Recently I came across the Twelve points for Reform that retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong has created if the Christian faith is to survive in our post-post modern world. The points make solid sense to me. This is a different world than it was a mere 100 years ago. Science is constantly and consistently disproving much of what the Christian bible purports. To continue to cling to biblical stories as “truth” when they clearly have never been, only sheds an unflattering light on those who grapple to maintain their fierce grip on a literalistic interpretation of scripture. These people appear stubborn, ignorant, often arrogant…and if one looks very closely…afraid.
I can understand a fear like that. This current world threatens the collapse of their “biblical world view”. Everything could be flipped on its head and their faith could be shattered. Some would even lose their careers. They desire to “return” to yesteryear. They bemoan the decline of morality, or the church. But returning to yesteryear isn’t possible. It just isn’t. No matter how much you shake your fist or vote Republican. 
So, what happens when one wakes up (pulls their head out of the sand, so to speak) and begins to read and explore and discover that perhaps they’ve been wrong about the bible? Well…one can live through having their faith shattered. I did. Yes, it is difficult when it has been your entire identity.
*Tanget*…By the way…I hate that a belief system should become someone’s identity. It was mine (and my parents before, and so on). I, in turn, handed it down to my children. I hate now that I did that. It was indoctrination plain and simple and of course Yes! There is a bible verse to back that up! “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” But tell me…why do we think that verse means that we need to give our children a religious inoculation? Why do we indoctrinate our children? Why do we not give them simple guidelines to follow such as these that don’t limit their minds and their intellects? We shouldn’t hand OUR identity to our children. We should allow them to live and explore and learn. And ask questions. *end tangent*
The world has changed, and that is a fact. With science and technology continuing to explode (with no sign of decline) we are more connected globally to one another and to the plight of others and our planet. And people are waking up. The light is coming on. We are, to borrow a Buddhist term, becoming “enlightened”. We are learning that we better take care of our environment, endangered species, and each other, if we want the human race and the insects, plants, and animals (that all work harmoniously together to maintain homeostatic balance) to continue to exist on this planet (in harmony). One day the scale will tip too far and we will destroy…everything.
Religious dogma stands firmly in the way of the waking up for many people. It stands firmly in the way of harmony. It draws lines of demarcation between people…the believers and non-believers, the saved and the unsaved, the lost and the found. That way of thinking is an ancient, barbaric and quite frankly, deleterious way of separating people. It hurts, it maims, it kills. People, relationships, nations. We no longer live in medieval times, and we should be embracing change rather than railing against it. Because we MUST.
It’s a life and death matter, but not because of a “heaven or hell” situation, but because humanity is consuming itself from the inside out and religious bigotry and dogma provides the knife and fork.
Back to Bishop John Shelby Spong. Here is a quote that elucidates his thoughts of Jesus. (You can read the whole article here):
“As Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer once observed, I do not believe that Christianity can today be contained inside the traditional formulations of Christianity and must, therefore, transcend these boundaries, if it is to live in this generation. Bonhoeffer coined the phrase “Religionless Christianity” to describe what he meant. I seek in a similar way to look at Jesus outside the boundaries of religion. The result for me has been the recovery of a Jesus who commands my allegiance anew, a Jesus who calls me beyond my limits into a new humanity, beyond my prejudices into a new wholeness, beyond my religion into a new courage to live for others and to be all that I can be. It is this Jesus to whom my life is committed.“
Below I have listed Spong’s Twelve Points for Reform for the Christian faith. As you can see, a divine Jesus is not something he believes in. Neither do I. I can, however, follow the essence of who Jesus was. Just as I can follow the teachings of Buddha or Ghandi, and Mother Theresa. I am inspired by all of them. Okay, on to the twelve points that Spong nailed to the internet!
1. Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.
2. Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.
3. The Biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.
4. The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ’s divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.
5. The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.
6. The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.
7. Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history.
8. The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.
9. There is no external, objective, revealed standard written in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time.
10. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.
11. The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.
12. All human beings bear God’s image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one’s being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination.
An article regarding Bishop Spong can be found here. I particularly like this quote from the article about Spong: “He disturbs the status quo with a desire to reform the primitive Christian faith. His attempt to bring Christianity to maturity, although combated by traditionalists, is worthy of praise. This is one bishop who has won the respect of modern thinkers worldwide.”
He certainly has my respect.
Seriously, look for books outside of your typical fare. Stretch yourself. Gain some insight into the way others think and believe. It’s a big world and there are many different thoughts about Christianity. Think critically!! I gave myself a theological education over the course of 3 years, and you can too. I’ll give you a list of books to read, if you’d like.
