Subject:  Why Christianity Must Change or Die. |
Author:
Liberal
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Date Posted: 10:34:47 04/25/04 Sun
Book summary.
Spong, John Shelby. Why Christianity Must Change or Die. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998.
The author started by defining himself as a believer. God is the ultimate reality in his life. Contrary to the orthodox faith, however, he believes that God can never be enclosed by propositional statements; God can only be pointed to.
The author then turns to the foundation of traditional Christian faith„othe Apostles¡¦ Creed. The words of the Apostles' Creed were fashioned inside a worldview that no longer exists because that worldview has been obliterated by the expansion of knowledge. For example, Almighty means the power to remedy any wrong or to prevent any disaster, yet wrongs and disasters continue to be a part of life. The traditional arguments about free will and the virtues developed through suffering are today so weak and so unconvincing. The only real alternatives are asserting that God is limited, uncaring, or non-existent. Another example is Jesus¡¦ judgement of the living and the dead. When the Bible was written, the people knew little or nothing about social and psychological interdependence. Postmodern people who know the depths of human interconnectedness, who understand psychological wounding and blessing, cannot be moralistic in the way that these traditional creedal images of judgment have always assumed. Can anyone be judged today simply as an individual who is solely responsible for who he or she is or for what he or she has done? A further example is that the creed asserts that the Spirit will issue in the communion of saints, which will continually renew the "holy catholic Church." But the Church has also had in its history some rather dreadful moments marked by such things as "holy" wars, "sacred" crusades, and inquisitions. Most importantly, the Creed were not even part of the original Christian understanding of the God revealed in Jesus. What we call the Apostles' Creed did not begin to be formulated until the latter years of the third century and was not adopted until the fourth century of this common era. The purpose of this Creed, as every written creed historically, was not to clarify the truth of God. It was, rather, to rule out some contending points of view. The adoption and expansion of these creeds took place in church councils amid raucous debates and politically motivated compromises. To be called an orthodox Christian does not mean that one's point of view is right; it only means that this point of view won out in the ancient debate. There is no reason to believe that the people who participated in these councils of the church in that distant time were any more brilliant, insightful, or knowledgeable than are the Christians of today. The author does not, therefore, believe that the Christological formula was set for all times at Chalcedon in 451 C.E. Rather, we must do the hard work of rethinking and redefining the Christ experience for the present time and in words and concepts appropriate to our world.
The author coined and explained the term ¡§Christians in Exile.¡¨ He started by pointing out that the Exile is never a voluntary experience. It is always something forced upon a person or a people by things or circumstances over which the affected ones have no control. A Christian in Exile is one who finds the traditional faith unbelievable and is forced to explore a new Christian faith. He started his exploration by revisiting the concept of God. He defines theism as belief in an external, personal, supernatural, and potentially invasive Being. This is the definition of God literally present in the Hebrew scriptures. But theism and God are not the same. Theism is but one human definiton of God. The author reminded us that if horses had gods they would look like horses. The attributes we have claimed for God are nothing but human qualities expanded beyond human limits. The God most of us have worshiped during human history has looked and acted in a very human manner. This is because we have created God in our own image. This is idolatry. To counteract idolatry, in the mystical tradition no one can claim objectivity for his or her insight. Each person is called to journey into the mystery of God along the pathway of his or her own expanding personhood. The author moves on to explore a new definition of God. God has always been identified with that which gives life. Paul Tillich urged his readers to examine existence and to discover that which calls people into life and, once that was found, to acknowledge it as a manifestation of the divine if not the divine source itself. An insight from psychology is that love is also the source and the creator of life. Without love we human beings shrivel. The unloved child, the uncared-for infant, will almost surely die. Love opens the whole creation up to life and calls all things into being. Yet each individual of that living whole humanity participates in the eternity of being united to an ultimate ground of what slowly but surely we may someday learn to call God. So the call of this internal God found in our depths becomes primarily a call into being. There is no God external to life. God, rather, is the inescapable depth and center of all that is. God is not a being superior to all other things. God is the Ground of Being itself. And much flows from this starting place.
Liberal 2001
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