Spong: "Why We Must Reclaim The Bible From Fundamentalists"

by leavingwt 87 Replies latest jw friends

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  Ding

  Giordano said :

  His brand of Christianity is based on humanistic qualities,concerns. and values. He lives in the real world and I guess he feels that the best teachings of Jesus have value even in this day and age. He is marching to a different drummer and he is becoming more and more mainstream as more and more people describe themselves as Christians but unaffiliated with any denomination.

  He's one of the few who can resolve many of the ugly things one can find in the bible and liberate the basic and simple teachings of the Jewish Rabbi......... Jesus.

  If the Bible is as unreliable as Spong claims, how do we know that Jesus taught anything that has been attributed to him or that there even was a rabbi named Jesus? If Judas Iscariot is a fictional character, why not Jesus also? Or if not a total fiction, then surely nothing more than a legendary figure fashioned, obscured, and embellished over the centuries to create a religious leader of the storytellers' own making.

  Isn't that exactly what he is doing -- picking, choosing, and recreating a Jesus he would like better?

  Giordano said, "His brand of Christianity is based on humanistic qualities, concerns, and values."

  Precisely! It isn't the Christianity of history. It's not the Jesus of the Bible. It's a Christianity and a Jesus of Spong. It's a "Jesus" shorn of all his supernatural claims and actions. Jesus couldn't have done supernatural things and he wouldn't have made supernatural claims or said any of the unkind or judgmental things fundamentalists attribute to him, so excise all of that.

  Take what you like of Jesus and discard the rest. You are left with a smorgasboard Jesus of your own making. Not surprisingly, this "Jesus" reflects your own "humanistic qualities, concerns, and values." Not surprisingly, he is in full accord with your moral, social, and political agendas. Create your own Jesus and build your own church around him. Such a "Jesus" can be a secular humanist, a cosmic humanist, an astrologer... whatever you like. Great fun!

  But wouldn't it be far more intellectually honest openly to throw out all this Jesus-and-Bible religion stuff and publish in one's own name one's preferred list of "humanistic qualities, concerns, and values"?

  Why talk in terms of "Jesus" and "Christianity" at all? Isn't that really an effort to enhance the credibility of one's own humanistic value system by passing it off as the teachings of "Jesus," hoping that people will be gullible enough to believe that it is the real, historic Christianity?

  How is that significantly different than Fred Franz producing a Bible "translation" that just happens to match his own biased interpretations? True Christian writers would have used the name "Jehovah" so "restore" it to the text. Much better! Proves that the WT is "the truth."

  You want a humanist, non-supernatural Jesus instead? No problem!

  Isn't that the very sort of fraud Spong thinks fundamentalists are perpetrating by promoting their preferred version of Jesus?

  This is intellectual honesty? This is great scholarship?
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  cofty

  This is intellectual honesty? This is great scholarship?

  Yes very much so. Its an attempt get get behind the the mythology and discover the reality. Have you read anything about "The Jesus Seminar"?

  Its possible that there is no man at all behind the myth but even as an atheist I find that unlikely. Surely starting from a position that miracles are by definition the least likely explanation is a sesnible one.
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  Ding

  Have you read anything about "The Jesus Seminar"?

  Aren't those the guys who used colored beads to vote on what they think Jesus really said based on their own worldviews and presuppositions? As I recall, the only part of the Lord's Prayer they all agreed on was, "Our Father." Even that can be criticized for not being gender neutral...
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  wordfamine.com

  I wonder if eye-witnesses like Peter, James and John considered thenselves as fundamentalists or intellectuals? A few backwards fishermen started a global movement by inviting people to love their enemies, abandon themselves, and worship a bloodied disfigured crucified man who said he was God and proved it.

  No one could make this stuff up. It is the unlikliest of all possible stories. What is there to reclaim? It is what it is. Why change it?
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  still thinking

  leavingwt...that certainly looks like an interesting read. Right or wrong, I think it is valuable to hear other peoples opinions on the bible. How can we decide what is correct if we don't?

  I'll wait for it to get to the library though...spending money on books would cost me an absolute fortune otherwise...LOL
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  NewChapter

  I don't understand. On the one hand, Spong is criticized for picking, choosing, and disregarding. Then those that criticize so turn around and pick, choose and disregard. And some have even picked, chosen and disregarded some things SPONG said. So if Spong is picking and choosing incorrectly, then why aren't others picking and choosing incorrectly? And if one must pick and choose and disregard, then where is the value? It's like saying the bible can't be trusted----except THESE parts----and everyone has different parts.

  Fundmentalists pick how they will view the bible, more liberal Christians pick how they will view the bible, and they will criticize each other. But based on what?

  NC
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  JonathanH

  Spong is the future of academic christianity, and flying spagetti monster be praised for it. As philosophers and popular writers continue to show the inanity of so much apologetics and metaphysical theology, academic theologians back up their positions to a more and more realistic one. People like Spong, John Haught, and Karl Giberson move more and more towards claiming the bible isn't "real" per se, but still holds important truths. This will inevitably cause a divide as can be seen here, even more liberal christians that don't go with biblical innerrancy will hold up their hands and say "woah, woah, floods and stuff are out, sure, but the Jesus part still has to be 100% true, I mean that's the whole point!" I mean look at biologos that has been reverting from it's original science based mission, to a more fundementalist evengelical position because people like Karl Giberson were pointing out that Adam and Eve weren't literal in any way shape or form. But academic theologians in the public sphere are backing up from anything resembling a literal interpretation of any part of the bible. Largely for reasons newchapter outlined above. It's incredibly inconsistent and hard to defend the picking and choosing of absurdities in an ancient collection of loosely connected writings.

  The inevitable end of this is that academics will view christianity as "art", something that doesn't reveal anything "factual" about our universe, but is still a fantastic set of "truths" about the human condition. They will probably still sneak some kind of deistic god in there somewhere just for the hell of it. Meanwhile the those that insist that the bible does in fact reveal "facts" about the universe and not just "human truths" will be seen as the mislead and uneducated masses. Good, I say to that. The bible is a work of art, people lose the plot when they try to elevate it to science as well. It has a great many stories about humanity and it's struggles, but that doesn't mean an invisible asexual interdimensional wizard and his offspring zapped the universe into existence, made a cell, and then decided gays were icky.
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  NewChapter

  "real" per se, but still holds important truths

  And this is the part that absolutely perplexes me. WHICH important truths? Why is it only what Jesus said? Why can't I choose to say the true part is where men who rape women can buy them from their fathers and marry them? Why is that a less valid truth, or method for choosing a truth, than deciding it is only what Jesus said? When I post stuff like this, I'm immediately told, just take away what Jesus taught---then they proceed to tell me what Jesus taught. And when I point out that Jesus never condemned the old writings but supported them, then that fact is dismissed! No no, that's not what WE choose to focus on, therefore, YOU are wrong for focusing on it, even though it comes from the same set of writings.

  And then I ask, "how do you choose", and basically the answer is whatever they want. The parts that feel good and make sense. And as much as they trust all that Jesus says, I am incredibly wrong for asking why, if the Jews were so profoundly misled, did Jesus not MENTION that everything they'd been reading to that point was a pile of crap. But then I'm told because he had OTHER things to address. So thousands of years of misinformation wasn't even worth one little mention from THE WORD, who came to set things straight? Who would have hated to have his father's name slandered in such an atrocious way. Not once did he say the writings were from humans influenced by Satan. We are just to kind of glean that from the new law.

  It is all so convoluted. Just keep reasoning and reasoning until it sits right. That's all.

  NC
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  tec

  I think the problem I have with Spong (and Jonathan already mentioned it)... is just, where is Christ in all of this?

  Why call yourself a Christian if you do not even believe in and follow Christ?

  Just doesn't make sense to me. The very idea of changing Christianity to fit in with social or acceptable norms today does not sit well with me. Its like caving to peer pressure or something.

  Why can't I choose to say the true part is where men who rape women can buy them from their fathers and marry them?

  You can choose to believe whatever you want to believe.

  But shouldn't someone who follows Christ follow His teachings and eX ample?

  Christ never said follow the bible... he said follow ME.

  Peace as always,

  Tammy
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  soft+gentle

  Spong does believe in Christ, according to this book. The last chapter of Rescuing from fundamentalism is devoted to sharing his love for and belief in Christ. It is entitled Who is Christ for us? The main point he makes is that belief in Chirst is not objective but is subjective and that "each generation spoke of the way they saw Christ in their day". And along these lines he says that for him Christ is love and this he says is true of all generations.

  He goes on th say "Contrary to the unhistorical view of creedal fundamentalism and biblical literalists, there never was a moment when the Christ experience was captured to be nomative for all time."