Bishop John Shelby Spong 斯龐主教

[Alex]

John Shelby Spong is the retired American bishop of the Episcopal Church Diocese of Newark (based in Newark, New Jersey). He is a liberal Christian theologian, Biblical scholar, religion commentator and author. A prominent theme in Spong's writing is that the popular, literal interpretation of Christian scripture is not sustainable and does not speak honestly to the situation of modern Christian communities, and that a more nuanced approach to scripture, informed by scholarship and compassion, can be consistent with both Christian tradition and a contemporary understanding of the universe. He believes, as did his theological predecessor, Bishop John A.T. Robinson, that theism has lost credibility as a valid conception of God's nature. He explains that he is a Christian because he believes that Jesus Christ fully expressed the presence of a God of compassion and selfless love, and that this is the meaning of the early Christian proclamation, "Jesus is Lord". He rejects the historical truth claims of some Christian doctrines, such as the Virgin Birth and the bodily resurrection of Jesus. He calls for a new Reformation, in which many of Christianity's basic doctrines should be reformulated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Shelby_Spong

斯龐主教是位於新澤西州的美國聖公會紐瓦克教區的退休主教。他是一位自由派基督教神學家、聖經學者、宗教評論家和作家。他的作品其中一個重要主題是照字面解《聖經》既行不通，亦沒有向現代基督徒群體說真話。一個更細緻的，充份考慮《聖經》學術研究並且具同情心的解經進路，與基督教傳統及當代對宇宙的理解一致。跟前輩約翰羅賓遜主教一樣，他認為有神論概念已不再能有效地理解上帝的本質。他解釋說，他是一個基督徒，因為他相信耶穌基督充分體現了一個慈悲並且懷著無私的愛的上帝之同在，這亦是早期基督徒宣認「耶穌是主」的真正意義。他反對某些傳統基督教教義，如「童女生子」及耶穌「身體復活」。他倡議一場新的宗教改革，重寫基督教的基本教義。

Bishop Spong Q&A 斯龐主教問與答
You may subscribe to John Shelby Spong's regular "Bishop Spong Q&A" at his official
website at 您可以在斯龐主教的官方網站訂閱定期的「斯龐主教問與答」:
http://johnshelbyspong.com

[Alex]

Karen Hutton from Pleasantville, California, writes:
Is there any purpose in staying a member of a traditional Christian Church if you no longer believe the things the church regards as its core beliefs? Why have you stayed with your church, given your criticisms of many of the basic aspects of Christianity?


Dear Karen,

Before answering that question, we need to identify what it is you are calling "core beliefs" or the "basic aspects of Christianity." I believe that what most people call orthodoxy in religious beliefs is little more than the imposed authority of some part of the Christian faith. The claim to be orthodox in one's belief is not to acknowledge a point of view that is true, but only the point of view that has prevailed. My studies lead me to believe that there never was a single consistent set of Christian beliefs. There were many Christianities from the dawn of Christianity itself. Various groups have tried to define true Christianity, but when they do they almost always define their own institutional, authoritarian system.

Some people, for example, assert that the historic creeds defined primitive Christianity. The Apostles' Creed, however, began as a series of baptismal formulas in local churches in the third century and these formulas differed widely until they evolved into a single form somewhere between 250 and 290 CE. I doubt if the actual apostles would have recognized much of it.

The Nicene Creed, adopted at the Council of Nicea in 325 CE, was designed primarily to close the loopholes in the Apostles' Creed. The Athanasian Creed, a product of the late fourth century, was designed to close loopholes in the Nicene Creed. The earliest creed of the Church was only three words, Jesus is Messiah. The word "messiah" meant a variety of things to the Jews, so even the three-word creed had wide flexibility.

Others assert that believing in the Virgin Birth is a "core doctrine" of Christianity, but scholars can now demonstrate quite conclusively that both Paul and Mark seem never to have heard of it; and John, who was among the last writers in the New Testament, appears to have specifically rejected it since he refers to Jesus on two occasions as the "son of Joseph."

Still others suggest that the physical resurrection of Jesus is the essential core belief of Christianity, but I think I can demonstrate that Paul did not believe the resurrection was physical, and neither did Mark. Matthew is ambivalent. It is Luke and John, the last two gospels to be written, that interpret the resurrection as a physical resuscitation of a deceased body. So determining what the "core beliefs" of Christianity are is not as easy as people seem to think.

Some, usually in evangelical or in the conservative Catholic traditions, argue that doctrines like the Incarnation, the Atonement and the Trinity set the boundaries around essential Christianity, but once again these doctrines were not fully developed until the third and fourth centuries and it would be difficult to demonstrate that either Paul or Mark were Trinitarians.

My point is that Christianity has always been a movement and that most churches have simply frozen Christianity at fairly primitive levels. It is not to oppose basic Christianity that is the agenda of Christian scholars; it is to seek truth through the Christian story or through the Christian lens. That is what keeps me active in church life. Christianity is not static or doctrinal. It is a pathway we walk into the mystery of God. I grant that it is easier to walk the Christ path in some churches than in others, but true Christianity is always evolving into what it can be; its purpose is not to protect what it has been. So I would suggest that for you to see your role in your church to be that of a change agent, you are in fact being a true worshiper of Christ.

I hope this helps. I think institutional Christianity needs people like you and me in it.

– John Shelby Spong

[Alex]

Bruce Wilson from Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, writes:
I am deeply troubled. I cannot picture God, a supreme Santa Claus, who lives above the sky. I cannot see this as a male entity, as a judge, as a creator of all the universe. This image of a jealous, angry and vengeful entity is repugnant to me. This leaves me with no one to pray to, no one to give me spiritual comfort, no one to love me unconditionally (except my dog). Why do you keep referring to a God when, over the many years that I have read your books and weekly bulletins, you have said the very things about this entity that I quote above?


Dear Bruce,

Thank God for your dog!

Maybe you should see your inability to picture God as a Santa Claus above the sky as a step into maturity and wholeness. Now you need to look at the immaturity of your prayers. The last thing most of us can surrender in our spiritual journeys is the parent figure God who hears our petitions and who loves us unconditionally. However, there are other ways to conceptualize God.

Alfred North Whitehead conceived of God as a Process. Paul Tillich experienced God as the Ground of Being. The problem is that we use the language of time and space to give form to an experience and a reality that is not bound by or within time and space. When I use the word "God" I am not talking about a being. I am describing that sense of transcendence that I believe I have encountered within time and space. I believe I experience God as life fully lived, as love wastefully given, as being completely realized. I cannot tell you or anyone else who or what God is. I can only describe my experience. I may be delusional. Lots of religious people are, but I don't think so.

I join the mystics in saying that I think I am part of what God is. God lives in me, loves through me and empowers me to escape that drive to survive that is in every living thing in order to give my life away. That is the Christ role and I think it is also the role that his disciples are called to model.

So I am drawn by God beyond my boundaries and I perceive that God becomes real when I enter into the task of living and loving and being. This means that it doesn't occur to me that I am alone with no one to whom to pray. This makes me rather a deeply infused, God-intoxicated human being who no longer has the words to describe the God in who I live and move and have my being, but it does not even occur to me to doubt the reality of that which I experience, but can never define. I hope this helps. Hug your dog for me.

– John Shelby Spong

[Alex]

Eucharist


Carter Sinclair, via the Internet, writes:
We were having a discussion at church last night about theism and worship. How is the Eucharist relevant if theism is taken away, or more appropriately, how can our Episcopal liturgy and worship change to reflect the loss of theism?


Dear Carter,

Liturgy is defined as the work of the people. Liturgy also reflects the attitudes and world views of the people who composed it. Before Copernicus and Galileo almost everyone thought of God as a supernatural being who lived above the sky. When we understood the immensity of the universe, that definition of God became quite inadequate. Yet our liturgy still assumes it — "Our Father who art in heaven," we say. Stories in the Bible, from the Tower of Babel in Genesis to the ascension of Jesus in the book of Acts, still assume this pre-Copernican world view.

Before Isaac Newton, we defined everything we did not understand as a miracle. After Newton, miracles and magic shrank into non-existence. Yet the Christian Eucharist still tells the Jesus story as the theistic God from above the sky, entering human history in the person of Jesus and somehow paying the price of our sins.

What we need to understand is that the theistic definition of God is not God. It is a human definition of God. Human definitions always fade with the expansion of knowledge. Theism has now faded. Yet the Eucharist tries each week to do artificial respiration on the corpse of theism.

I do not think the great mystics of Christian history were theists. They were certainly God-intoxicated but they did not define God in theistic ways. The time has come for us to seek to redefine our God experience in the liturgy in non-theistic symbols.

I do not believe any human being can define God. I do think we can experience God. I experience God as the source of life calling me to live fully, as the presence of love calling me to love wastefully, as the Ground of Being empowering me to be all that I can be. So God is seen for me in lives fully lived, love wastefully given and being used to empower others to be.

That is the God I meet in Jesus and that is what the Eucharist is all about. One would not know that, however, with all of the blood, sacrifice and sin talk with which the Eucharist is now laden.

I see reformation coming and I welcome it. The way for liturgy to change is for the people involved in it to do it. Your question indicates that you are already raising these issues.

Stay with it. Liturgy changes very slowly.

–John Shelby Spong

[Alex]

Religious Education for Children


MiddleAgedMama, via the Internet, writes:
I was raised as a Roman Catholic, but I left the church long ago and have never found another that suited me. My partner remains a Catholic, and when we adopted our children I agreed to raise them in that religion. Now the older child is six years old and is signed up for religious instruction in preparation for her First Communion, and I find myself wondering how to respond to the learning and questions she will undoubtedly bring home from her classes. When they teach her about the literal virgin birth of Christ, or the resurrection, or prayer, or God, or just about anything I remember from my own instruction, what do I say (if anything)? I don't want to undermine her instructors, but I also want to plant the seeds of the concept that faith cannot be opposed to knowledge. She recently asked who "the first person" was, and I could not honestly answer "Adam," as her teacher would no doubt say. What do you say to your own grandchildren about religion?


Dear MiddleAgedMama,

Yours is a difficult position. You in effect withdrew from this decision when you agreed to raise your child in the Roman Catholic Church. There is a certain expectation in Roman Catholicism that "the truth" is to be communicated to each generation in a predictable, traditional way. If this church were to cease to do this, it would call all of its authority claims into question. That is not likely to happen any time soon. This is why the only alternatives that people who are raised in the Catholic Church have are to acquiesce or depart. Vast numbers of people today have chosen to depart. The Roman Catholic Church is held up in America today statistically only by the immigrant population. You need to be true to your partner, true to your commitment and true to your own integrity. That is not easy.

With my own children and grandchildren, I was committed to never telling them that something was true if I did not myself believe it. I did not want to be dishonest. I did not have the burden of having them taught things in the church that were not considered debatable, so I said: "I do not believe that" whenever they asked a direct question. In your case, I hope you will listen to your children and engage them in conversation about what they are learning. Ask them lots of questions that show different ways of viewing an issue. If you disagree with something they are being taught, say so without judgment by simply stating, "Well, I have a different understanding of that," or "No, I do not think that's the right answer."

I think you can say that every ancient people had a myth about the first man and the first woman. The Adam and Eve story in the Bible was actually written in the 10th century BCE. Scientists today have identified human-like beings, but not yet really human beings as we understand them, from as early as 4.4 million years ago. The story of Adam can hardly be literally true given that time frame. Even if we make the emergence of self-consciousness part of the definition of human life, then human life is about 250,000 years old, still far too much time to suggest that a 3,000-year-old tribal story about the first human being is actual history. That, however, might be too much for a six-year-old child to embrace, so I would simply discuss the issues and use questions to destabilize certainty, but not to attack taught conclusions.

Your daughter will learn enough to raise questions herself someday. As she does, answer each one honestly, but try to avoid using authoritarian words. Say something like, "This is what my study has led me to believe and your study must lead you to your own conclusions."

In time if she studies religion in an academic setting, she will learn that the virgin birth tradition was a 9th decade addition to the Christian faith and not original to it at all, and that understanding the resurrection as the physical resuscitation of a deceased body was not the original understanding of the Easter experience, and in Christian academic circles it is widely rejected as the meaning of Easter today. When your child learns these things, she will also learn that you have always been caring and honest with her and she can share her questions and even her doubts with you in the same way that you shared your questions and doubts with her. The most important thing is that you be loving and supportive. Nonjudgmental honesty is a big part of that.

My best and good luck,

– John Shelby Spong

[Alex]

Christmas Tales
 

Charles Brittain from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, writes:
I am a progressive Christian, one who follows your scholarship and that of my pastor. In fact, you have visited our church and I have heard you speak in person. It was a wonderful experience for me. The problem I'm having at this present holiday season is that the scholarship and the traditional Christmas music and the visuals are not in agreement with each other. I feel that I abandon my intellectual knowledge when I participate in the traditional forms of Christmas liturgy and imagery. Can you suggest how that I may enjoy both the scholarship and the traditions of Christmas without feeling conflicted?


Dear Charles,

Thank you for your question, which is perfect for the column that goes out on Christmas Eve. There is no doubt that most people have literalized the images that Matthew and Luke have in their birth stories of Jesus (See Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2), but I do believe it is quite clear that neither Matthew nor Luke thought of them as literal events. The great majority of biblical scholars share that perspective.

The facts are that stars do not travel across the sky so slowly that wise men can keep up with them; angels do not break through the midnight sky to sing to hillside shepherds; and human beings do not follow stars to pay homage to a newborn king of a foreign nation, especially when the same gospel that tells us this story also tells us that Jesus was the son of a carpenter. To continue this train of thought, no real head of state, including King Herod, would deputize eastern magi that he had never seen before to be his CIA to bring him a report of this threat to his throne. That is the stuff of fairy tales. 

A star does not lead magi down a wagon track of a road six miles from Jerusalem and then bathe the house in which the baby lies with heavenly light to show these Magi where the child they seek is to be found. Wise men do not bring gifts that symbolize kingship (gold), divinity (frankincense) and suffering (myrrh) that will mark the life of this infant. No one is that prescient.

Virgins do not conceive except in mythology, of which there were many examples in the Mediterranean world. Kings do not order people to return to their ancestral home for enrolling for taxation. There were 1000 years between David and Joseph, or some 50 generations. David had multiple wives and concubines. In 50 generations, the descendants of David would number in the billions. If they had all returned to Bethlehem, there would be no wonder that there was no room at the inn! 

A man does not take his wife, who is "great with child," on a 94-mile donkey ride from Nazareth to Bethlehem so that the expected messiah can be born in David's city. One lay Roman Catholic woman theologian said of that account, "Only a man who had never had a baby could have written that story!" No king slaughters all the boy babies in a town trying to get rid of a pretender to his throne, especially if everyone in that town would have known exactly which house it was over which the star had stopped and into which the Magi had entered. The whereabouts of the "pretender" to Herod's throne would not have been hard to identify if this were a literal story that really happened.

Certainly, both Matthew and Luke were aware that they were using these stories to try to interpret the power of God experienced in the adult life of Jesus of Nazareth. Matthew drew his wise men story out of Isaiah 60, where kings were said to come on camels "to the brightness of God's rising." They came bringing gifts of gold and frankincense. Matthew expanded this story with details drawn from other biblical narratives like the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon and the truckload of spices (myrrh) that she brought with her (see I Kings 10) and the story of Balaam and Balak from Numbers 22-24 in which a star in the East plays a prominent role. Traditional Jewish writings also used a star in the sky to announce the births of its great heroes, Abraham, Isaac and Moses.

Matthew wrapped his interpretation around the well-known story of Moses. That is why he repeated the story of Pharaoh killing the boy babies in Egypt at the time of Moses' birth, transforming it to be a story of Herod killing the boy babies in Bethlehem at the time of Jesus' birth.

What these narratives were designed by the gospel writers to proclaim are:

1. Human life could not have produced the presence of God that people believed they had met in Jesus.
2. The importance of his birth was symbolized by having it announced with heavenly signs, a star in Matthew and angels in Luke.
3. In the life of Jesus, they believed that heaven and earth had come together and that divinity and humanity had merged.
4. Messiah for the Jews had many facets. Messiah had to be both a new Moses and the heir to the throne of David. The Moses claim was in the story of how Jesus was taken by Joseph down to Egypt so that God could call him as God had called Moses out of Egypt. The heir to David was the reason his birth was located in David's place of birth (Bethlehem) instead of in Nazareth, where Jesus was in all probability born.
5. This Jesus draws the whole world to himself, even the Gentile world of the Magi as well as the humble lives of the shepherds.

These are the interpretive details of the Christian myths. All of them came into the Christian faith only in the 9th decade. None of them is original to the memory of Jesus. Neither Paul nor Mark had ever heard of them. John, the last gospel to be written, must have known of these birth traditions, but he doesn't include them and, on two occasions, calls Jesus the son of Joseph (see John Chapters 1 and 6).
 
Given these pieces of data, there is no way the authors of the Christmas stories in the Bible thought they were writing literal history. They were interpreting the meaning they found in Jesus. As long as we understand that, I see no reason why we can't sing, "While shepherds watched their flocks by night" or "O, little town of Bethlehem" even if there were no shepherds who attended Jesus' birth and the probability is that he was born in Nazareth, which is what the first gospel Mark assumes.

As far as I know, adults don't believe there is a literal North Pole inhabited by a jolly elf named Santa Claus, who harnesses his toy-laden sled to his reindeer in order to bring gifts to all of the children of the world on Christmas Eve. Yet we still sing, "Rudolf, the red-nosed reindeer" and "Santa Claus is coming to town" without twisting our minds into intellectual pretzels.

My suggestion is that you separate fantasy from history and then enter into and enjoy the fantasy of the season. Dream of Peace on Earth and good will among men and women, and then dedicate yourself to bringing that vision into being. In that way you will understand the intentions of the gospel writers.

Thanks for writing. Enjoy the holidays, and Merry Christmas.

– John Shelby Spong

[Alex]

Sara Taylor from London, England, asks:
You say that all societies have or have had a word or concept meaning God. Is this true of Buddhism? I know that Buddhas have been deeply revered, but not that they were equated with God. So my question is, does Buddhism really necessitate a belief in or a word for God?


Dear Sara,

Your letter reflects an important understanding and also makes a common fallacy. The important understanding comes in the universal realization that all human beings postulate a realm beyond and greater than the realm of the human. That is what self-consciousness does to each one of us. The common fallacy is that there is only one human definition of that meaning.

Western religion has regularly and consistently defined God in theistic terms. That is, God is perceived as an external being, supernatural in power, who periodically invades the world in miraculous ways to establish the divine will or to answer our prayers. Eastern religion in general, but Buddhism in particular, does not define God in theistic terms. That has caused some westerners to refer to Buddhism as an "atheist" religion. Well, it is, but only in the sense that "atheist" means "not theist." It does not mean that there is no sense of God in Buddhism. Language is our problem. The theistic definition of God is so total in the western world that the word "atheism" has come to mean that there is no God. Theism is a human definition of God and, as such, is destined to die like all human definitions do in time. Theism is not God.

The second point of your question makes it clear that this common fallacy is operating. You are correct in that no claim is present in Buddhism that suggests that the Buddhas be equated with God. If God is not external to life as theism projects, then God cannot invade the world in human form. That is an idea that grew up in Christianity and, in my mind, still distorts the meaning of Jesus. The early Christian writings suggest that God — the Holy external other — designated Jesus to be "son of God." That designation took place at his resurrection for Paul, as he writes in his letter to the Romans about the year 58. It took place at his baptism for Mark, who writes his gospel in the early 70's. The literal identity between Jesus and God that brought about such doctrines as the Incarnation and the Trinity are the products of the next three hundred years, and are based on what I regard as a Greek misreading of the Fourth Gospel. The claim of divinity for Jesus, or the suggestion that he is the second person of the Trinity, is unique to later Christianity. The Jews never claimed a divine nature for Judaism's greatest heroes, Moses and Elijah; the Buddhists never made that claim for Buddha, and Islam never made that claim for Mohammed. That is not to say, however, that these religions do not have a profound sense of the holy for which the word God is the most popular human symbol.

I have moved theologically over the course of my life into a non-theistic understanding of God. That does not mean that God has become less real to me. Indeed the exact opposite is the case. When I speak about God I embrace the fact that I am only using words as symbols that describe not God, but my experience of God. I experience God as the source of life, the source of love and the ground of being. I see the divinity of Jesus in the fullness of his humanity. I believe the way into God is to journey into, through and beyond the human. While the pathway might look different, the goal is quite the same.

Thank you for your question.

– John Shelby Spong

[Alex]

Dr. Larry L. Ligo, Professor of Art History at Davidson College, writes:
Thank you so much for your clear, informative, exciting, liberating insights into the meaning of Christ for Christians living in the twenty-first century. I first heard of you and your ministry in a Charlotte Observer article when you were lecturing in Charlotte last fall. I missed your presentation but was intrigued by the article and have since read five or six of your books. Thank you.

I also wish to express my condolences to you concerning the recent death of your friend Michael Goulder. I have gained much from your treatment of his work in Liberating the Gospels. I have been trying to find copies of his out-of-print books but have not, as yet, been successful.

Will you be speaking in the North Carolina area in the near future? Do you have a schedule of your upcoming speaking engagements?


Dear Professor Ligo,

Thank you for your letter. When I was growing up in Charlotte, N. C., Davidson College was the crown jewel of nearby educational opportunities. I always admired its commitment to academic excellence. What was then a very small town had a mayor named Tom Griffith, who was a dairy farmer and in fact my mother's brother and thus my uncle. Your letter brought back many memories to me.

Thank you also for your condolences on the death of one of my three major mentors in life, Michael Goulder. I will write about his death and his influence on me in a future column. His books are indeed hard to find. I suggest looking at a major theological library.

A schedule of my speaking schedule is available on my column's Web site at all times (view the calendar here). My next venues in North Carolina will be in Hendersonville at a UCC-Congregational Church in late May and early June, and in Highlands on the Monday and Tuesday nights of the first three weeks of August, sponsored there by the Highlands Institute of Theology and Religion. Both are about a three-hour drive from Davidson, but I would love to see you.

– John Shelby Spong

[Alex]

Richard from Albuquerque, New Mexico, writes:
I read with great enthusiasm, Eternal Life: A New Vision. It moved me deeply and I found that our lives have some similarities. My mother passed on when I was nine and my father when I was thirteen. I sang in a church choir for over five years and I became a confirmed Episcopalian. I wasn't much into sports. I attended church regularly and found security and warmth in the sermons and the hymns that came my way. However, as I grew, I became, as you so well state, a member of the Church Alumni Association. I have read the Bible in its entirety as well as anyone without training can. I came away disheartened and confused. Our paths then went different ways. You pursued a good education while I took mundane, repetitive jobs that consisted of doing mostly what one was told and little thinking. It was through your lectures and later book on The Sins of the Scripture that I began to think and reason. I am now a very avid reader on things about Science, Religion, History and Human Secularism. Currently, I am into Alex Fillipenko's outstanding course on "Understanding the Universe." Why I waited until I had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel to start learning, I will never know. Some say it's better late than never. I strongly believe in evolution and I do have that wonderful feeling of being one with the universe. I do hope you have more books forthcoming. Perhaps with the help of your wife and others you might attempt some children's books. They are much more impressionable at their young ages. Thank you for your honest, open thought and keep your weekly newsletters coming.


Dear Richard,

Thank you for your letter and for the way in which you shared your life story. One of the justifications for writing a "spiritual autobiography," which is what my most recent book really is, is that I can chronicle the journey of many people other than myself. Your letter is a justification of that hope.

Thank you for the suggestion that Christine and I try our hand at children's books. I wish we had the talent to do that. Many people do and I hope others with that skill will respond to your invitation. There is a great need for this, but it's not in the scope of my expertise. I have a hard enough time responding to the religious questions of my 7 year old grandchildren who actually debate whether there is a God.

– John Shelby Spong

[Alex]

Runningwolf213, via the Internet, writes:
It seems to me that the gospels get more "incredible" as they progress because the powers-that-be realized they had to make the story more exotic in order to gain more power and "convince" more people to accept Jesus and therefore, them, as the sole arbiter of their souls which turned them into their sycophants. Of course, the powers were the most educated people and the masses weren't, so they were more vulnerable to superstition. It's amazing that this has carried on into the 21st century, but what is even more amazing is how much of the rest of the world is beginning to respect these beliefs. Americans are tending to believe in it more.


Dear Running Wolf,

I need to separate your issues. To the first, the evidence certainly points to your conclusion. The later the account of the beginnings of Christianity, the more miraculous the details have become. For example, in the writings of Paul (50-64) there are no miracles, no virgin birth and the resurrection is not understood as physical resuscitation. The miracles are added by Mark when the first gospel is written somewhere after 70 and probably before 72. The virgin birth is introduced by the second gospel to be written, Matthew between 82 and 85. The resurrection, understood as physical resuscitation is introduced, or at least strongly emphasized by Luke (88-93) and by John (95-100). These facts are elementary in reputable Christian learning centers, but for a variety of reasons this knowledge has not filtered down to those who sit in the pews of our churches Sunday after Sunday.

On the other issue, I am not sure that America is any different from the rest of the world. The fact is that fundamentalists are louder, but not necessarily stronger. Fundamentalists tend to come from specific pockets of our population like the Bible Belt in America or New South Wales in Australia or in those parts of the world where educational opportunities have been limited and where Christianity was planted by evangelical-fundamentalist missionaries following the flag of colonial conquest.

I believe I can still be a Christian and a citizen of the 21st century. I believe that I can embrace the knowledge revolution that has produced our modern world and still be a disciple of Jesus.

There is a part of Christianity that is willing to seek truth "come from whence it may, cost what it will." I encourage you to look for churches where that commitment is present.

–John Shelby Spong


中譯重點，以促進華語討論：

《聖經》中的「童女生子」及「身體復活」神蹟是後加的。

新約最早的書卷，保羅書信（公元50-64年），裡面沒有神蹟、沒有「童女生子」、「復活」不是身體的復蘇。當第一卷褔音書，《馬可褔音》，於公元70-72年之間寫成，神蹟才被加進去。第二卷褔音書，《馬太褔音》，於公元82-85年寫成，加入「童女生子」。及至公元88-93年寫成的《路加褔音》及公元95-100年寫成的《約翰褔音》，才強調（或加入）「復活」是「身體復活」。這些都是聖經學者之間的常識。

[Alex]

John Shelby Spong on YouTube:

The Call of Jesus 耶穌的呼召
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJICIGQl0JU
Living The Questions, May 16, 2008
In this excerpt from his lecture "Jesus for the Non-Religious," Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong discusses what it means to follow Jesus Christ.

Beyond Theism 超越有神論
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XL8LvaJ9Rc
Living The Questions, May 16, 2008
An excerpt from Bishop John Shelby Spong's lecture "Jesus for the Non-Religious."

A comment: "The only Christian that makes sense"

[Alex]

Bishop John Shelby Spong has nailed his 12 Theses to the Internet:


A Call for a New Reformation 
Bishop John Shelby Spong
From The Episcopal Diocese of Newark
Date: 30 April 1998

In the 16th century the Christian Church, which had been the source of much of the stability of the western world, entered a period of internal and violent upheaval. In time this upheaval came to be called the Protestant Reformation, but during the violence itself, it was referred to by many less attractive adjectives. The institution that called itself the body of Christ broke first into debate, then acrimony, then violence and counter-violence and finally into open warfare between Protestant Christians and Catholic Christians. It produced the Hundred Years War and the conflict between England and Spain that came to a climax in the destruction of the Spanish Armada in 1588. That destruction was widely interpreted as a defeat for the Catholic God of Spain at the hands of the Protestant God of England. Yet, when looking at that ecclesiastical conflict from the vantage point of more than four hundred years, there is surprise at how insignificant were the theological issues dividing the two sides.

Neither side was debating such core teachings of Christianity as the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, Jesus as the incarnate son of God, the reality of heaven and hell, the place of the cross in the plan of salvation or the role of such sacraments as Baptism and Communion. These rather were faith assertions held in common. Of course this conflict was not without theological issues, though they seem quite trivial in retrospect. Protestant Christians and Catholic Christians disagreed, for example, about whether salvation was achieved by faith alone, as Luther contended, or whether faith without works was dead as the Vatican, quoting the Epistle of James, argued. There was also debate over the proper use of scripture and the role of ordination. Despite the hostile appellations of "heretic" hurled at Protestants and "anti-Christ" hurled at Catholics, anyone viewing this debate from the vantage point of this century would see that, while an acrimonious and unpleasant fight, it was nonetheless a fight that pitted Christian believers against Christian believers. The Reformation was not an attempt to reformulate the Christian faith for a new era. It was rather a battle over issues of Church order. The time had not arrived in which Christians would be required to rethink the basic and identifying marks of Christianity itself.

It is my conviction that such a moment is facing the Christian world today. The very heart and soul of Christianity will be the content of this reformation. The debate which has been building for centuries has now erupted into public view. All the past ecclesiastical efforts to keep it at bay or deny its reality have surely failed and will continue to do so. The need for a new theological reformation began when Copernicus and Galileo removed this planet from its previous supposed location at the center of the universe, where human life was thought to bask under the constant attention of a humanly defined parental deity. That revolution in thought produced an angle of vision radically different from the one in which the Bible was written and through which the primary theological tenets of the Christian faith were formed. Before that opening salvo of revolution had been absorbed, Sir Isaac Newton, who charted the mathematically fixed physical laws of the universe, weighed into the debate. After Newton the Church found itself in a world in which the concepts of magic, miracle, and divine intervention as explanations of anything, could no longer be offered with intellectual integrity. Once more people were forced to enter into and to embrace a reality vastly different from the one employed in the traditional language of their faith tradition. Next came Charles Darwin who related human life to the world of biology more significantly than anyone had heretofore imagined. He also confronted the human consciousness with concepts diametrically opposed to the traditional Christian world-view. The Bible began with the assumption that God had created a finished and perfect world from which human beings had fallen away in an act of cosmic rebellion. Original sin was the reality in which all life was presumed to live. Darwin postulated instead an unfinished and thus imperfect creation out of which human life was still evolving. Human beings did not fall from perfection into sin as the Church had taught for centuries; we were evolving, and indeed are still evolving, into higher levels of consciousness. Thus the basic myth of Christianity that interpreted Jesus as a divine emissary who came to rescue the victims of the fall from the results of their original sin became inoperative. So did the interpretation of the cross of Calvary as the moment of divine sacrifice when the ransom for sin was paid. Established Christianity clearly wobbled under the impact of Darwin's insights, but Christian leaders pretended that if Darwin could not be defeated, he could at least be ignored. It was a vain hope.

Darwin was followed by Sigmund Freud who analyzed the symbols of Christianity and found in them manifestations of a deep-seated infantile neurosis. The God understood as a father figure who guided ultimate personal decisions, answered our prayers, and promised rewards and punishment based upon our behavior was not designed to call anyone into maturity. This view of God issued rather into either a religious mentality of passive dependency or an aggressive secular rejection of all things religious. After Freud, it was not surprising to see Christianity degenerate into an increasingly shrill biblical fundamentalism where thinking was not encouraged and preconceived pious answers were readily given, but where neither genuine questions nor maturity were allowed or encouraged. As Christianity moved more and more in this direction, contemporary people, who think with modern minds, began to be repelled and to drop out of their faith commitments into the Church Alumni Association.  

Between these two poles of mindless fundamentalism and empty secularism are found the mainline churches of Christendom, both Catholic and Protestant. They are declining numerically, seem lost theologically, are concerned more about unity than truth, and are wondering why boredom is what people experience inside church walls. The renewal of Christianity will not come from fundamentalism, secularism or the irrelevant mainline tradition. If there is nothing more than this on the horizon then I see no future for the enterprise we call the Christian faith. My sense is that history has come to a point where only one thing will save this venerable faith tradition at this critical time in Christian history, and that is a new Reformation far more radical than Christianity has ever before known and that this Reformation must deal with the very substance of that faith. This Reformation will recognize that the pre-modern concepts in which Christianity has traditionally been carried will never again speak to the post-modern world we now inhabit. This Reformation will be about the very life and death of Christianity. Because it goes to the heart of how Christianity is to be understood, it will dwarf in intensity the Reformation of the 16th century. It will not be concerned about authority, ecclesiastical polity, valid ordinations and valid sacraments. It will be rather a Reformation that will examine the very nature of the Christian faith itself. It will ask whether or not this ancient religious system can be refocused and re-articulated so as to continue living in this increasingly non-religious world.

Martin Luther ignited the Reformation of the 16th century by nailing to the door of the church in Wittenberg in 1517 the 95 Theses that he wished to debate. I will publish this challenge to Christianity in The Voice. I will post my theses on the Internet and send copies with invitations to debate them to the recognized Christian leaders of the world. My theses are far smaller in number than were those of Martin Luther, but they are far more threatening theologically. The issues to which I now call the Christians of the world to debate are these:

1. Theism, as a way of defining God is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.

2. Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.

3. The biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.

4. The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.

5. The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.

6. The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.

7. Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history.

8. The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.

9. There is no external, objective, revealed standard writ in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time.

10. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.

11. The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.

12. All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination.

So I set these theses today before the Christian world and I stand ready to debate each of them as we prepare to enter the third millennium.

[Alex]

Barbara Palmer, via the Internet, writes:
I am interested in your theology of love when speaking about God loving creation, humans loving God, and even loving the neighbor. Understanding that love transcends human emotion, how does love manifest in these areas? If God, as you say, is not a being, how does God love the world, the universe? If God is not an entity, what does it mean to love God? Doesn't one need an object to express love? And if one doesn't know or is interested in the neighbor, whoever that might be, how does one love the neighbor? We religious people throw words around so carelessly, therefore I would appreciate your being as specific as possible.


Dear Barbara,

I am not sure that the problem is that people throw around words so carelessly, but that the only words we humans have to use are human words, bound by time, space and human experience. Whatever God is, God is surely beyond the boundaries of human life. So the more specific we are about God, the less accurate we probably are. Let me repeat my favorite analogy. Horses cannot escape the boundaries of what it means to be a horse, nor can a horse view life from any other lens or perspective save that of a horse. Therefore a horse could never describe what it means to be human. In a similar manner, a human being cannot escape the boundaries or perspective of what it means to be human and therefore can never define or describe what it means to be God. I wonder why it is that we not only continue to try to do the impossible, but even continue to persecute those who disagree with our definition or description.

So what are our realistic possibilities? We can describe just how it is that we experience God. We can always describe a human experience since that is within the realm of our competence. We do need to face the fact, in the name of honesty and to escape the most destructive elements of religion, that some human experiences are delusional.

By the word God I mean that which calls me beyond the limits of humanity, that which empowers me to live to love and to be. When some one asked the author of the First Epistle of John to define God, he did so by saying that "God is love." I think that what he meant by that was that it is the unanimous human experience that love expands life. Love is not something any human being can create. We must receive love before we can give it. We cannot hoard love once we have received it. Love that is not shared always dies. So love is a power that appears to relate us to something beyond ourselves. Love is thus a power that enables us to journey beyond the boundaries of the human and to embrace that which is transcendent. Love always manifests itself in enhanced life. Perhaps we should stop talking about God loving us or our loving God, since that kind of language turns God into a being. The proper language would be to relate the experience of love to the experience of God. We would then recognize that the word "God" is a human construction that seeks to define the experience of transcendence, which calls us more deeply into what it means to be human.

If one has identified God with the love that enhances life then the way we love our neighbor, both known and unknown, is to act toward them in such a way as to enhance their humanity. Once we break this language barrier and begin to think through the dimensions of speaking not about God, but about our experience of God, then I believe we could reconstruct the Jesus story on this basis and be within the context of Jesus' purpose as St. John defines it, "That they may have life and have it abundantly."

Thank you for your question and for forcing me to put new words into this equation.

– John Shelby Spong


重點中譯：

人無法超越自己的視角，所以不可能定義或描述神。我不明白為何有些人不單止在做一些不可能的事，還指責那些不同意他們的定義與描述的人。用「神」一詞，我是指呼召我突破自我的限制，加力於我使我能為愛和體現自我而生的那樣東西。「神就是愛」（約一4:8，16）。「愛」是一種力量，讓我們有能力打破人的局制、擁抱超越。「神」這個字是人的建構，試圖定義超越的經驗，呼召我們更深地活出整全的人性。與其談論神，不如談論我們對神的經驗，那麼我們便可以重構耶穌的故事，以相應耶穌來的目的之脈絡：「我來了，是要叫人得生命，並且得的更豐盛」（約翰褔音10:10）。

[mfb]

請問 斯龐主教信的神是怎樣的？是否耶和華？

[mfb]

想知道斯龐主教的文章怎樣似是而非? 請看
What’s Wrong With Bishop Spong?
Laymen Rethink the Scholarship of John Shelby Spong
© Michael Bott and Jonathan Sarfati

http://creation.com/whats-wrong-with-bishop-spong

[Alex]

該文章所使用的基本方法是假設某一本古書完全可靠，然後以該書的字面內容作標準，否定一切從其他渠道得來的知識。以一本古書看世界的問題在於基礎與視野極端狹窄，忽視了該書之後千多年來的範式轉移與知識累積。以這個方法得出的結論往往顯得古怪，例如該書所有的故事與神蹟記載必定真實、必須相信。認識世界，更穩妥的方法是廣泛考慮所有人類知識，不局限於一本書。由於其可重覆驗證性，科學方法被認為在目前人類已知的認知方法中，算是沒有其他方法那麼不可靠。所以現今人類更倚賴科學方法獲得知識。

斯龐主教就是在這個倚賴科學方法的現代世界之中修訂基督教信仰以作出適應。他認為基督教之精粹在於愛的精神而非個別古老教條（如童女產子、身體復活等）。在當今範式之下，愛的精神仍具有意義，個別古老教條則已失去意義，難於維護。

[Alex]

亦可以反過來問，「耶和華」是希伯來民族的建構及對神的理解，該建構/理解能否充份反映神真正的本相？該建構/理解又是否不容修訂與進步？

[mfb]

斯龐主教信的神是怎樣的？
斯龐主教說[When I use the word "God" I am not talking about a being. I am describing that sense of transcendence that I believe I have encountered within time and space. I believe I experience God as life fully lived, as love wastefully given, as being completely realized. I cannot tell you or anyone else who or what God is. I can only describe my experience. I may be delusional.]

斯龐主教有 時有超越的感覺 sense of transcendence 但 不知道神是誰或神是什麼東西I cannot tell you or anyone else who or what God is.

所以[斯龐主教的神]的定義是：不知道是誰或是什麼東西

他什麼時候有這感覺呢？when [life fully lived, as love wastefully given, as being completely realized.]

我覺得他所說的不過是對自己生活如意時的感覺。自我感覺良好而巳。

[Alex]

斯龐主教是誠實的。我們又有誰知道神是誰或神是什麼東西？
斯龐主教認為聖經中被人格化了的神不可信。而且聖經的描述，對讀者來說，始終是二手的，不是一手經驗。
斯龐主教認為他經驗到的超越的神更可信。
於是他信更可信的神。那便是誠實。

[mfb]

斯龐主教的觀念裏有沒有賞善罰惡 ？