Friday, December 19, 2008

Bishop Spong Q&A 12/2008

William from Newmarket, Ontario, writes:

If the roots of the Christ story are indeed in Egyptian mythology (according to Tom Harpur's book The Pagan Christ) or the continuation of Jewish Epic History (according to your Jesus for the Non-Religious) then who were the writers of the gospels? How did they acquire the expertise to make such a complex adaptation and what drove them, in spite of the risk of persecution, to adapt these myths to the person of Jesus of Nazareth, either as if this person was an historical figure, or if he never existed?

Dear William,

The writers of the gospels were Jewish people who represented the second or third Christian generation. They wrote in Greek, not Aramaic, which was the language Jesus and his disciples spoke. The gospels — at least the first three: Mark, Matthew and Luke — are the products of the Synagogue, which had shaped the Jesus story dramatically over the 40-70 year period that transpired between the crucifixion and the gospel writing tradition.

I disagree with Tom Harpur's thesis, for I do not think Egyptian mythology can shape the Jesus story in as short a period of time as existed. I note that Paul writes in Galatians, a book that is usually dated in the early 50's, that he had conversed with Peter and other "pillars" of the Christian movement within four to nine years of his conversion, which scholars date one to six years after the crucifixion. Mythology needs more time than that to develop.

People need to embrace the fact that the Jesus story was kept alive, recalled and celebrated in the Synagogue, for that is where the followers of Jesus worshiped every Sabbath. The Synagogue and the Christian Church did not separate until 88 C.E.

I am quite sure Jesus of Nazareth was a person of history in whom and through whom Jewish people believed that they had experienced the presence of the holy God. It was in that experience that Christianity was born. The earliest articulation of that faith came from Paul who wrote, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to God."

How we tell the world of the meaning of that experience is still what Christianity is all about.

– John Shelby Spong

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

On Faith & Beliefs

(A paraphrase of Lloyd Geering)

Once we distinguish between faith and the holding of certain beliefs Christian faith can be seen in quite a new light. The very act of discarding worn-out beliefs, far from demonstrating a lack of faith, may in fact be just the opposite. It may open the door for genuine faith to operate again. Indeed, the modern doubter who rejects the Biblical description of God in the interest of truth may be manifesting more faith than the traditional theist.

The assertion that one needs to believe a particular set of doctrines in order to have faith is an invitation not to faith but to credulity(gullibility). There is a world of difference between child-like faith and childish credulity (gullibility).

In a remarkable little book, The Faith to Doubt, M. Holmes Hartshorne wrote,

People today are not in need of assurances about the truth of doubtful beliefs. They need the courage to doubt. They need the faith by which to reject their idols. The churches cannot preach to this age if they stand outside of it, living in the illusory security of yesterday’s beliefs. These lie about us broken, and we cannot by taking thought raise them from the dead.

Doubt is not the enemy of faith but its ally, as the enemy of false beliefs. All beliefs should be continually subjected to doubt and critical examination and, when found to be false or inadequate, they should be discarded.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Quote from Joseph Campbell – ‘An Open Life’

What the Eastern teachers are telling us is that the important thing is not what happened thousands of years ago when the Buddha was born or when Jesus was crucified: what’s important is what’s happening in you now. And what’s important is not your membership in a religious community: it’s what that membership is doing to your psyche.

The divine lives within you. Our Western religions tend to put the divine outside the earthly world and in God, in heaven. But the whole sense of the Oriental is that the kingdom of heaven is within you. Who is in heaven? God is. Where’s God? God’s within you. And what is God? God is a personification of that world-creative energy and mystery which is beyond thinking and beyond naming.

We think not only that our God has been named and known, but that he’s given us a whole set of rules. But this system of rules is not from God, it’s from man, and the rules are man’s clues as to how to get to the realization of God. …

A Response to 'The Shaping of the Lord's Prayer'

From Cliff L., Retired UCC Minister....

Barry, regarding your article about the changes in the "Lord's Prayer," it is unfortunate that we cannot get back to the person known as Jesus of Nazareth. We cannot know exactly what he said. We can only know what others said about him. Many have tried to isolate the sayings and the activities of Jesus, but have failed.

Dr. Albert Schweitzer was one of the first and foremost to begin this search in his 'The Quest for the Historical Jesus' (1906). The Bible literalists insist that Jesus actually said the things that the Bible says he said, but no serious scholar of the Bible would hold to that view, I think.

This means that the "Lord's Prayer" is a misnomer. Jesus may have prayed similar words, but we have no tape recording of his actual sayings. This, of course, has implications for worship. If we are to be honest, do we keep saying, "Let's pray the words Jesus taught us to pray?" Perhaps the best we can do is to pray as Jesus "might have prayed" or "the words ascribed to Jesus."

Worship is and ought to be always changing to reflect our understanding of our faith.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

The Shaping of the Lord’s Prayer

“Let us now pray the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples, saying…..Our Father, who art in heaven….”.

With this (or a similar) preamble, on any given Sunday morning, millions of Christians around the world are prompted to recite the Lord’s Prayer. But is it true that the prayer we pray today is the prayer Jesus taught?

Answer: Absolutely not! The words of the Lord’s prayer have actually been changed many times by many people.

Here is a litany of some of the dramatic changes that have shaped the verbiage of the Lord’s Prayer over the past two millennium…

Biblical historians mostly agree (?) that Jesus probably spoke several one sentence prayers during his years of ministry….

“Your name be revered.”
“Let your basileia (kingdom) come.”
“Give us the bread we need for today.”
“Forgive us our debts to the extent we forgive those who are in debt to us.”
“Please don’t subject us to test after test.”

Of course, none of these things were written down at the time they occurred.

Some forty years later, in about the year 75 c.e., the writer(s) of the book we call Matthew wrote these words….

“Our Father in the heavens, your name is revered. Let your kingdom come. Enact your will on earth ,as you have in heaven. Give us the bread we need for today. Forgive us our debts to the extent we forgive those in debt to us. And please don’t subject us to test after test, but rescue us from the evil one.”

Several years later, in the early 80’s, the writer(s) of Luke wrote….

“Father, your name be revered. Let your kingdom come. Give us the bread we need day by day. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone in debt to us. And please don’t subject us to test after test.”

Then, somewhere between 100-150 c.e. a Christian document known as the Didache records these words….

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done as in heaven so on earth. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debt, as we also forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: for Thine is the power, and the glory, forever.”

From another church document (anon.) supposedly authored sometime in the third century, we find ….

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done as in heaven so on earth. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debt, to the extent we have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one, for Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.”

Today, the words that are recited have a more modern sound….

"Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.* And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen."

· * In some churches an alternate, “…forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” is used.

So, perhaps the intent, but certainly not the words of Jesus are ensconced in what we recite today as the Lord’s prayer.

Just and interesting bit of history. Enjoy…

barry e

Friday, October 31, 2008

Honesty First


Many of you will remember the cartoon character named Pogo Possum... Pogo was the creation of cartoonist Walt Kelly... Pogo is remembered for many wise sayings, but perhaps the most quoted of his axioms is this one; “We have met the enemy, and he is us!” This is what is referred to as a ‘circular declaration’. WE have met the ENEMY and they are US!

The 14th century Christian theologian Eckhart von Hochheim, referred to by most writers as simply Meister Eckhart wrote a somewhat circular declaration when he wrote these words; “The eye with which I see God, and the eye with which God sees me… are one and the same eye.”

If I were to be so bold as to paraphrase Meister Eckhart in the language of Pogo Possum, it might sound like this; “We have met God, and He is us!”

Some might hear this statement and cry, blasphemy!… Others will hear it and simply ignore it, not realizing the depth of its wisdom…. Still others, in growing numbers, will hear and understand the implied message that “God and humankind are one.”

Certainly the statement, “We have meet God and He is us,” is a considerable departure from the description of the Biblical Deity, and one that requires a great deal of study and dialogue to understand.

This is, however,- in my opinion – the first point of departure that must be taken from ‘Popular’ Christianity, if we are to ever reach a more intellectually honest state of ‘Progressive’ Christianity.

Those who would skirt this most important issue in order to safeguard the comfort level of those who think they cannot deal with the loss of their “Father who art in heaven”, are simply being dishonest with both themselves AND those they profess to protect.

An honest understanding of the concept of god is an absolute requirement if we are to preserve the future of the Christian faith.

That’s what I think….. but I could be wrong !

barry e

Monday, October 27, 2008

Paul and the Doctrine of Atonement

Have you ever thought you would like to travel backward in time and experience some particular event or happening from the past?

I can think of several that would interest me…. Religiously speaking, I think I would like to go back to the day Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth was received by that little group of followers. We really don’t know how little or big the group was. It could have been six people or it could have been sixty. We just don’t know.

The year was somewhere around 56AD.On that day, the people gathered either in the synagogue or perhaps someone’s home, or in some public place to have one of their number read this letter, just received, from this self-proclaimed itinerant preacher named Paul.

I have stood in the ruins of those homes in Corinth. I have walked up the steps of the synagogue there. I stood in the public meeting place and listened to part of the letter from Paul being read, ….but this was in 2005.

The church at Corinth was having problems. Apparently discipline problems among its members. Paul was writing to attempt to get them to ‘straighten up’.

I’ll not read the entire letter, just one sentence from chapter five where he writes, “For our Passover feast is ready, now that Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.”

Had I been there, that day in 56AD, I think I would have spoken up at that point and said to the reader…”Wait, wait… read that part again, please.”

“For our Passover feast is ready, now that Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.”

I may have listened in silence to the rest of the letter, but then I would have hurried to my home and searched for a piece of parchment and I would have penned a letter to be carried back to Paul (he had written from Ephesus).

I would have written something like;

“Dear Sir….We just finished the reading of your letter. Thank you for your concern for the people of this area. It is very kind of you. However, I have one question for you…. By what authority have you called this man Jesus, ‘our Passover lamb’? ….Where did you come by the idea that he was sacrificed for us?”

You see, on those simple statements, hinges the entire church doctrine of Atonement and Salvation. …Paul said it, the people accepted it, apparently without question, and for the ensuing two thousand years, it has dominated the doctrine of the Christian church ….

By what authority?… what special knowledge?…. what evidence?

The answers, of course, are …None …..none …..and none !…. No authority,… no special knowledge,… and no evidence.

Where could Paul have gotten such a story? Did he make it up? Did he have a dream? Did this thought come to him through meditation/prayer? Did he base it on his interpretation of some portion of ancient scripture? We are not given a clear indication of any of these. Yet the church has followed this vague line of self delusional thinking ever since.

I wish I could have had the opportunity to query Paul about that statement and the other similar statements he made to the Galatians, the Thessalonians, the Romans, the Ephesians and others.

Perhaps Paul, knowing that many nations and many religions of that era had deemed certain of their heroes ‘Savior’, it would be quite alright for him to promote Jesus to the same status. If he could get people to believe such a thing it would certainly strengthen his cause as well.

Paul wrote nothing of the teachings of Jesus, only that he died for the salvation of all humankind.

By what authority did he declare these things to be true?….By what special knowledge?…. What evidence?

Unfortunately the answers seem to be,…None…. None…. and none.


Copyright © Barry E Blood 2008

Monday, October 20, 2008

Pondering the Meaning of Life

Excerpt from an essay titled ‘Religion and Respect’ by Simon Blackburn, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge (England)

There are two directions in which people look for the meaning of life. One is beyond life itself; this is the transcendent and ontological option. We are to fix our gaze and our hopes on another world, another way of being, that is free of the mess and sorrow, the meaningless motions and events of present life. We are to transcend the small, squalid, contingent, finite, animal nature of earthly existence. Our insignificance in this cosmos is compounded only by assurance of significance in a wider scheme of things. There is hope in another world. And if this is hard to believe, spiritual disciplines of contemplation and prayer are there to help us. Others who have made the journey, wise men and mystics, inspire us with their reports, telling us of glimpses of the world beyond.

In this picture, the source of meaning transcends the ordinary mundane world of our bounded lives and bounded visions. The literature, art, music, and practices of religion are then thought to give voice to this attitude to meaning. This is, of course, onto-religion, since the attitudes are possible only if we believe in a world beyond.


But there is another option for meaning, and for our interpretation of religious art, which is to look only within life itself. This is the immanent option. It is content with the everyday. There is sufficient meaning for human beings in the human world – the world of familiar, and even humdrum, doings and experiences. In the immanent option, the smile of the baby, the grace of the dancer, the sound of voices, the movement of a lover, give meaning to life. For some. it is activity and achievement: gaining the summit of the mountain, crossing the finish line first, finding the cure, or writing the poem.

These things last only their short time, but that does not deny them meaning. A smile does not need to go on forever in order to mean what it does. There is nothing beyond or apart from the processes of life. Furthermore, there is no one goal to which all these processes tend, but we can find something precious, value and meaning, in the processes themselves. There is no such thing as the meaning of life, but there can be many meanings within a life.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Bicyclist saved by helmet—and God’s love

(This personal story came to me from a reader of this blog... He tells me he sustained several broken ribs and a broken (four places) collar bone.)

My bicycle and I were picking up speed. It was a little after two on Saturday afternoon, August 23. I was on Business Loop I-196, just past Paw Paw Drive, heading back to Zeeland. Suddenly my front wheel found its way into a two-inch gap between the asphalt shoulder and the concrete of the traffic lane.

The next thing I knew I was in the fetal position on the concrete of the traffic lane, unable to move back to the relative safety of the shoulder. But I was alive. A miracle? Had God spared me for some reason only God knew? Problem was that the God in my life doesn’t do things like that. So I figured I was alive because I had the God-given good sense to wear a helmet. Yet I still felt pretty much alone.

Then I heard someone yell, “Call 911!” and other voices nearer by saying things like, “Don’t move him” and “Don’t take his helmet off.” I could see dozens of feet and legs gathered around me. I thanked them, to which one replied something like, “We saw you fall, Of course we stopped. We couldn’t just leave you here.” Suddenly I wasn’t alone. God was there, in their care and concern. I mustered the strength to lift my head to see their faces. I thanked them again; again they assured me thanks were unnecessary. And again I saw in their faces the face of God.

I wasn’t alone. Nearest to me were a young Hispanic couple and their twin toddlers. As the husband saw my wife being escorted to the scene, he went to her and, not an English speaker, mimed that I had flown over my handlebars and landed on my head. Then (and here was God again) he tented his fingers, tipped his head, and said, “We pray.” Soon the equally caring medics arrived. On the gurney heading for the ambulance, I could see that the people who had come to my aid had parked their cars in such a way as to shield me from oncoming traffic. Another act of God’s love!

God’s love continued to show itself through the concern of the health care professionals, my wife and other relatives, people of my church and other friends. I am now more convinced than ever that our best prayers of intercession are acts of love. When others care, it is God among us. We are not alone.

Terry VandeWater
Zeeland, MI

Hope you are feeling better soon Terry........ barry e

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Bishop Spong's Q&A 1/10/08

Shari Miller of Denver, Colorado, writes: Why is the current Catholic Church position on transsexualism so dreadful, so lacking in compassion?

Dear Shari,

The Catholic Church, like most religious bodies, is in an inner struggle between the values of yesterday and the rising consciousness of a changing world. Because that church is also autocratic and allows so little dissent, it is very difficult for them ever to change their thinking until new truth is so established in the world at large that their position becomes embarrassing. It was not until December of 1991 that the Vatican announced that they now believed that Galileo was correct. This was only 50 years after human beings had launched space explorations, which were based on Galileo's insights. Similarly this is why their stated opinions on birth control, the role of women and homosexuality are, as you say, so lacking in compassion and dreadful.

On the other hand their attitudes toward capital punishment, war and the need to care for the poor are sometimes far more advanced than what one finds in Protestant fundamentalism.
No one can fully escape the culture and ideas that form a particular age. The rise in human consciousness toward such things as war, the role of women and homosexuality is never implemented at once by all. It grows, beginning with a single protest, until it becomes a heresy, then a movement and finally a reformation. It then becomes a new orthodoxy equally resistant to change.


You serve the Church well when you raise uncomfortable questions. I hope you will continue to do so.

–John Shelby Spong

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Miscommunications and Integrity

(Arthur G Broadhurst, former UCC minister, now living in Palm Coast, Florida.)

It is precisely this difficulty with saying what we mean in a way that is clear, honest and helpful that made it impossible for me to remain in a parish ministry. Parishioners and I spoke a different language, which is to say that the meanings of the words that are most crucial to Christianity are no longer meaningful. Every conversation became an occasion of miscommunication. It became impossible to use words like god, creation, resurrection, and salvation in my conversations with church people without miscommunication, knowing that what I said was misunderstood or was heard in a way different than I intended.

Religious professionals sometimes avoid the problem of miscommunication by ignoring differences in meaning or not calling attention to them, but I was not comfortable with keeping private meanings for these important but troublesome words and could not continue to use them with the knowledge that by using them without reinterpreting them I was giving the impression that I used them in the same sense they were understood (or misunderstood) by lay persons. This raised an issue of integrity for me that I could not get around.

Some of my theological school classmates and ministerial colleagues had less trouble with this issue than I did, thinking it better to adopt the admonition given to physicians as a guiding principle—‘do no harm.’ In this case, the presumed harm was to undermine the religious faith of some parishioners, and therefore (as I concluded anyway) to ignore the implications of their theological education and to carry on with the life of the parish as if their theological education was an interesting but irrelevant side trip in their educational journey.

Unfortunately, perhaps due to a conscience much too sensitive, I was not able to ignore those implications. I believed then and still believe that serious harm has been done to our understanding of Christian faith by ignoring the intellectual challenges to Christianity posed by modern secular culture. By failing to deal with the challenge of modernity in a constructive manner and by failing to translate the meaning of Christian faith into the language and culture of our secular world, we have diminished its value and relevancy to many thoughtful people in our generation and that has been a considerable disservice to the integrity and viability of Christianity.

Our failure to reinterpret Christianity as it was received from an earlier generation into language that was understandable and relevant to our modern world left us with an archaic and irrelevant Christianity that could easily be ignored. The practical effects of failing to deal with the related questions of meaning and relevancy worked to diminish the appeal and the intellectual vigor of Christianity. The brightest minds of our generation increasingly began to feel that Christianity is not so much wrong as irrelevant because it reflects a world view that is incomprehensible to the 21st Century.

One obvious effect of the failure to reinterpret Christianity for the modern world can be seen in the precipitous decline of mainline protestant denominations since the 1960s and in the related but counterintuitive rapid growth and influence of the evangelical and fundamentalist churches throughout the 1980s and 1990s not just in the United States but also in the developing nations of the world.

Fundamentalism thrives as an escapist reaction to the intellectual challenge of modernity by providing simplistic but emotionally satisfying answers to difficult theological, existential and human questions. It gained its foothold through the decline of the classical and humanistic liberal arts education which in turn results from the failure of public education, and it flourishes through an incomprehensible intellectual schizophrenia in which the 19th Century theological world view of fundamentalism is held by those who live in our modern scientific world, apparently oblivious of the logical inconsistency of these conflicting outlooks.


http://christianhumanist.net/default.aspx

Friday, September 12, 2008

More Excerpts

Here are a couple more excerpts from the book, 'Shackles of the Supernatural' by William J. Fielding...

Dogma – the mainstay and bulwark of supernaturalism – in the very nature of itself is unchangeable. Revealed religion, having been handed down direct from God, is therefore not subject to question, to say nothing of improvement or modification. From the orthodox standpoint, the slightest hesitation in swallowing the whole story is heresy. And since the distant day of the first revelation, the world has run red with the blood of heretics.

Of course, the orthodox are entirely consistent in their stand that if revelation is the word of God it is therefore final, irrevocable, unquestionable. The trouble is that there is no virtue in consistency, per se. As a matter of fact, it is all to often a set of blinkers deliberately adjusted by the subject himself to prevent him from seeing any light, or anything but the object upon which he has focused his attention. Compare that attitude with that of the skeptic who insists upon looking into and examining all phases of a question – and re-examining them; accepting no conclusions as absolute final and irrevocable, leaving open for further light and understanding any problem worthy of the name. Here you have the difference between the theologian and the scientist, the difference between the closed mind and the open mind.

What are the results to the individual of the acceptance of the concepts of dogma? He has been taught that the tenets of his religion, say Christianity, are absolute Truths. If the revelations set forth in his Bible are absolute, infallible truths, and as a Christian, he believes them to be so, then it is perfectly logical for him to stop thinking on all questions relating to human conduct and motives which by direct statement and implication the Bible covers. The phrase “stop thinking” is perhaps not the proper one, because if a truly faithful adherent of his religion, he has never started to think on these important questions.

Religious concepts represent a development over a long period of time of the emotional response to fear-arousing stimuli and mysterious natural phenomena – the whole set-up based on fear of the unknown. This system finally became institutionalized, creating traditions as it went along, and used as a means of exploitation by the privileged caste (religious orders) which administered it for the aggrandizement of themselves and the prevailing ruling groups.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Food for Thought...

An excerpt from the book, ‘Shackles of the Supernatural’ by William J. Fielding

Only those who have had a conventional religious upbringing and have found the incomparably fuller life that is opened up in rejecting supernatural belief, can appreciate the contrast. Those hampered by the limitations that come from allegiance to a creed, feel or profess to feel, that the Freethinker, Agnostic or Atheist is missing something from which they derive great consolation. This attitude, of course, has been inculcated with the creed of which it is part and parcel. The primitive slave was similarly taught to cherish the retraining virtue of his chains.

It should be apparent that adherence to dogma and creed inhibits the free-functioning of the faculties. It naturally follows that when these hindrances are discarded, the mental horizon is extended, cerebral energy with its inevitable emotional accompaniment is not wasted in pursuing a will-o’-the wisp, and the opportunities for intellectual achievement, emotional fulfillment and peace of mind are increased beyond measure.

Bishop Spong's Q&A 9/5/08

Doris Christoph, via the Internet, writes:

Having read two of your books, I finally have answers to several questions that have troubled me for years. But now I have some new ones, two of them of immediate importance:


1. My very fundamental Seventh Day Adventist Church: How do I fit in when I no longer fit in?2. Prayer: How do I now pray? To whom? About what? For what? How do I express my gratitude, my sorrows, my joys?

Though I feel that a great burden has left me now that I feel you have given me permission to understand God and Jesus in the light that I have seen in the distance for a long time but was too afraid to reach for, I also feel very much an outsider and alone. How do I deal with this?

Dear Doris,

Thank you for your letter. I assure you that in the Christian life there is no such thing as a time when questions will cease and you will arrive at answers that will endure forever. Christianity is a journey, not a religious system into which all truth can be fitted.

To your questions, only you can decide whether you can continue your pilgrimage inside the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Normally I encourage people to remain in their households of faith as change agents. However, that is based on the assumption that a particular household of faith is open to change. Churches are frequently security systems and change will destroy them, not transform them. This is particularly true for those parts of the Christian Church that are built around a single issue or a single ethnic group. Such churches are themselves not likely to survive.

In terms of prayer, this format is not nearly large enough to address those concerns. First you need to develop an understanding of God other than the supernatural parent figure who lives above the sky and is waiting to come to your aid. Christian prayer is not an adult letter to Santa Claus. Second, you need to understand the nature of the world in which you and I are living. It is not a world of miracle, magic and divine intervention, but a world of order, natural law and precise mathematical formulas that enables us to predict with total accuracy the tides, the time of sunrise and sunset and even eclipses of the sun and moon. We can send spacecraft to the moon and to the planets as far out as Jupiter because we know the laws by which such things as motion and gravity operate. Prayer must take place in that kind of world.

There are many books that might help you in this phase of your journey. I have written on this subject twice, once in a book entitled Honest Prayer that has recently been republished by St. Johann Press (315 Schraalenburgh Road, Haworth, NJ 07641) and the second is A New Christianity for a New World, published by Harper-Collins. Maybe one or both of them would help.

Enjoy your quest for truth.
John Shelby Spong

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Who Will Be Among The Millions This Year?

Dr. Jason Long

I believe that the decision to denounce the faith and leave the comfortable confines of Christianity has a strong correlation with a combination of two factors: high levels of intelligence and low levels of exposure. From my anecdotal observations, I’ve noticed that individuals who leave Christianity are either fairly intelligent or received relatively less conditioning from their parents.

Once I made this discovery, I noticed that those who had both of the aforementioned qualities left at an exceedingly early age, while those who had only one quality left the religion in their late teens or early adulthood. Christians probably won’t deny that a strong influence persuades a person to remain active in church. Likewise, it’s only logical to conclude that a lack of the same influence increases the chances a person will leave the faith.

The intelligence element to my hypothesis, on the other hand, is surely insulting and certainly difficult for Christians to swallow. Even so, I strongly feel that a line exists where a certain level of intelligence and a certain level of influence reach equilibrium.

As I just mentioned, an intelligent person with a low level of Christian influence has the best chance of leaving the religion at a young age, whereas an unintelligent person with a high level of influence is almost certain to remain within the church for life. The interesting scenario created with this hypothesis is that an intelligent person with a high level of influence would have two competitive forces at work.

One would seemingly free the individual from bunk religious thought while the other would presumably fight to keep the individual within the faith. Since there are more people who stay within the church than those who leave, we can reasonably assume that the influence is a stronger factor than the intelligence.

Similarly, an unintelligent person with a low level of influence has no competitive internal forces at work. Consequently, this individual wouldn’t develop groundbreaking theories on the existence of God or have external influences pressuring them to believe one way or another.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

...how best can we facilitate that education?

In an age where space stations and satellites traverse the vast expanses of the universe, an increasing number of Christians are having difficulty accepting the Biblical definition of God as a being ‘up there’ or ‘out there.’ Common knowledge, in the twenty first century, tells the average person, that believe in a sky-god is simply a bankrupt idea of the ancient past.

As a result, more and more Christians are leaving the church and fewer and fewer are being enticed to join. Why should anyone want to sing praises to, or otherwise worship and bow down to a make-believe, imagined father figure who somehow resides above the ‘blue canopy’ of the sky, when common sense tell them that such an idea is nonsensical? Every time a congregation is led to perform such a simple act as reciting the ‘Lords Prayer’… “Our Father, who art in Heaven”, the Church is affirming the intellectual dishonesty of its doctrine and drives another nail in it’s own proverbial coffin.

We need a new definition of what god is and what role such a god can/should play in our life.

Many, if not most, clergy and church hierarchy have known for decades that there is a problem regarding the intellectual honesty (dishonesty) of the church doctrine and dogma, but, to my knowledge, nothing significant has (is) being done about it. A majority of churches ignore or dismiss the need to address the issue all together.

We Christians who believe that an intellectually honest church is needed in our society, are becoming more and more frustrated by the inaction of our church leaders regarding this situation. It seems to be the ‘elephant in the room’ that no one will admit to, or is willing to talk about. I have had some Clergy suggest to me that perhaps we should simply “let the church die a natural death.” That to me is an unpalatable suggestion.

Bishop John Shelby Spong has suggested that change will not come until the laity become educated enough in such matters that they demand change from the church. If that is the case, ...how best can we facilitate that education?

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

UNDERSTANDING DELUSION

Except from the web site ; http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/

This is a bit long, but it is very informative....

Here are several examples that can help you to understand how religion works in our world today.

Example 1

Let's imagine that I tell you the following story:

There is a man who lives at the North Pole.

He lives there with his wife and a bunch of elves.

During the year, he and the elves build toys.

Then, on Christmas Eve, he loads up a sack with all the toys.

He puts the sack in his sleigh.

He hitches up eight (or possibly nine) flying reindeer.

He then flies from house to house, landing on the rooftops of each one.

He gets out with his sack and climbs down the chimney.

He leaves toys for the children of the household.

He climbs back up the chimney, gets back in his sleigh, and flies to the next house.

He does this all around the world in one night.

Then he flies back to the North Pole to repeat the cycle next year.

This, of course, is the story of Santa Claus.

But let's say that I am an adult, and I am your friend, and I reveal to you that I believe that this story is true. I believe it with all my heart. And I try to talk about it with you and convert you to believe it as I do.

What would you think of me? You would think that I am delusional, and rightly so.

Why do you think that I am delusional? It is because you know that Santa is imaginary. The story is a total fairy tale. No matter how much I talk to you about Santa, you are not going to believe that Santa is real. Flying reindeer, for example, are make-believe. The dictionary defines delusion as, "A false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence." That definition fits perfectly.

Since you are my friend, you might try to help me realize that my belief in Santa is delusional.

The way that you would try to shake me from my delusion is to ask me some questions. For example, you might say to me:

"But how can the sleigh carry enough toys for everyone in the world?" I say to you that the sleigh is magical. It has the ability to do this intrinsically.

"How does Santa get into houses and apartments that don't have chimneys?" I say that Santa can make chimneys appear, as shown to all of us in the movie The Santa Clause.

"How does Santa get down the chimney if there's a fire in the fireplace?" I say that Santa has a special flame-resistant suit, and it cleans itself too.

"Why doesn't the security system detect Santa?" Santa is invisible to security systems.

"How can Santa travel fast enough to visit every child in one night?" Santa is timeless.

"How can Santa know whether every child has been bad or good?" Santa is omniscient.

"Why are the toys distributed so unevenly? Why does Santa deliver more toys to rich kids, even if they are bad, than he ever gives to poor kids?" There is no way for us to understand the mysteries of Santa because we are mere mortals, but Santa has his reasons. For example, perhaps poor children would be unable to handle a flood of expensive electronic toys. How would they afford the batteries? So Santa spares them this burden.

These are all quite logical questions that you have asked. I have answered all of them for you. I am wondering why you can't see what I see, and you are wondering how I can be so insane.

Why didn't my answers satisfy you? Why do you still know that I am delusional? It is because my answers have done nothing but confirm my delusion. My answers are ridiculous. In order to answer your questions, I invented, completely out of thin air, a magical sleigh, a magical self-cleaning suit, magical chimneys, "timelessness" and magical invisibility. You don't believe my answers because you know that I am making this stuff up. The invalidating evidence is voluminous.

Now let me show you another example...

Example 2

Imagine that I tell you the following story:

I was in my room one night.

Suddenly, my room became exceedingly bright.

Next thing I know there is an angel in my room.

He tells me an amazing story.

He says that there is a set of ancient golden plates buried in the side of a hill in New York.
On them are the books of a lost race of Jewish people who inhabited North America.

These plates bear inscriptions in the foreign language of these people.

Eventually the angel leads me to the plates and lets me take them home.

Even though the plates are in a foreign language, the angel helps me to decipher and translate them.

Then the plates are taken up into heaven, never to be seen again.

I have the book that I translated from the plates. It tells of amazing things -- an entire civilization of Jewish people living here in the United States 2,000 years ago.
And the resurrected Jesus came and visited these people!

I also showed the golden plates to a number of real people who are my eye witnesses, and I have their signed attestations that they did, in fact, see and touch the plates before the plates were taken up into heaven.

Now, what would you say to me about this story? Even though I do have a book, in English, that tells the story of this lost Jewish civilization, and even though I do have the signed attestations, what do you think? This story sounds delusional, doesn't it?

You would ask some obvious questions. For example, at the very simplest level, you might ask, "Where are the ruins and artifacts from this Jewish civilization in America?" The book transcribed from the plates talks about millions of Jewish people doing all kinds of things in America. They have horses and oxen and chariots and armor and large cities. What happened to all of this? I answer simply: it is all out there, but we have not found it yet. "Not one city? Not one chariot wheel? Not one helmet?" you ask. No, we haven't found a single bit of evidence, but it is out there somewhere. You ask me dozens of questions like this, and I have answers for them all.

Most people would assume that I am delusional if I told them this story. They would assume that there were no plates and no angel, and that I had written the book myself. Most people would ignore the attestations -- having people attest to it means nothing, really. I could have paid the attesters off, or I could have fabricated them. Most people would reject my story without question.

What's interesting is that there are millions of people who actually do believe this story of the angel and the plates and the book and the Jewish people living in North America 2,000 years ago. Those millions of people are members of the Mormon Church, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. The person who told this incredible story was a man named Joseph Smith, and he lived in the United States in the early 1800s. He told his story, and recorded what he "translated from the plates", in the Book of Mormon.

If you meet a Mormon and ask them about this story, they can spend hours talking to you about it. They can answer every question you have. Yet the 5.99 billion of us who are not Mormons can see with total clarity that the Mormons are delusional. It is as simple as that. You and I both know with 100% certainty that the Mormon story is no different from the story of Santa. And we are correct in our assessment. The invalidating evidence is voluminous.

Example 3

Imagine that I tell you this story:

A man was sitting in a cave minding his own business.

A very bright flash of light appeared.

A voice spoke out one word: "Read!" The man felt like he was being squeezed to death. This happened several times.

Then the man asked, "What should I read?"

The voice said, "Read in the name of your Lord who created humans from a clinging [zygote]. Read for your Lord is the most generous. He taught people by the pen what they didn't know before."

The man ran home to his wife.

While running home, he saw the huge face of an angel in the sky. The angel told the man that he was to be the messenger of God. The angel also identified himself as Gabriel.
At home that night, the angel appeared to the man in his dreams.

Gabriel appeared to the man over and over again. Sometimes it was in dreams, sometimes during the day as "revelations in his heart," sometimes preceded by a painful ringing in his ears (and then the verses would flow from Gabriel right out of the man), and sometimes Gabriel would appear in the flesh and speak. Scribes wrote down everything the man said.

Then, one night about 11 years after the first encounter with Gabriel, Gabriel appeared to the man with a magical horse. The man got on the horse, and the horse took him to Jerusalem. Then the winged horse took the man up to the seven layers of heaven. The man was able to actually see heaven and meet and talk with people there. Then Gabriel brought the man back to earth.

The man proved that he had actually been to Jerusalem on the winged horse by accurately answering questions about buildings and landmarks there.

The man continued receiving the revelations from Gabriel for 23 years, and then they stopped.

All of the revelations were recorded by the scribes in a book which we still have today.

[Source: "Understanding Islam" by Yahiya Emerick, Alpha press, 2002]

What do you make of this story? If you have never heard the story before, you may find it to be nonsensical in the same way that you feel about the stories of the golden plates and Santa. You would especially feel that way once you read the book that was supposedly transcribed from Gabriel, because much of it is opaque. The dreams, the horse, the angel, the ascension, and the appearances of the angel in the flesh -- you would dismiss them all because it is all imaginary.

But you need to be careful. This story is the foundation of the Muslim religion, practiced by more than a billion people around the world. The man is named Mohammed, and the book is the Koran (also spelled Qur'an or Qur'aan). This is the sacred story of the Koran's creation and the revelation of Allah to mankind.

Despite the fact that a billion Muslims profess some level of belief in this story, people outside the Muslim faith consider the story to be imaginary. No one believes this story because this story is a fairy tale. They consider the Koran to be a book written by a man and nothing more. A winged horse that flew to heaven? That is imaginary -- as imaginary as flying reindeer.

If you are a Christian, please take a moment right now to look back at the Mormon and Muslim stories. Why is it so easy for you to look at these stories and see that they are imaginary fairy tales? How do you know, with complete certainty, that Mormons and Muslims are delusional?

You know these things for the same reason you know that Santa is imaginary. There is no evidence for any of it. The stories involve magical things like angels and winged horses, hallucinations, dreams. Horses cannot fly -- we all know that. And even if they could, where would the horse fly to? The vacuum of space? Or is the horse somehow "dematerialized" and then "rematerialized" in heaven? If so, those processes are made up too. Every bit of it is imaginary. We all know that.

An unbiased observer can see how imaginary these three stories are. In addition, Muslims can see that Mormons are delusional, Mormons can see that Muslims are delusional, and Christians can see that both Mormons and Muslims are delusional.

One final example

Now let me tell you one final story:

God inseminated a virgin named Mary, in order to bring his son incarnate into our world.

Mary and her fiancé, Joseph, had to travel to Bethlehem to register for the census. There Mary gave birth to the Son of God.

God put a star in the sky to guide people to the baby.

In a dream God told Joseph to take his family to Egypt. Then God stood by and watched as Herod killed thousands and thousands of babies in Israel in an attempt to kill Jesus.

As a man, God's son claimed that he was God incarnate: "I am the way, the truth and the life," he said.

This man performed many miracles. He healed lots of sick people. He turned water into wine. These miracles prove that he is God.

But he was eventually given the death sentence and killed by crucifixion.

His body was placed in a tomb.

But three days later, the tomb was empty.

And the man, alive once again but still with his wounds (so anyone who doubted could see them and touch them), appeared to many people in many places.

Then he ascended into heaven and now sits at the right hand of God the father almighty, never to be seen again.

Today you can have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. You can pray to this man and he will answer your prayers. He will cure your diseases, rescue you from emergencies, help you make important business and family decisions, comfort you in times of worry and grief, etc.
This man will also give you eternal life, and if you are good he has a place for you in heaven after you die.

The reason we know all this is because, after the man died, four people named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote accounts of the man's life. Their written attestations are proof of the veracity of this story.

This, of course, is the story of Jesus. Do you believe this story? If you are a Christian, you probably do. I could ask you questions for hours and you will have answers for every one of them, in just the same way that I had answers for all of the Santa questions that my friend asked me in Example 1. You cannot understand how anyone could question any of it, because it is so obvious to you.

Here is the thing that I would like to help you understand: The four billion people who are not Christians look at the Christian story in exactly the same way that you look at the Santa story, the Mormon story and the Muslim story. In other words, there are four billion people who stand outside of the Christian bubble, and they can see reality clearly. The fact is, the Christian story is completely imaginary.

How do the four billion non-Christians know, with complete certainty, that the Christian story is imaginary? Because the Christian story is just like the Santa story, the Mormon story and the Muslim story. There is the magical insemination, the magical star, the magical dreams, the magical miracles, the magical resurrection, the magical ascension and so on. People outside the Christian faith look at the Christian story and note these facts:

The miracles are supposed to "prove" that Jesus is God, but, predictably, these miracles left behind no tangible evidence for us to examine and scientifically verify today. They all involved faith healings and magic tricks.

Jesus is resurrected, but, predictably, he does not appear to anyone today.

Jesus ascended into heaven and answers our prayers, but, predictably, when we pray to him nothing happens. We can statistically analyze prayer and find that prayers are never answered.

The book where Matthew, Mark, Luke and John make their attestations does exist, but, predictably, it is chock full of problems and contradictions.

And so on.

In other words, the Christian story is a fairly tale, just like the other three examples we have examined.

Now, look at what is happening inside your mind at this moment. I am using solid, verifiable evidence to show you that the Christian story is imaginary. Your rational mind can see the evidence. Four billion non-Christians would be happy to confirm for you that the Christian story is imaginary. However, if you are a practicing Christian, you can probably feel your "religious mind" overriding both your rational mind and your common sense as we speak. Why? Why were you able to use your common sense to so easily reject the Santa story, the Mormon story and the Muslim story, but when it comes to the Christian story, which is just as imaginary, you are not?
Try, just for a moment, to look at Christianity with the same amount of healthy skepticism that you used when approaching the stories of Santa, Joseph Smith and Mohammed. Use your common sense to ask some very simple questions of yourself:

Is there any physical evidence that Jesus existed? - No. He left no trace. His body "ascended into heaven." He wrote nothing down. None of his "miracles" left any permanent evidence. There is, literally, nothing.

Is there any reason to believe that Jesus actually performed these miracles, or that he rose from the dead, or that he ascended into heaven? - There is no more of a reason to believe this than there is to believe that Joseph Smith found the golden plates hidden in New York, or that Mohammed rode on a magical winged horse to heaven. Probably less of a reason, given that the record of Jesus' life is 2,000 years old, while that of Joseph Smith is less than 200 years old.
You mean to tell me that I am supposed to believe this story of Jesus, and there is no proof or evidence to go by beyond a few attestations in the New Testament of the Bible? - Yes, you are supposed to believe it. You are supposed to take it on "faith."

No one (besides little kids) believes in Santa Claus. No one outside the Mormon church believes Joseph Smith's story. No one outside the Muslim faith believes the story of Mohammed and Gabriel and the winged horse. No one outside the Christian faith believes in Jesus' divinity, miracles, resurrection, etc.

Therefore, the question I would ask you to consider right now is simple: Why is it that human beings can detect fairy tales with complete certainty when those fairy tales come from other faiths, but they cannot detect the fairy tales that underpin their own faith? Why do they believe their chosen fairy tale with unrelenting passion and reject the others as nonsense? For example:
Christians know that when the Egyptians built gigantic pyramids and mummified the bodies of their pharaohs, that it was a total waste of time -- otherwise Christians would build pyramids.
Christians know that when the Aztecs carved the heart out of a virgin and ate it, that it accomplished nothing -- otherwise Christians would kill virgins.

Christians know that when Muslims face Mecca to pray, that it is pointless -- otherwise Christians would face Mecca when they pray.

Christians know that when Jews keep meat and dairy products separate, that they are wasting their time -- otherwise the cheeseburger would not be an American obsession.
Yet, when Christians look at their own religion, they are for some reason blind. Why? And no, it has nothing to do with the fact that the Christian story is true. Your rational mind knows that with certainty, and so do four billion others.

A simple experiment

If you are a Christian who believes in the power of prayer, here is a very simple experiment that will show you something very interesting about your faith.
Take a coin out of your pocket. Now pray sincerely to Ra:

Dear Ra, almighty sun god, I am going to flip this ordinary coin 50 times, and I am asking you to cause it to land heads-side-up all 50 times. In Ra's name I pray, Amen.

Now flip the coin. Chances are that you won't get past the fifth or sixth flip and the coin will land tails.

What does this mean? Most people would look at this data and conclude that Ra is imaginary. We prayed to Ra, and Ra did nothing. We can prove that Ra is imaginary (at least in the sense of prayer-answering ability) by using statistical analysis.

If we flip the coin thousands of times, praying to Ra each time, we will find that the coin lands heads or tails in exact correlation with the normal laws of probability. Ra has absolutely no effect on the coin no matter how much we pray.

Even if we find a thousand of Ra's most faithful believers and ask them to do the praying/flipping, the results will be the same. Therefore, as rational people, we conclude that Ra is imaginary. We look at Ra in the same way that we look at Leprechauns, Mermaids, Santa and so on. We know that people who believe in Ra are delusional.

Now I want you to try the experiment again, but this time I want you to pray to Jesus Christ instead of Ra. Pray sincerely to Jesus like this:

Dear Jesus, I know that you exist and I know that you hear and answer prayers as you promise in the Bible. I am going to flip this ordinary coin 50 times, and I am asking you to cause it to land heads-side-up all 50 times. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.

Now flip the coin. Once again, after the fifth or sixth flip, the coin will land tails.

If we flip the coin thousands of times, praying to Jesus each time, we will find that the coin lands heads or tails in exact correlation with the normal laws of probability. It is not like there are two laws of probability -- one for Christians who pray and the other for non-Christians. There is only one law of probability because prayers have zero effect. Jesus has no effect on our planet no matter how much we pray. We can prove that conclusively using statistical analysis.

If you are a Christian, watch what is happening inside your mind right now. The data is absolutely identical in both experiments. With Ra you looked at the data rationally and concluded that Ra is imaginary. But with Jesus... something else will happen. In your mind, you are already coming up with a thousand rationalizations to explain why Jesus did not answer your prayers:

It is not his will
He doesn't have time
I didn't pray the right way
I am not worthy
I do not have enough faith
I cannot test the Lord like this
It is not part of Jesus' plan for me
And on and on and on...

One rationalization that you may find yourself developing is particularly interesting. You may say to yourself: “Well, of course Jesus doesn’t answer me when I pray about a coin toss, because it is too trivial." Where did this rationalization come from? If you read what Jesus says about prayer in the Bible, Jesus does not ever say, "don't pray to me about coin tosses." Jesus clearly says he will answer your prayers, and he puts no boundaries on what you may pray for. You invented this rationalization out of thin air.

If you are a Christian who is offended by the notion of praying about a coin toss, then let's try this instead. Get down on your knees right now and pray as follows:

"Dear Jesus, son of God, the almighty, all-powerful, all-loving creator of the universe, we pray to you to cure every case of cancer on this planet tonight. Please hear our heartfelt, unselfish, non-materialistic prayer and fulfill your promises in Matthew 7:7, Matthew 17:20, Matthew 21:21, Mark 11:24, John 14:12-14, Matthew 18:19, Mark 9:23, Luke 1:37, James 5:15-16 and many other places. We pray knowing that when you answer this prayer, it will glorify God and help millions of people in remarkable ways. In your name we pray, Amen."

Will every case of cancer be gone tomorrow? Of course not. If you are a believer, you can create dozens of rationalizations for this unanswered prayer. But that does not change the reality of the situation.

You are an expert at creating rationalizations for Jesus. The reason you are an expert is because Jesus does not answer any of your prayers. The reason why Jesus does not answer any of your prayers is because the power of Jesus is imaginary. We can find dozens of pieces of evidence to demonstrate that the Christian story is imaginary

What this simple experiment shows us is fascinating. When we pray to Ra and nothing happens over thousands of trials, we look at the data rationally and we conclude that Ra is imaginary. But when you pray to Jesus and nothing happens, you do not reach the same conclusion. Instead, you try to rationalize all the reasons why Jesus did not answer your prayers. ask yourself this simple question... Why the difference?....Why do you as a believer behave in such a completely irrational way?

Friday, June 13, 2008

Roman Catholic priest, Vincent Donovan in his book “Christianity Rediscovered”

Never accept and be content with unanalyzed assumptions, assumptions about work, about the people, about the church or Christianity. Never be afraid to ask questions about the work we have inherited or the work we are doing.

There is no question that should not be ask or that is outlawed.

The day we are completely satisfied with what we have been doing, the day we have found the perfect, unchangeable system of work, the perfect answer, never in need of being corrected again, on that day we will know that we are wrong, that we have made the greatest mistake of all.

Bishop Spong's Q&A 6/11/08

Dale Mason, from Cromwell College at the University of Queensland, writes:

What store or value do you put into or get from:


The Gospel of Mary (the mother of Jesus)The Gospel of Mary MagdaleneThe Gospel of JudasThe Gospel of Thomas

Can we open them to new meaning? Can we attribute to them the status of Scripture? Can they contribute to or enhance the mission of the Christian Church, which in your terms is to make us truly human?

Dear Dale,

The gospels to which you refer are not of equal value, so your question cannot be answered generally. All of them are later works that were not incorporated into the official canon of Scripture for a variety of reasons, not all of which we will ever know. Perhaps it was because they were later in history. Perhaps it was that they were not judged as authentic. Perhaps they were caught up in early church struggles and wound up on the losing side.

The thing we gain from them is a vision of early Christian history that is different from the orthodox view with which most of us were raised. It also confirms the recent scholarship that has successfully challenged ecclesiastical propaganda, that in the beginning of the Christian era there was not a single Christianity, but a variety of Christianities that were competing with one another. The gospels to which you refer reflect that early variety.

The Gospel of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is not thought of very highly. I am always suspicious of "lost" gospels and can find very little about it except in circles of Catholic piety. Surely it is not authentic and we have no record of the mother of Jesus writing anything and surely she was not alive when this second century work was written.

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene has been treated in a book by Karen King of the Harvard Divinity School, who found great meaning in that work.

The Gospel of Judas has been treated in a book by Bart Ehrman of the University of North Carolina, who is one of the great scholars in early church history.

The Gospel of Thomas is treated with great respect by the scholars of the Jesus Seminar, who actually elevated it into the Canon in the book edited by Robert Funk called The Five Gospels. Elaine Pagels at Princeton has done what I regard as the best work on the Gospel of Thomas in her book Beyond Belief.

I commend all of them to you for your study. Having said that, however, I do not feel any great desire to take much time to study these late sources, since I do not believe that they contain much that is worthy of serious scholarly attention. The Gospel of Thomas would be the only exception to this statement. I am not nearly as impressed with these works as some of my colleagues seem to be. Time will tell who is correct. I am willing to be convinced, but that has not yet happened.

- John Shelby Spong

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Bishop Spong's Q&A

Larry Hester from Denver, Colorado, writes:

You recently suggested that the split in Christianity today is between those who assert yesterday's religious explanations and those who find no meaning in yesterday's religious explanations and give up on religion altogether. If that is so, is Christopher Hitchens' book, God Is Not Great, a message from the religiously disillusioned? If so how do those religious people who defend the past deal with that book?

Dear Larry,

If I understand your question correctly, let me begin with three declarative statements: 1. Religion must always be questioned 2. Theism can be abandoned without abandoning God 3. Christopher Hitchens' book is a real asset to the current debate. Now just let me put some flesh on each of those statements.

Since human beings are creatures of both time and space, and since we know from the work of Albert Einstein that time and space are relative categories that expand and contract in relation to each other, then we must conclude that any statement made by anyone, who is bound by time and space, will never be absolute. There are no propositional statements, secular or religious, that are exempt from this principle. Words reduce all human experiences to relativity. That is why every religious formula must be questioned; that is why no word of any book is inerrant; that is why no proclamation of any ecclesiastical leader is infallible; and finally, that is why no religious system or institution can ever claim to possess the true faith. Religion is a journey into the mystery of God. It is not a system of beliefs and creeds and when it becomes that, it always becomes idolatrous and begins to die.

Theism is not God. It is a human definition of God that assumes that God is a being, perhaps the "Supreme Being," supernatural in power, dwelling outside the world (usually thought of as above the sky), who periodically invades the world in miraculous ways to answer human prayers or to effect the divine will.

It is my sense that this definition of God has been mortally wounded by the successive blows of Copernicus, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein, just to name a few. I do not believe, however, that this means that God has been mortally wounded even if the theistic definition of God has been.

Suppose God is not defined as "a being," but is simply experienced as a power, a presence. Then describing that experience is quite different from claiming to know who or what God is. Then the question is, "Are we delusional or is this experience real?" I think God is real and I believe we are in the process of defining our God experience in a new way that will replace the dying theistic definition of the past.

Finally, Christopher Hitchens' book, God Is Not Great, is a description of the theistic God of the past who is dying. The theistic God certainly appears in the Bible and is guilty of many things that are genuinely immoral, like killing the firstborn male in every Egyptian household, stopping the sun in the sky to allow more time for Joshua to slaughter the Amorites and ordering genocide against the Amalekites through the prophet Samuel. Christians need to remember that it has been the theistic God who has been responsible for the development of such things as anti-Semitism, the Inquisition, and the oppression of people of color, women and homosexual persons. This deity has also been perceived as justifying war, fighting crusades and creating slavery. Let us agree with Christopher Hitchens that this God is not great. We need to challenge Christopher Hitchens' assumption, however, that this is the only way we can think about or conceptualize God.

I think of the God experience as the power of life, love and being flowing through the universe and coming to consciousness in human self-awareness alone. I therefore feel that by living fully, loving wastefully and being all that I can be I can make the God experience visible. I also believe that it is my Christian vocation to build a world where all people have a better chance to live, love and to be. It is when I do these two things, I believe, that I am engaging in the essence of worship.

John Shelby Spong

Preaching and the "Word of God"

Excerpts from an article by Rev John Shuck, First Presbyterian Church, Elizabethton, TN

I believe that many clergy are overdue for a heart to heart with their congregation about the metaphor “Word of God” especially as it applies to the Bible. I have found that this metaphor more often stops creative thought than inspires it. The question we might ask our congregations is, “If the Bible is the Word of God, what makes it so?”

Modern scholarship has eroded the foundations for the metaphor. We have come to a time in which it is incredible to assert that our canon of scripture is objectively true or authoritative for all humanity. Appeals to the Bible’s historical or scientific accuracy are naïve. The claim that our canon has been dictated or inspired by supernatural revelation amounts to little more than special pleading. There is no magic power that makes the Bible or any text within it superior, truer, or more divinely inspired than any other human writing, religious or secular. The hands of human beings through their own imaginative power made every jot and tittle of carving and of script.


The Bible is a collection of the writings of human beings. Once we dismiss the assumption that our book or library of books is more authoritative that any other collection, we can finally take our seat around the table of humanity.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Bishop Spong's Q&A 5/29/08

Michael Gill from New York City writes:

I am among those who agree with you in regard to the great need for transformation within traditional Christianity — indeed, a new reformation is overdue and necessary for the Christian tradition to survive the 21st century. I believe that Jesus came not to change any of the Hebrew scripture or its tradition but rather to reaffirm its true meaning in revealing the spiritual nature of human life through his own demonstration within humanity. As such, his example created something new.

Have you ever considered officially joining a New Thought community such as Unity Church of Practical Christianity? I believe these communities closely reflect the spirit of the Christian message and serve humanity well in providing a way in which we may experience and live Christian principles more fully. Thank you so much for the wonderful work you are doing.

Dear Michael,

Thank you for your letter. No, I have never considered joining a church other than my own. I am deeply committed to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Of course, both have their faults and I do not spare either in my critical remarks, but I don't believe one can change anything from the outside. Only those who are insiders can do what I do to facilitate transformation.

Having said that, I am not only familiar with but deeply touched by the Unity movement. I would guess that I do three or four events a year in Unity churches in the United States. I love this contact, feel enriched by it and treasure my relationship with this Church.

The Unity movement is grounded in the goodness of creation not in the aberration of that which traditional Christianity has come to call "the fall." They are more in touch with Matthew Fox's Original Blessing than they are with the Church's teaching of original sin. They are therefore more life affirming than life denying.


Unity is deeply committed to education and sponsor classes and lectures constantly. The attention they give to their children is inspiring. The music in the various Unity Churches is normally spectacular. It is always a moving worship service for both my wife and me.

I don't know that Unity will be the Church of the future, but I do believe that the themes of the Unity Movement will be part of the Christian Church of the future. For those looking for a new way to be a Christian and for a church that will allow them to be who they are, I recommend Unity with great enthusiasm, if you can find one where you live. Since you live in New York City, I might add that Unity New York, which meets on Sunday Morning in Symphony Hall (Broadway and 91st), is one to which I am particularly drawn. Paul Tenaglia is their pastor and a spectacularly gifted man and the singing group known as "Spiritus" is worth flying to New York from anywhere just to hear them perform.


- John Shelby Spong

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Bishop Spong's Q&A

MaryBrinson from Springfield, Missouri, writes:

Although I did not read it until adulthood, I have found the words in the Gospel of Thomas to be true all my life.

V.3 Jesus said, "If your leaders say to you, 'Look the (Father's) kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the (Father's) kingdom is within you and it is outside you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty."

And:
V. 77 Jesus said, "I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all come forth and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."

What is your take on the Gnostic view, the Gospel of Thomas and others? I know you try to avoid describing God, for God truly is indescribable, but what you said sounded similar.

Dear Mary,

I have read the Gospel of Thomas several times and believe it to be the most authentic of the non-canonical gospels. Your letter has captured two of its insights with which I too resonate. The Jesus Seminar actually elevated it into the canon in a seminar-published book called The Five Gospels. The best work done on it is by Elaine Pagels in her book Beyond Belief and by Bart Ehrman in his book Early Christianities.

The Gospel of Thomas and other Gnostic gospels offer us a new angle on Jesus and I think we honor that. When orthodox defenders of traditional religious formulas attack alternative understandings, it is because they have assumed that their view has captured truth. That is little more than idolatry.

We walk into the mystery of a God who is beyond words, concepts or human perception. Jesus is for me a doorway into that mystery. Christian language in such concepts as Incarnation and Trinity is designed to put rational shape into that experience. I do not reject that language, but I also do not literalize it.

Thanks for writing.


- John Shelby Spong

Religion vs. The Teachings of Jesus

This past Sunday our study group read and discussed material from Chapter 24 of Bishop Spong’s book ‘Jesus for the Non-Religious’. In that material Spong points out the difference between religion and the teachings of Jesus.

Religions, Spong explains, are not about a search for truth, they are rather the human search for security. The need for security, of course, comes from our human anxiety, which stems from self-consciousnesses and the knowledge of our mortality.

" It is an act of enormous courage to embrace what it means to be a self conscious
human being. It is not easy to live with the awareness of the unrelieved anxiety that is the mark of human life. That is why human beings are almost inevitably religious creatures. Religion meets a desperate and chronic need in the human psyche and has, therefore, a tenacious hold on human life itself. Self-created security is, however, never real. The fact is that religion as it has been traditionally practiced has never provided genuine security, but only its illusion. Most religion has in fact served as an opiate for the people."

The teachings of Jesus, on the other hand, speak nothing of security. They speak of breaking down tribal barriers, overcoming prejudice. He invited his followers to walk in the fullness of life; to love others, to do unto others, as they would have others do unto them. These things were not about security; rather they were about living a fully human life.

But how do we separate the two – religion and the teachings of Jesus – after two thousand years of co-mingling ? It is the religion and its dogma that need to be examined and updated and purged if Christianity is to survive. The teachings of Jesus remain solidly intact.


That’s what I think… but then I could be wrong….barry e

Thursday, May 15, 2008

The trip that never happened

When I was in my early teens I was a member of the Boy Scouts of America – troop #132, First Methodist Church, Princeton, Indiana. At one point our Scoutmaster was a man I’ll call Mr. Edwards (not his real name) One Monday evening at troop meeting, Mr. Edwards announced a contest, “The scout who makes the most advancement between now and next summer will win a trip with me and my family to the Catskill mountains!”

Wow, what an incentive for a bunch of young boys.

I was sure I could win and I began working immediately. In the course of the next ten months I advanced several levels in the Scouting ranks, and seldom was I working on less than three or four merit badges at the same time. It became a friendly but serious competition among fellow scouts.

We maintained a scoreboard in the troop meeting room that allowed us to track our tangible accomplishments but there were intangible elements to the contest as well, things like leadership, participation in troop events and discipline. Mr. Edwards would judge these.

At a meeting in late spring, one of my fellow scouts boldly ask Mr. Edwards when we would know the winner of the contest. Mr. Edwards paused and then without looking up from the papers on the table he said, “I’m afraid there isn’t going to be any trip to the Catskills.” …He then continued on with the troop business with no further explanation.

WHAT??!! NO TRIP TO THE CATSKILLS?? How can there be NO TRIP TO THE CATSKILLS. We had worked our young butts off for almost a year only to hear, THERE WILL BE NO TRIP TO THE CATSKILLS!

As you can imagine we were pretty upset and several parents were upset as well. There were a few phone calls made, a few behind the scenes meetings held and within a couple weeks we had a new Scoutmaster. Mr. Edwards had moved on. A couple disillusioned scouts left the troop as well. As for me, I stayed and enjoyed several more years of Scouting, but this was the Genesis of my total belief in the adage, “Get it in writing.”

It wasn’t until some time later that we (scouts) found out that Mr. Edwards had separated from his wife and was involved in a divorce, and that was the reason there would be no trip to the Catskills. Had Mr. Edwards explained the situation earlier rather than later, perhaps things would have gone much smoother.
------------------
Am I wrong in suggesting that the dilemma the church finds itself in today is similar to that of my Scout troop? For two thousand year the church has been promising forgiveness, salvation, and life ever after. Now, common knowledge of the cosmos, life and reality has exposed those promises as mythology and folklore… and the hierarchy of the church is certainly aware of the disparity between academic and popular religion.

What would happen if the church were to announce that “there really isn’t a sky-god and therefore there really is no savior and by the way…heaven is only make believe.” Who among the clergy you know has the ‘guts’ to speak so honestly from the pulpit?

Author Brian Wilson recently wrote, “However uncomfortable, it is time for the clergy to modernize worship and educate their congregations.” …

I agree with him, but I don’t expect to see it happen anytime soon!


But then I could be wrong…………… barry e

Thursday, May 8, 2008

An Alternate to the Lord's Prayer

(I have not been able to determine the author of this prayer)

In the Spirit of love, compassion and tolerance,
We find the source of all that is good,
Hallowed be the presence of this Spirit through all the world.
May it reign among all living beings.
May it bring peace and freedom to all the earth.

With the bread we need for today, may we be fed.
For the hurting we cause one another, may we be forgiven.
In times of temptation and test, may we be strengthened.
From trials to great to endure, may we be spared.
From the grip of all that is evil, may we be freed.

For the Spirit that is love, reigns in the glory and power,
Now and forever.


Amen.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Does the Church have the will to survive?

Since the writing of Paul’s letters and the Synoptic gospels, in the second half of the first century, the church has promoted the idea of salvation. The church has continuously taught that Jesus died on the cross as a sacrifice for the sins of humanity and to avail ones self of the redemptive power of that sacrifice one must be baptized. And coincidently, the only place where baptism could be administered is (of course) the church. For the better part of the last two thousand years this has been the primary message of the church – salvation, Jesus as the savior, Jesus as the redeemer, Jesus as our entry point into eternal life. To be baptized in the blood is to join hands with the Saints of old and reserve ones place in that glorious home on high…forever.

Such a contrivance has absolutely nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus. In all of what is thought to have been taught or spoken by the historical Jesus, ideas of a savior, redemption of sin or eternal life in a place called heaven, are noticeably absent. Jesus spoke nothing of these things. They are the manifestations of the church leaders of the second, third and fourth centuries.

Jesus taught people to love one another, to do unto others, as they would have others do unto them. He implored his followers to break down barriers of prejudices and tribal boundaries. He taught inclusiveness and care for the down trodden, those at the fringes of society. This is the true message of Jesus.

Adult Christians are – for the most part – products of the indoctrination they received during childhood and that indoctrination was chiefly one of Jesus as the good shepherd and savior. But today many adults, and young people alike, are rejecting these unsubstantiated claims. Our society is much more educated today, less willing to believe irrational stories of virgin births, resurrection of the dead, prayers to an invisible sky-god, etc.

Result; membership in Christian institutions world wide is on a steep decline. Granted, this is not the only reason for the decline but it is certainly high on the list.

Can the church stop this decline? How? What will take the place of the age old story of salvation and how will the church infuse a new mantra into the old fabric. Or is it an impossible task? Some say it is, that the church will simply die a slow death.

I hope not… but I see no indication that the church is eager or willing to accept the challenge. It seems to be marching straight toward the cliff, as if oblivious to the danger at hand.


That’s what I think….. but then, I could be wrong….. barry e

Thursday, April 24, 2008

The Popular vs. The Biblical Jesus

Popular religion often depicts Jesus as if he were a good-luck charm. He is the defender of each believer, the one who carries prayers and concerns to God. Jesus is seem as a protector, one who keeps bad things from happening to good people. The Jesus of popular religion was a divine intervention in history, unaffected by social, economic or political realities of his time.

On the other hand. Those who have studied the biblical records in depth tend to arrive at a very different understanding of Jesus. The contrasts are severe;

The popularized Jesus protects the person of faith from life’s overwhelming problems; the biblical Jesus leads the follower into conflict with the powers and principalities, a conflict that can lead to suffering or even death.


The popularized Jesus promises a blissful, eternal existence beyond the grave; the biblical Jesus focuses of the current world, encouraging a quality of present living that is worth preserving into an infinite future.

The popularized Jesus lifts the burden of our guilt from us, paying with his own blood the price for our sins demanded by God (or by Satan, or by both); the biblical Jesus adds to our burdens, insisting that people of faith carry crosses of their own.

The popularized Jesus insists that people worship him; the biblical Jesus asks that people follow him.

The popularized Jesus gives simple and inflexible answers to each of life’s perplexing problems; the biblical Jesus gives often cryptic teachings that modern followers must struggle to interpret for their own time and place.

The popularized Jesus is based almost entirely on the resurrected Christ, a spiritual presence that transcends time and place to become a protective, comforting companion for every age; the biblical Jesus was bound by time and place, a historic person who lived amid the complexities of daily life.

Popularized Christianity is, then. egocentric to the core. While it includes enough authentic references to the actual life and teachings of Jesus to make it seem real, it also contains large portions of superstition. Jesus, in this view, is an adult equivalent of the child’s invisible friend.


One of popular Christianity’s most frequently used hymns states:

What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and grief to bear….

The alternate view also stresses the presence of an eternal Christ, available to inspire us and put us in touch with our spiritual strengths. The resurrected Jesus promised that he would continue with his disciples, much as a dying mother promises to be a continuing influence in the lives of her children. This promise was given in answer to the problem of how to continue Jesus’ mission.

The living Jesus, then, will not hold our hand through life’s inevitable and often petty problems. Instead, the spirit of Jesus will inspire us to find the strength necessary to encounter the excruciating pains that accompany life. A hymn popular among the progressive Christians states:

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,

For the living of these days.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Practice Resurrection—All of the Time…

Mainstream Christianity is no longer “main stream”. It is fast becoming a peripheral part of the Christian narrative in this country and abroad. Personally I celebrate this change of status for the following reasons.

There has always been something profoundly arrogant to be found in every mainstream movement, often expressed by the self-congratulatory remark that “we must be right because we are the majority” (numerically, that is). Our decline is nothing new and every organization, empire and society undergoes these same changes and adaptations over time.


My positive stance on the decline of mainstream Christianity has to do with the fact that once we become smug and self satisfied, we should always get the hint that it is time to move on.

Mainstream Christianity has been stuck in a rut for way too long and its time to move on.
Where do we find our inspiration and hope when all around us the old structures, familiar and beloved to us, are crumbling?


In the resurrection story!

Personally I have very little interest in the resuscitation of dead bodies, and it is quiet easy, when making the effort to read the most basic of literature regarding the ancient times, how great figures in faith always seemed to be “taken up into the sky”, whether it be Elijah, Jesus or Mohammed. These figures simply could not die as ordinary mortal men for the stories to survive in those times.

But true resurrection is an amazing and spectacular miracle and there are many resurrection stories in all of our lives. The one we treasure as Christians tells of how Jesus died on a cross; humiliated and brutalized by a system that could not bear the kind of resurrection he preached—but it is also the story of the triumph of his message.

His is a message that still inspires us and points us in the direction of hope after all of these centuries.

He truly is RISEN!

The mainstream church too, will be resurrected, but not to the old body we once knew. The church-stories of resurrection are manifold, as Hal Taussig demonstrated in his lectures here in February. The new is emerging from the old and those among us who wish to retreat into the familiar safety of the past will continue to be frustrated and disappointed. We will ultimately become embittered and lonely, even moving back to the “fleshpots of Egypt.”

But true life begins in the desert experience where everything is at risk and the stakes are high. Its a place of discomfort and even hunger and thirst from time to time. But it is only in courageous renewal that we will find new life—resurrected life.

For our communal life together, as the remnants of the so-called mainstream church movement, I see hope in our uneasiness and unsettledness. For it is in times such as these that we can truly begin to grow again—if not in numbers, then in maturity and relevance.

Let us open our hearts and our minds as we remember that discipleship in Christ is a life of giving ourselves away, not preserving and protecting the past. I am filled with hope for the liberating love of Christ is beginning to bloom again as the new butterfly emerges from the cocoon of past trappings. Yes, metaphorically seen… “God is still speaking…”

Anton DeWet