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Subject:      Spong's Jesus
From:         rowlandc@werple.net.au (Rowland Croucher)
Date:         1997/03/06
Message-Id:   <5fl35l$8jc$2@eplet.mira.net.au>
Newsgroups:   alt.christnet

  Article Segment 1 of 2


     Book Review: John Shelby Spong, This Hebrew Lord: A Bishop's

     Search for the Authentic Jesus, HarperSanFrancisco, new edition, 1993. 


     Bishop Spong, Episcopal Bishop of Newark, USA, is perhaps today's

     most widely-read liberal 'theologian'. (Why the quotes?  Many

     would not use this term for him). He's earned the nickname 'the

     re-thinking bishop', from the subtitles of his better-known books,

     Living in Sin? (A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality) and Rescuing

     the Bible from Fundamentalism (A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of

     Scripture).



     Before his 1991 trip Downunder, he wasn't really known here.

     Journos love him, offering prime TV and radio time. (Not only

     journos: he packed St. John's Anglican Cathedral in Brisbane for a

     Wednesday lunchtime address on Scripture and sexual morality...)



     Jack Spong, as he's known to friends, is a 'liberal zealot'

     (usually an oxymoron). He's passionate, articulate and prophetic -

     and desperately wants to reform the church. His wide appeal is due

     to his combining provocation, creativity, pastoral care and

     scholarship.



     I'm not aware that he's saying anything much that is new. The book

     about Jesus rests heavily on the demythologizing notions of

     Bultmann and J.A.T.Robinson (some of you may be old enough to

     remember the fuss over Honest to God). James Barr has written a

     similar (and better) book about Fundamentalism. And some church

     reports on Sexuality have said similar things about blessing gay

     and lesbian unions, and allowing sexual relationships for the

     divorced, widowed, or the betrothed-but-not-yet-married. Indeed,

     he feels the church should lead the way in recognizing and

     celebrating (liturgically) responsible extra-marital sexual

     unions.



     So why the fuss? Well, he's certainly readable. He's honest.  He

     wants women in the episcopate, so feminists generally love him.

     He's prolific (point Alta Vista to his diocesan homepage) - 'never

     an unpublished thought' (as some said of sociologist/priest Andrew

     Greeley). And he's telegenic. But more than all this: he's a

     catalytic front for the mostly-pagan media who are delighted when

     prominent Christians attack each other's ideas publicly.



     Spong prefers midrash ('traditions always changing' as he puts it

     in his book about the Resurrection) to 'hysterical literalism'. He

     wants to 'free [Scripture] from its literalistic imprisonment'

     (Living in Sin?). As I understand him, he believes Scripture is

     authoritative only as the Christian community gives it authority.

     (It's not that the old orthodoxies or traditions were wrong:

     they're now simply irrelevant).  When any part of Scripture is

     inappropriate to a community's reasoning (my word), it has the

     power to render those bits inoperative: our quest is to understand

     Jesus as a Jew, then be free to comprehend him within the

     thought-forms of our day.



     So where is the Word of God? In Christ, Spong says.  (Ah, but

     whose/which Christ? I want to ask). The incongruity of all this,

     for me, lies in Spong's avowed love for Scripture and his cavalier

     attitude towards it.



     For example: I counted 16 times in This Hebrew Lord where Spong

     disagrees with the Gospel writers, or accuses them of making

     legends seem like history, because they were imprisoned within the

     thought-forms of their day. Just one: 'No space-age man or woman

     can possibly believe [in a literal Ascension]. Literally, it did

     not happen! It could not happen! If a literal cosmic ascension is

     an important part of the Christian story... such an

     anti-intellectual religion will not long survive in this

     technical, scientific age' (p.90).


                     
                                                              Part  2