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 Funda-
mentalism (A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture).
Before his 1991 trip Downunder, he wasn't really known here. Journalists love him, offering
prime TV and radio time. (Not only journalists: 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 epis-
copate, 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homepage) - 'never an unpublished thought' (as some said of sociologist/priest Andrew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 wertr 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).
