If like me you find yourself puzzling over the mystery of Resurrection, you might appreciate as I did this book by John Shelby Spong. His work is entitled Resurrection: Myth or Reality? Here are some good quotes from it and my comments:
Biblical higher criticism is preserved in the particular enclave of academic Christian scholarship and is thought to be too unfruitful to share with the average pew-sitter, for it raises more questions than the church can adequately answer. So the leaders of the church would protect the simple believers from concepts they were not trained to understand. In this way that ever-widening gap between academic Christians and the average pew-sitter made its first appearance. p. 12Now that is the truth. The message I received in seminary was this: In order not to upset the faith of your parishioners don't bother talking about higher criticism. Just tell the story. Neo-orthodoxy and narrative preaching allowed the preacher to simply tell "the story" whether s/he believed it as true or not in a historical sense. The preachers say one thing, the congregants think they are hearing something different. I decided early on that I would not do that. You get higher criticism in my preaching and I think I and the congregations I have served are better for it.
At its very core the story of Easter has nothing to do with angelic announcements or empty tombs. It has nothing to do with time periods, whether three days, forty days, or fifty days. It has nothing to do with resuscitated bodies that appear and disappear or that finally exit this world in a heavenly ascension. p. 12
I cannot say my yes to legends that have been clearly and fancifully created. If I could not move my search beyond angelic messengers, empty tombs, and ghostlike apparitions, I could not say yes to Easter. p. 237
The myths of the Bible have all been told before in the myths of the other gods. They are fine myths. The problem comes when we are told that we must believe them as history.
Papal infallibility and biblical inerrancy are the two ecclesiastical versions of this human idolatry. Both papal infallibility and biblical inerrancy require widespread and unchallenged ignorance to sustain their claims to power. Both are doomed as viable alternatives for the long- range future of anyone. p. 99You can read or hear my sermon from the first Sunday of Lent regarding giving up the Bible as supernaturally inspired. My sermon series for Lent is, "Beliefs Worth Letting Go in Order to Grow" and the sermon is entitled "Beyond the Sacred Page."
If the resurrection of Jesus cannot be believed except by assenting to the fantastic descriptions included in the Gospels, then Christianity is doomed. For that view of resurrection is not believable, and if that is all there is, then Christianity, which depends upon the truth and authenticity of Jesus' resurrection, also is not believable. p. 238When our beliefs become more important than truth, we have lost our integrity. We cling to these beliefs from habit or fear. We are then unable to grow. We can change our beliefs. We have throughout history. We can again.
Fundamentalists think they are the ones who are most true to the Bible. Sure, they quote it a lot. However, it is really people like Spong and the higher critics who take the Bible the most seriously. They regard it from the point of view of its setting and literary genre. Fundamentalists regard the Bible from their theological point of view as the inerrant Word of God. That view ironically demeans the Bible and those who wrote it.The best way to lose all is to cling with desperation to that which cannot possibly be sustained literally. Literalistic Christians will learn that a God or a faith system that has to be defended daily is finally no God or faith system at all. They will learn that any god who can be killed ought to be killed. Ultimately they will discover that all their claims to represent the historical, traditional, or biblical truth of Christianity cannot stop the advance of knowledge that will render every historic claim for a literal religious system questionable at best, null and void at worst. p. 22
If you have the time, you might see this lecture by Spong regarding the Bible.
They amuse themselves by playing an irrelevant ecclesiastical game called Let's Pretend. Let's pretend that we possess the objective truth of God in our inerrant Scriptures or in our infallible pronouncements or in our unbroken apostolic traditions. p. 100
Integrity and honesty, not objectivity and certainty, are the highest virtues to which the theological enterprise can aspire. From this perspective, all human claims to possess objectivity, certainty, or infallibility are revealed as nothing but the weak and pitiable pleas of frantically insecure people who seek to live in a illusion because reality has proved to be too difficult. Papal infallibility and biblical inerrancy are the two ecclesiastical versions of this human idolatry. Both papal infallibility and biblical inerrancy require widespread and unchallenged ignorance to sustain their claims to power. Both are doomed as viable alternatives for the long-range future of anyone. p. 99
If you find yourself resonating with Spong's points of view, you will enjoy this book. Discretion is in order. You might want to read it undercover with a flashlight.
You never know when the Spanish Inquisition might try to trip you up. Thanks to Mystical Seeker for reminding me of that great Monty Python skit! You also will find A Blog of Mystical Searches to be quite refreshing. It is a blog of a person honestly searching for what is true and good.
I think that this is one of Spong's best books, and it helped make it possible for me to return to a serious interest in Christianity. It really helped me make sense out of the developing idea of the resurrection among early Christians, and even if he wasn't necessarily right on all the details, his overall perspective on this process really clicked with me.
ReplyDeleteAnd I have to say that that absence of any mention of higher criticism in preaching is a big issue that I have with preaching, even in liberal churches. My experience has been that even most liberal pastors/ministers just "tell the story" even if they know that the story isn't literally true. It makes it hard for me to know where the preacher is coming from, and it forces me to put up a little wall of resistance. If they were more open about the mythological character of these biblical stories, it would go a long way for me.
Thanks Seeker.
ReplyDeleteI have some difficulties with Spong now and then. He can be repetitive and a little bombastic now and again. Nevertheless, I do find him helpful and this book was a big help for me too.
It is good to see you echo frustrations with preaching that does not introduce higher criticism.
I found that church members forced me to come clean. I am grateful to them. It is not easy especially when the evangelistas are always at your heels.
i have the same reaction to Spong to some degree - he is saying a lot of important things, but tends to overestimate himself a lot in my opinion.
ReplyDeletei have to say that i am often in the camp of telling the story, but in the telling i try to let it retain its intrinsic power. i think the bible is *more* powerful because it is mythological and narrative, not *less*. i think that our culture pretends as if stories don't have power because they aren't data, or they aren't interpreted by pundits and "experts". but for me, story is at the center of meaning. if the bible is a set of literal-minded documents, then it dies when the culture that its assumptions represent passes away - but if it is a myth, a story, a fiction in the sense that fiction is truthful, then it can be immortal...
Well put, sfts. Is Robert Coote still teaching there? I have enjoyed reading his work.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that Spong can be full of himself and dogmatic, and that is unfortunate, because it detracts from his message. He occasionally embraces fringe scholarship; for example, he has been a follower of Michael Goulder, whose ideas are out of the mainstream of scholarship (and Spong has questioned the Q hypothesis as a result). Still, I can put up with those faults of his because I think he raises a lot of very important points about the evils of fundamentalism and biblical literalism, and about the evils of sexism and homophobia that are found in so much of Christianity. He writes passionately about these subjects and his books are usually interesting, although, admittedly, once you've read a couple of his books you've pretty much read them all.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, thanks for the good word and the link, and for doing the research in youtube to find a video with all three segments spliced together. It is always fun to watch the "Spanish Inquisition" sketches. They are possibly my favorite Monty Python sketches. :)
ReplyDeleteOh, that was funny. I love Monty Python. I just watched The Life of Brian again last week.
ReplyDeleteIts good to lighten things up from time to time.
I really enjoy that focus of 'what are we doing for earth or the here and now'? I ask myself that quite a bit about the faith and I have seen that mass religious experience does not focus on the 'here and now' enough - as in helping in ways to make one's life a little more manageable - I have always said the church shouls become a community program machine.
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