist" readings of scripture, as per his comment about the creation narratives:

quote:

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The biblical Creation story is mythology and is nonsensical in a post-Darwinian world.

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quote:

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Originally posted by RuthW:
And we keep telling you, that's not how the ECUSA works.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Scot:

quote:

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Originally posted by RuthW:
And we keep telling you, that's not how the ECUSA works.

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So how does it work then? Is each bishop responsible for removing himself when his beliefs become unorthodox? What standard do they use for making that self-assessment? Do they poll the other bishops? Since Spong wasn't even censured, there must be some other mechanism, possibly an informal one.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kyralessa:
I'm beginning to suspect that the governance of the ECUSA can only be comprehended through apophatic theology.

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ROTFL!
 

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Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
I remember now-Bishop Michael Marshall, when he came to Florida during the early 90s to promote the Anglican "Decade of Evangelism" (what the heck happened to that, anyway?). He said -- and I remember it because I have a tape of it I got at the church he appeared at -- that when he was in a hotel some time back, the fire alarm went off at about 3 or 4 in the morning. And many Anglicans came, bleary-eyed, staggering out of their rooms. "In five minutes," he said, "we'd reverted to type. We'd started a committee to investigate the possibility of the existence of fire in the hotel..."

I submit that, for good or ill, a church about which that can be said is not a church which is likely to push through heresy trials or censure. It doesn't make the promise, made before God, to uphold the Creeds non-binding.
 

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Posted by JimT (# 142) on :
 
This is a great discussion. My responses for now are:

Spong’s Dishonesty: I really meant to ask if he hid his beliefs, snuck in as a bishop, then used the position of bishop to launch a lucrative writing and speaking career aimed at destroying the Church. By dishonest, I didn’t really mean “intellectually dishonest by being inconsistent or deliberately obscure.” My personal opinion is that he has never been dishonest in any way, but gives the appearance because of a failure to use rigorous and unambiguous language to get his points across.

Spong’s Wrongness: I wasn’t asking about wrongness of tactics. I really meant to ask if it is completely impossible to assert that one is a Christian while not envisioning God as a personal, independent spiritual entity who miraculously took form via a Virgin birth and proved it via physical resurrection. I take it as a given that overall, his tactics have been far too confrontational and that he is flat wrong in dogmatically asserting, “no longer can anyone believe” this or that and if you do “you are part of what is wrong with the world and you need to get down on your knees and pray the non-sinners prayer to a non-personal God asking the spiritually resurrected JEEEsus to come into your heart and life today.”

The Whole Heresy Thing. I am curious to ask what I’m betting Kyralessa and Ley Druid would love to ask: How is it that dedicated creedalists who criticize Spong’s lack of integrity by not literally enforcing the creeds, and who criticize the ECUSA’s refusal to enforce the literal words of the creeds excuse themselves from lack of integrity by not returning or turning to the Roman Catholic or Orthodox Churches and dealing with whatever differences they have with those doctrines? Only a hierarchical power structure can enforce that kind of discipline; otherwise, it is a matter of scaring up votes and the only way you are going to scare up votes is with sensational stuff like ordaining homosexuals. You can’t stir up a majority of Protestants by saying, “I think the resurrection was not strictly physical.”

The Whole Scholastic thing. Ian’s post was both insightful and illuminating and prompts me to launch an inquiry into the way out of this dichotomy: bringing one’s current worldview to the scriptures in order to create a modern faith vs. extracting the One True Faith from a first century worldview that only an historian can hope to recreate. I note that in response to a simple question about how Catholics and Protestants might intercommune, NT Wright acknowledges that it would take years for anyone outside his thinking to “climb the mountain” required to understand his thinking on justification and that at least something like that would be required for such a monumental task as a unified view of the Eucharist (it’s in the link I keep referring to here.) That level of scholasticism is completely unacceptable to me. It cannot be Right. I am interested in the unification of all people everywhere and it seems blindingly easy to unite them on the concepts of Truth and Love (even atheists). To me, the bedrock of a “Something Good in Us All” expressing itself despite “Something Else Working Against It” is more readily and universally accessible than “An Outside Entity Who Left a Coded Message About How to Join a Future Bodily Resurrection In the Hermeneutic Circle of First Century Judaism Faithfully Recreated by NT Wright.” It just doesn't bother me that the Something In Us All would blow up with us if we blew up. It would still be in the atoms or the space time or something else. It can't be destroyed. Does that make you feel any better?

I'd ask anyone who responds to go really easy on me and remember that I'm a lot dumber than I sound. The Ship has taught me to feign intelligence with the best of them.
 

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Posted by Erin (# 2) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
I am curious to ask what I’m betting Kyralessa and Ley Druid would love to ask: How is it that dedicated creedalists who criticize Spong’s lack of integrity by not literally enforcing the creeds, and who criticize the ECUSA’s refusal to enforce the literal words of the creeds excuse themselves from lack of integrity by not returning or turning to the Roman Catholic or Orthodox Churches and dealing with whatever differences they have with those doctrines?

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quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
My personal opinion is that he has never been dishonest in any way,

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This is getting needlessly messianic.
 

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Posted by Kyralessa (# 4568) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by JimT:
Spong’s Dishonesty: I really meant to ask if he hid his beliefs, snuck in as a bishop, then used the position of bishop to launch a lucrative writing and speaking career aimed at destroying the Church.

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quote:

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Spong’s Wrongness: I wasn’t asking about wrongness of tactics. I really meant to ask if it is completely impossible to assert that one is a Christian while not envisioning God as a personal, independent spiritual entity who miraculously took form via a Virgin birth and proved it via physical resurrection.

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quote:

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The Whole Heresy Thing. I am curious to ask what I’m betting Kyralessa and Ley Druid would love to ask: How is it that dedicated creedalists...excuse themselves from lack of integrity by not returning or turning to the Roman Catholic or Orthodox Churches and dealing with whatever differences they have with those doctrines? Only a hierarchical power structure can enforce that kind of discipline...

---

quote:

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otherwise, it is a matter of scaring up votes and the only way you are going to scare up votes is with sensational stuff like ordaining homosexuals. You can’t stir up a majority of Protestants by saying, “I think the resurrection was not strictly physical.”

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quote:

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The Whole Scholastic thing. Ian’s post was both insightful and illuminating and prompts me to launch an inquiry into the way out of this dichotomy: bringing one’s current worldview to the scriptures in order to create a modern faith vs. extracting the One True Faith from a first century worldview that only an historian can hope to recreate. I note that in response to a simple question about how Catholics and Protestants might intercommune, NT Wright acknowledges that it would take years for anyone outside his thinking to “climb the mountain” required to understand his thinking on justification and that at least something like that would be required for such a monumental task as a unified view of the Eucharist (it’s in the link I keep referring to here.) That level of scholasticism is completely unacceptable to me...

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quote:

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• Arousing or capable of arousing sympathetic sadness and compassion: “The old, rather shabby room struck her as extraordinarily pathetic” (John Galsworthy).
• Arousing or capable of arousing scornful pity.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kyralessa:
If the bishop just says it wasn't physical, he's expressing his own wacky opinion.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Merseymike:
Its interesting. They are both looked upon as 'heretics' by some, but I felt there was a much greater sense of justice and holiness in both books than I have ever read from the likes of Tom Wright, for example. I was particularly impressed by his honesty about how he moved on gay and lesbian matters

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quote:

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I don't go as far as Spong, but I do think that what he says is a legitimate interpretation of the CHristian tradition in the light of modern scholarship, which is not the same as saying I agree with him.

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I am not sure I find that worldview as problematic as you do. (It was the one I was brougth up with.)

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Originally posted by IanB:

The thing about amah in the Jewish version of Isaiah is that it comes from the masoretic text, which is many hundreds of years after the LXX Greek text and well into the Christian era. Unless there has been some recent discovery, we just don't have a Jewish text of the antiquity of the LXX, which raises the question, why did the Jewish translators decide to use the concept of "virgin", bearing in mind that none of them would have expected a univocal reading of scripture - ?

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Originally posted by Weslian:
I am sure it has been dealt with elsewhere, but it strikes me that there is the world of difference in not believing in the Virgin Birth, and not believing in the Resurrection.

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Originally posted by Weslian:
My point is still that the virgin birth is not central, and disbelieving it does not make you an unfit bishop. I suspect many quite conservative ones have their doubts.

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Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
For what it's worth, according to this, "There is no word in the Near Eastern languages that by itself means virgo intacta." Virginity or lack of same is implied by context.

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Originally posted by Moo:

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Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
For what it's worth, according to this, "There is no word in the Near Eastern languages that by itself means virgo intacta." Virginity or lack of same is implied by context.

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Is this a statement about modern Near Eastern languages or ancient ones?

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Since language is primarily spoken, and only secondarily written, the absence of a certain feature in the writings that have survived does not prove that this feature does not exist.

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Originally posted by Kyralessa:
Doesn't one agree to uphold the creeds of the church when one is made a bishop? The Virgin Birth is most definitely in the Nicene Creed.

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However, sexual ethics was a sizable concern in many of the writings that we do have, and it is clear that the language can and was used to convey that certain persons did or did not have sex. So, in this particular case, we do have a sizable number of writing samples where a word for virgo intacta could have been used, yet wasn't. Instead, virginity is implied by context or indicated with phrases. That indicates that a word for virgo intacta simply wasn't available.

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Originally posted by Moo:
quote from J.J. Ramsey

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However, sexual ethics was a sizable concern in many of the writings that we do have, and it is clear that the language can and was used to convey that certain persons did or did not have sex. So, in this particular case, we do have a sizable number of writing samples where a word for virgo intacta could have been used, yet wasn't. Instead, virginity is implied by context or indicated with phrases. That indicates that a word for virgo intacta simply wasn't available.

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But if they had needed such a word, they could have made one up. That's how languages usually work.

I wonder whether the concept of virgo intacta was subsumed in some other word--such as a word meaning, 'a woman still living in her parents' house'.

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From this page

But in Joel 1:8, where the beátuÆlaÆ is called upon to lament the death of her ba>al “husband,” it probably does not mean “virgin” for elsewhere ba>al is the regular word for “husband” and its usual translation by “bridegroom” in the versions is otherwise unattested. Likewise in Est 2:17 the beátuÆloµt who spent a night with King Ahasuerus are not virgins, unless it is a “shorthand” for “those who had been virgins.” In a parable Ezekiel speaks of Oholah and Oholibah playing the harlot and their beátuÆléÆm breasts being handled (23:3). Here too the notion of virginity would be inaccurate. Finally in Job 31:1 even the neb translated our word by “girl” because it would not be sinful for Job to look on a virgin. Unless it is an epithet for a Canaanite goddess it probably designates a young married woman (cf. vv. 8ff).

Like Greek parthenos, Latin virgo and German Jungfrau, beátuÆlaÆ originally meant “young marriageable woman” but since she was normally a virgin it was not difficult for this meaning to become attached to the word. This more technical meaning is a later development in Hebrew and Aramaic and is clearly its meaning by the Christian era. When the change took place is not clear.

What is clear is that one cannot argue that if Isaiah (7:14) in his famous oracle to Ahaz had intended a virgin he could have used beátuÆlaÆ as a more precise term than >almaÆ.

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Originally posted by Moo:

Every language has the words to say everything important in that culture. If they didn't have a word, that would suggest that virginity was unimportant to them, which seems unlikely.

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Originally posted by Mousethief:
Hello, is this the right room for an argument?

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Probably not.
 

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Posted by IanB (# 38) on :
 
Dunno if anyone is still tuned in here, but JimT raised some interesting points that I for one would like to continue with.

Converting/leaving
This is going to vary a lot. Some people will jump ship at the slightest provocation - others have a much higher level of commitment for various reasons. By and large, those who hold to a more catholic ecclesiology are likely to find it more difficult, though as I say there are also other reasons involved. In any event, as has been pointed out, we don't have heresy police. Even Rome (who sort-of do have a heresy police) take many years before taking action. So courtesy demands sufficient time for the individual to explain themselves. However, that has a downside - it also allows the level of discomfort and cognitive dissonance to rise in others.

There is also the single-issue thing. People who join another church on this basis frequently leave again fairly rapidly. If you are going to somewhere else, it should be a positive decision. Humans are humans wherever you find them, and it also helps to realise that at times our own views can be every bit as crap and biased as theirs.

Perhaps the best way to look at this is to regard the unease that comes with the cognitive dissonance as being the motivator to start doing something. That something may ultimately turn out to be a move, or it might not. In my own case, I don't really know where I shall be in future either. But at some point I know I shall have to decide, rather than let it go by default.

Dishonesty
No, I do not for a minute think that Jack Spong is that sort of Machiavellian-prince bishop. Just wanted to set that record straight.

Christianity in exile
An interesting one. I really do think there is a need for this, and as even his most dedicated opponents acknowledge, he has at least caused the rest of us to put our thinking caps on. I can't give you a fully joined-up position on this one, but my thoughts run something like this.

First, exile from what? There seems to be a sort of suggestion at least that a fundamentalist mindset is involved here, along with other factors like "nobody today can believe…" sort of things, which we've touched on already. I haven't read his "rescuing Christianity" book, so maybe it's more formally stated in there. This rather overlooks the fact that historically, fundamentalism arose as a reaction to theological liberalism, not the other way around. But the two still remain locked together in a sort of deadly embrace, as they share many underlying presuppositions and indeed a strong-realist worldview. It seems remarkably easy for people to move from one of these positions to the other, and as I said in an earlier post, I think that is what Spong has done. The framework has remained, but different objects have been dropped into it. If Christians are to be rescued from exile, it seems to me that a far more radical approach will be needed, that trashes this whole wretched framework itself. I could say more, but had better not for reasons of space.

Incidentally, I think the above is changing. I do not see JimT in this light, and of other shipmates, I don't think it describes Edward Green's position either. However, much of this discussion of people in exile seems to revolve around these existing worldview presuppositions.

Search for a common core
I know JimT is keen on this one, as he has posted on two threads. Just a few thoughts. I have no trouble with this. In fact I think it is a decent and honourable project. But this is limiting. It is a search for what is popularly known as the Lowest Common Denominator (though that should really be the Highest Common Factor). Religions certainly have much in common, including the golden rule. However, much that is incommensurable is also asserted as part of their truth-claims. Sometimes you can exegete your way out of this by ensuring you try to see things within the whole framework, rather than submitting individual views to your own framework. Difficult, but not impossible. In the end, though, it has to be faced that truth-claims are involved that are not reconcilable.

When you get to this point, I think you have to decide whether you are going to say "I can't work this one out - I'm going so far and no further", or "I'm interested, and think one of these truth-claims may have something in it". It seems to me that either of these options possesses integrity. What I think is unacceptable is to say or imply that is impossible to go further. The real world doesn't work that way, except in deeply (intellectually) conservative circles. But maybe I misunderstand your suggestions…

Ian
 

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Posted by humblebum (# 4358) on :
 
And maybe the rest of us misunderstand your responses, Ian! Those last couple of paragraphs are pretty dense...

To continue the Spong/Wright tangent for a bit, I hear what you're saying about Wright being a smarty-pants, Jim. I think this kind of academic superiority goes with the territory, and most normal people find it hard to put up with. From what I'm gathering, Spong's heart-on-sleeve approach is in many respects a lot more admirable.

But in Mr Wright's favour, he is at least agreeable with people he disagrees with, and from what I gather is good friends with many of his opponents (Borg et al). It's something I particularly respect him for. But, as previously mentioned, Spong has nothing but vitriol and open derision for people who disagree with him - not a very commendable character trait, I would have thought.

[ 27. August 2003, 10:20: Message edited by: humblebum ]
 

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Posted by Merseymike (# 3022) on :
 
You mean Wright is a silver-tongued smooth operator who tries to pretend he gets on with everyone?
Just about sums up why I dislike his work. That smug tone is apparent throughout.

I prefer John Spong's honesty and approach. I also agree that homophobes and fundamentalists deserve the approach he takes rather than the pretend-bonhomie of Wright.
 

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Posted by Cardinal Pole Vault (# 4193) on :
 
Wright could ordain me in 3 years time. Scary thought (on a numnber of levels)
 

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Posted by IanB (# 38) on :
 
It would be a shame to let personal animosities completely cloud what is being said by either of these guys. I certainly have objected to some of the ways Spong has done things (it was in the OP, remember?), and Merseymike has countered with a category of things that he finds displeasing about the way Wright does things.

Even so, in the final analysis, what counts foremost is whether their writings are right. Secondly, whether they are helpful in conveying that truth. There is no mileage in being the world's greatest apologist for the incorrect.

So, tough though it may be, we have to get down to the bedrock of what is being said. This thread is about Spong, not Wright, so if it is helpful, leave the latter out of it and start another thread somewhere else.

I hope that someone can come back on the comments on "Christians in Exile" that interests JimT and me, for the simple reason that Spong finds this important too. If what I posted was unintelligible (not impossible alas) I'll try to re-work it.

Ian
 

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Posted by David (# 3) on :
 

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Originally posted by Merseymike:
You mean Wright is a silver-tongued smooth operator who tries to pretend he gets on with everyone?
Just about sums up why I dislike his work. That smug tone is apparent throughout.

I prefer John Spong's honesty and approach. I also agree that homophobes and fundamentalists deserve the approach he takes rather than the pretend-bonhomie of Wright.

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Originally posted by Merseymike:
You mean Wright is a silver-tongued smooth operator who tries to pretend he gets on with everyone?

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Originally posted by Merseymike:
You mean Wright is a silver-tongued smooth operator who tries to pretend he gets on with everyone?
Just about sums up why I dislike his work. That smug tone is apparent throughout.

I prefer John Spong's honesty and approach. I also agree that homophobes and fundamentalists deserve the approach he takes rather than the pretend-bonhomie of Wright.

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I think what was meant is that Wright doesn't let scholarly disagreements get personal.

Although I suppose Spong doesn't either, in the sense that one could hardly accuse Spong of having scholarly disagreements with anybody.
 

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Posted by Merseymike (# 3022) on :
 
I don't take the opinions of the Wright fan club as truth.
 

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Posted by Kyralessa (# 4568) on :
 

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Originally posted by Merseymike:
I don't take the opinions of the Wright fan club as truth.

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Originally posted by Merseymike:
I prefer John Spong's honesty and approach. I also agree that homophobes and fundamentalists deserve the approach he takes rather than the pretend-bonhomie of Wright.

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Originally posted by Merseymike:
I don't take the opinions of the Wright fan club as truth.

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Merseymike, it's hard not to read this as a personal insult. A couple of weeks back, you complimented me for something I posted on another thread (secular counselling and the clergy, IIRC). Now I like Tom Wright's academic work, and so my opinion becomes a pile of crap. Please explain - was this comment directed to me, or everyone who has something good to say about Wright?

(with apologies to Jim, Ian, David etc for sidetracking the thread further)
 

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Posted by JimT (# 142) on :
 
I don't quite know how to launch into this without lengthy manifesto-style posting but hopefully it is at least as entertaining and illuminating as watchman.

Spong’s Description of “Believers in Exile”

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In the despair of meaninglessness, these Jewish people were forced to leave everything they knew and everything they valued to begin their journey into a Babylonian captivity…In this postmodern world, those who still claim allegiance to the Christian religion find themselves, I believe, living in a similar kind of exile. Spong, Chapter 2 of Why Christianity Must Change or Die

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Originally posted by IanB:
[H]istorically, fundamentalism arose as a reaction to theological liberalism, not the other way around. But the two still remain locked together in a sort of deadly embrace, as they share many underlying presuppositions and indeed a strong-realist worldview.

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Originally posted by Merseymike:
Just like you clearly do with Wright.

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Originally posted by Merseymike:
If you do, yes, as your supposition was equally inaccurate.

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So I look for God where the word heresy begins to be heard, where someone is said to have gone too far, where the word 'Christian' appears near question marks.

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I’m going to challenge the notion that theological liberalism is the chicken that laid the fundamentalist egg. The fatal embrace can probably be traced back to the original church councils about which I know little.

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The exile was complete…Is it possible in this exile for us to remain believers? Some clearly do not think so. Many citizens of our century have given up believing and have assumed citizenship in the secular city…Others…have tried to dismiss all the data derived from the explosion of knowledge in the last few centuries as if it were false or evil or even as if it did not exist…Still others, like me and perhaps the audience to which I have some appeal, have begun to define themselves as believers in exile. They refuse to abandon the reality of God, yet they have been driven by forces over which they have no control to sacrifice much of the content of that God reality. So they are left with an almost contentless concept, which must be allowed to find new meaning or it will die.

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So being a disciple of this Jesus does not require me to make literalized creedal affirmations in oppositional form about the reality of the theistic God who supposedly invaded our world and who lived among us for a time in the person of Jesus. It only requires me to be empowered by him to imitate the presence of God in him by living fully, by loving wastefully, and by having the courage to be all that God created me to be…It [means] that I will commune with God only to the degree that I can give my life, my love, and my being away to others.

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