There is no God, there is no heaven and there is no afterlife. At least, not in the way we have traditionally thought of such things.
These days, with atheist arguments topping bestseller lists, such statements might not seem all that contentious.
But when a retired bishop says it, it’s worth noting.
“My audience is not the people who go to church on Sunday morning,” John Shelby Spong, the retired Episcopal bishop of Newark, N.J., said on a recent visit to Toronto.
He’d rather be in dialogue with Richard Dawkins than with Jerry Falwell – good thing, since Falwell is in ‘the afterlife’ – whatever that means…
Well, at least he’s figured out “My audience is not the people who go to church on Sunday morning.”
The Gospel according to John………
……..Lennon of course.
Hey Man, the Beatles, you know, like had the answer.
If you can’t accept Jesus as Lord, I guess you have to find some kind of meaning somewhere. May as well be from Sergeant Pepper as anyone else.
Wear the uniform and misrepresent what said uniform represents– what a way to pad your retirement income. Didn’t Someone say something about millstones being chained around the necks of those who mislead the faithful? Oh, silly me, that Guy only said about 18% of what was actually attributed to him!
“Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.â€
–C.S. Lewis
Dear Bp. Spong,
Please let us know from the Other Side how things work out. Perhaps that can be your next book.
Blessings,
Rafe
I see that Bishop Spong was feeling insecure again and needed to go out and garner a little publicity. Reminds me so so so much of the character of Sally Field — who played a soap opera diva — going out into a crowded shopping mall, while pretending to want to not be noticed, and having her assistant recognize her really really loudly.
Soap Dish — a funny movie, and Field does a star turn in it.
What does it say when, at the bottom of this article, it is suggested that we also look at instructions for making:
[blockquote] Thai red curry coconut sauce[/blockquote]???
“The institution of the church is more about seeking security than finding the truth,” he says.
Why is someone who believes religion is “opiate for the masses” presuming to speak for a Christian church? Why did he ever pursue a divinity degree? (And that Thai curry sauce was the only thing worth reading here.)
I think it’s a scream that a dishonest old hack who made (and makes) his living as a parasite on a foreign organism has the nerve to say that “The institution of the church is more about seeking security than finding the truth.” Isn’t that what he’s doing in his old age–finding security in the pension he scammed off Christians? And isn’t that what he did when he scammed his salary off of Christians prior to his retirement?
OK, I now finally “get” John Spong — his theme song all the way around is John Lennon’s “Imagine”.
“Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today “
Sorry, Lumen Christie…you were ahead of me! It really is that obvious.
[blockquote]we invented religion to give us solace[/blockquote]
If that was the case, ya think they might of made it easier to follow Christ.
[blockquote] “We are related to the plankton, the cabbages and the great apes,” says Spong.[/blockquote]
I hope that cabbage I had the other day was a distant cousin……
[i] Comment deleted by elf for inappropriate language. Commenter warned. [/i]
“The goal of religion is not to prepare us for the next life,” he writes. “It is a call to live now, to love now, to be now and in a way to taste what it means to be part of a life that is eternal. … It is the presence of death that actually makes my life precious.”
Fine. Dog eat dog and the devil take the hindmost. Live for yourself and get yours before someone else does. There are limited resources and what you don’t get now, is lost to you forever. Let the rich get and the strong take. Live for today because there really is no tomorrow. As that wise person, Voldemort said, “There is no good or evil, only power, and those too weak to seek it.”
My older computer has trouble with a great many web pages so not being able to read the vaunted words of the emminent Spong did not vex me overly much..
However the citation of the Thai red curry coconut sauce did intrigue enough to move to another computer and seek out this delight . Imagine my disappontment and frustration to find that the recipe was as revisionist as Spong. Because of political correctness, it omits the fish sauce and substitutes for the shrimp paste. Is there no end to this perfidy?? A ‘christianity’ without a Christ and Thai cooking without fish sauce?
BTW the article by Spong was pretty vacuous also…
When a retired bishop says it, it means that nobody should care anymore.
“It is a call to live now, to love now, ” hmmmmmm, I’ve heard that somewhere before…..oh yes, “Live in the now” – well, almost the same words,,,,,,,,,I believe it was Charles Manson who said it……he had followers also……..
How does it follow from knowing the earth is not the center of the universe, that there’s space above us, and that humans evolved from other creatures, that we therefore must conclude that there is no God, no heaven and no afterlife? Spong is such a shallow thinker. As someone with a background in the sciences I can say the discoveries of Galileo, Newton and Darwin create no difficulties for me. Spong, if he truly possesses the open mind he believes he has, would benefit from the writings of the physicist and Anglican priest John Polkinghorne who shows how science and orthodox Christian belief can be held together without contradiction.
I need to add too that, as C.S. Lewis pointed out, it is the people who think the most about the life to come who somehow manage to do the most good in this life.
I have this mental picture of Spong meeting St. Peter, and standing by St. Peter’s side is Jerry Fallwell saying “Brother Spong, welcome, I’m sorry you won’t be staying, but you’ll have an eternity to reflect about what you did to Christian’s faith and belief. Buh-Bye.”
Stefano, but at least the recipe noted they had been omitted, so that one may revise back to the original (and tasty) recipe. The recipe writer understood, perhaps, that his revisionism would not be acceptable to all and thoughtfully explained what was missing. Spong doesn’t want anyone to know what is missing in what he is peddling. Sadly, he may not know himself what is missing.
Dunno, a Gospel According to John Lennon is certainly short-shifting Lennon if “Imagine” is all the Bp Spong can come up with…
“In the beginning was the Word, the Word was so fine, sunshine, the Word is Love. All you need is Love, Gimme Some Truth. I’m So Tired, Run for your life. Dear Prudence, we can work it out, Come together,you can talk to me. Hey, Bungalow Bill, what did you kill to start your revolution? Number Nine, goo-goo-ga-choo, Strawberry Fields Forever.”
Though leading Beatlogians are still in debate as to just who the mysterious Walrus was, I hope I speak no heresy by saying I do believe the walrus was Paul, as stated in Glass Onion vs 3.
Elves, I seem to have had a comment removed, and without even a notice that it was deleted, as is usually the case. Any particular reason? (It was comment #10.)
[i] The elves do not necessarily send a warning on a comment in question. The negative belittling tone you used in your comments was unnecessary. [/i]
To the contrary, C. Wingate, we should care. It allows us to observe that Bishops Duncan and Wantland were deposed by ECUSA, while Mr. Spong hasn’t been, and never will be. That tells us quite a bit that’s valuable about what that organization worships.
I have never for the life of me understood Bishop Spong. I go out of my way to read everything he writes when it comes out, if for no other reason that to be able to talk intelligently about his arguments when parishioners invariably ask me about something they gleaned from one of his works.
I understand he doesn’t really believe the creeds or what most Christians take as basic tenets of the faith. And intellectually, that’s fine; I know people who agree with him on some things. Everyone is entitled to their opinions.
What I can’t understand is how he can with any intellectual integrity continue to be a bishop (albeit now retired) and professing Christian (although what exactly he professes is a mystery to me as well) in the institutional church that has beliefs he denigrates and that he believes “must change or die.” I mean, if I was a member of any organization, religious or secular, that I couldn’t agree with most or all of their basic operating principles and ethics, why would I remain a member?
I think he would actually make more money and waves if he up and renounced the church and went on the Atheistic best seller list like Richard Dawkins, et al. He’d make a fortune in European circles if he did. I don’t understand that mentality. And please pardon me elves, if I sound harsh-I am not trying to denigrate the man; I have met him personally, and he’s a nice guy. I am just trying to understand him, for I think if I could do that, his body of work might be a bit more comprehensive-able to me.
Pardon my out of control spell checker…that last sentence should read “his body of work might be a bit more comprehensible to me.”
Phil, please lay off the spin. Spong should not have been tolerated as long as he was, even by people who agreed with his program on sexuality. Against that has to be set the effort required to get rid of him versus the detriment to the organization in allowing him to stay. If he were still a sitting bishop, it is perhaps the case that a heresy trial could be pushed through (with all the hysteria involved) and he could be deposed. Based on the Forrester consent failure, I don’t think there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that someone could say what he is saying now and get consecrated bishop. As it is, he’s something of a cross between a sacred cow and our crazy Uncle Ed. I have to wonder whether he could be put on trial and convicted in a way that would benefit the church, and never mind the expense. And you may disagree, but I don’t think he’s the kind of immediate threat to the institution that Duncan was taken to be. And more to the point, there’s no way to pull off the kind of shortcut that was used, legitimately or not, in Duncan’s case.
Instead of veiled references to what the organization worships, spell it out. I think it’s going to be harder to defend that way, but that’s just my cynicism, I suspect.
C. Wingate, “lay off the spin”? Two Christian bishops were deposed and Spong – who, though it isn’t my place to say for sure, goes out of his way to make sure nobody thinks he’s a Christian – was not. Those are facts, not “spin” (look it up). If you dislike those facts reflecting poorly on ECUSA, take it up with your leadership.
As to the “immediate threat” to the institution: apparently not. Events played out as Duncan would have had them even had he not been deposed, and ECUSA’s still here. And there most certainly are ways to pull off the shortcut necessary to cut Spong loose. Near as I can tell, the structures that could have held the Presiding Bishop accountable when she purported to depose other clergy not only didn’t, they knelt at her feet and supported her. If you’re saying these structures wouldn’t countenance the deposition of someone worshiping the same secular liberalism as ECUSA, then thanks for making my point.
I trust that’s spelled out clearly enough.
C. Wingate and Phil:
Are you both reading what the other wrote? Sounds like you are likely on the same page….
I have no particular respect for the depositions of the schismatic bishops; it’s obviously institutionally necessary to do so, but I am not convinced of the legitimacy. However, the constant tying of all the sexual revisionism to an apostate like Spong is destructive to the reasserter cause. Probably I could find a Reverend to agree with him, and there are “close enough” cases like the prolapsarian Rev. Adams late of St. Marks Capital Hill, but in my experience the vast majority of sexual revisionists hold Nicene views about the Godhead and about salvation; at any rate, those that do are not a negligible party. Yet I see over and over again (especially in That Other Forum) the hyperbolic assertion that the liberals are sexual libertines AND Unitarians. The disfunction over what even the liberals call “core doctrine” cannot be addressed through such rhetoric, because nobody is going to listen to someone who is so blatantly misrepresenting the potential listener’s position. It provides evidence for the revisionist accusation that all we care about is sex.
And saying that ECUSA worships “secular liberalism”– that’s exactly the rhetoric that makes enemies out of people who could be allies. You will find no disagreement from me that the liberal position on sexuality gives secular authorities a theological respect which they do not deserve. Nevertheless, they do not worship those authorities– even people like Louie Crew don’t worship them. Even Spong himself doesn’t worship them, any more than I worship Newtonian mechanics or general relativity. Here in this diocese, a naively-believing “whatever the BCP says” parishioner is going to have Mary Glasspool show up on a Sunday (in lieu of a bishop), and at least when I have heard her preach she has not sounded in the least like Spong; nor did Jane Dixon when she was my rector. The one time I head Barbara Harris preach, she gave a rigorously orthodox sermon. So even if they know that Glasspool is a lesbian and that Dixon was involved in the persecution of conservative parishes, they contrast a sermon that doesn’t set off theology alarms, and they discount those who write and say things like “worshipping secular liberalism”, and with them, reasserting as a whole.
[blockquote] “We are related to the plankton, the cabbages and the great apes,” says Spong. [/blockquote]
Plankton, eh? Well what about SpongeBob, Patrick, Mr. Crabs, Squidward, Sandy and Gary? WHERE’S THE INCLUSIVITY?
Why do Episcopalians pay any attention to a heretic like Spong?
C. Wingate, perhaps. Let me just say I’ve had a different experience in the flavor of theology coming from the pulpit. At the same time, there are more than a handful of examples of clergy or Episcopal leaders trending clearly in the Spong direction. Perhaps you would reply that even this large basket – including the big megaphone coming from the Presiding Bishop – washes out against the experience of the average pewsitter. Maybe it does; it didn’t for me.
I doubt that comments such as mine tar “reasserting” as a whole. If they do, can we be consistent and say that shrill cries of “bigotry” and the lazy assumption that people define for themselves what constitutes sexual morality, against the entire history of Christianity, ought to be at least as discrediting to the theology of Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Dixon? That seems only fair, but what I read you doing instead is taking it for granted that they are on the side of the angels, while my motives are less than pure. Let’s not spot our opponents the giant lead of accepting their premises.
Come on, people, this is shooting fish in a barrel. Spong really doesn’t deserve this much energy – although I admit he is funny. Larry
Are Spong’s spongeiform encephalopathy-like lacunae in logic signs of his evolutionary arrival here (confirming a seaborne ancestry and relatedness to sponges in a Lamarckian sort of way) or predictive of future movement in the same direction (increasing lacunae to utter vacuity)??? Most evolutionary changes are dead ends as I understand the hypothesis. Proof and pudding!
It truly saddened me when the Iona Community announced on their facebook events that they were ‘proud that Bp. Spong was going to lead a retreat at their community’. I couldn’t find a place to ‘comment’ on their story, but wanted to ask why they would want a person who dishonored his calling by denying all the Church has taught for 2000 years, and reduced Christianity to a ‘mere fairy-tale’ to speak to a Christian gathering?
Yeow, the elves deleted my comment too. So maybe I can say it in a nicer, elf-resistent way.
The cultured despisers to whom Spong imagines he’s speaking are not going to be impressed. They’re as contemptuous of liberal religion, even religion as reductivist as Spong’s, or Karen Armstrong’s, as they are of the conservative evangelical variety. Read the literature, and the endless discussion in the blogosphere, and see.
They’re contemptuous because religion, especially in the US, is a class marker–as Andrew Brown notes in his excellent Guardian piece “Snobbery with godlessness” at [url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/sep/25/religion-atheism]http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/sep/25/religion-atheism[/url] . Among those cultured despisers, urban-coastal upper middle class “knowledge workers,” religion is simply not done. Their church is Whole Foods.
I am no conservative evangelical. But as a theist in Academia I am in a tiny minority–my educated guess would be that no more than 5% of academics are “out” theists though there may be more who are “closeted.” I used to hope for a little moral support from the Church. Instead, Spong announces in his “Twelve Theses” that theism is not only false–it can’t even be seriously entertained by educated people in the 21st century.
Spong and his ilk are living in a time-warp–or pretend they are. They imagine they’re living in a world where churchgoing is the norm and atheism is not respectable, where people feel that they ought to believe a variety of theological doctrines but just can’t muster the doxastic energy to do so. That may be the world in which Spong grew up–in a family headed by parents who, the article notes, were creationists–but that isn’t the world in which I live. There may be worlds like this, but I’ve never been there.
The bottom line is that this is all about class–and about cool. Spong may do well on the lecture circuit speaking the those churchgoers he despises and he may get picked up by the media as a curiousity–a bishop who is as contemptuous of Christianity as the urban-coastal elite media folk are themselves. But he is still not going to be invited to sit at the cool kids table any more than any of the rest of us will.
Although I don’t think Spong is a particularly good theologian, nor is he aware of his own hermeneutical biases, I was surprised when I heard him teach about scripture. He knew his chapter and verse more than most of the Clergy I know.
This should not be taken as support of his views, which I think misrepresent both the nature of religion and the humanist tradition in Christianity. It doesn’t seem like he’s read any theologian after 1967. Not that they didn’t have anything interesting to say, but these days there are excellent theologians like David Bentley Hart, James Alison, Jean Luc Marion who are doing great work within the church.
May I suggest that a useful book on this subject is the Bishop of Durham’s [Tom Wright] “Surprised by HOPE”.
He suggests that liberals like Spong are onto something, but they do not know what it is. Or why. (see SPCK UK edition page 305)
Jimmy Hamilton-Brown
Can’t help but deal with C. Wingate’s false assertions above.
RE: “However, the constant tying of all the sexual revisionism to an apostate like Spong is destructive to the reasserter cause.”
No it’s not. In fact, the constant pointing out of the profound similarities [not to mention the support, the invitations to speak, the worship and adoration, etc, etc, etc, by sitting Episcopal bishops] of Spong’s theology to the heretical leaders of TEC is damaging to the revisionist cause. Spong is Bennison, Chane, Schori, et al . . . merely writ large. His are the natural consequences of the course that they have followed — and that includes those who have discounted Scripture, tradition, AND reason in order to follow the cultural zeitgeist of “sure gay sex is cool.”
RE: “Probably I could find a Reverend to agree with him . . . ”
Lol — “a Reverend” . . . what a hoot. Parishioners in practically every single diocese can point out clergy who agree with Spong — I certainly can in my own moderate diocese. Not to mention all the clergy who proudly use his odious angry effusions for their book clubs, Sunday School classes, and workshops [multiplied exponentially] and not to mention all the bishops who invite him into their own dioceses to “teach” [sic].
RE: ” . . . but in my experience the vast majority of sexual revisionists hold Nicene views about the Godhead and about salvation; at any rate, those that do are not a negligible party.”
That’s odd. In my experience — and in the experience of many others, they don’t. They don’t hold “Nicene views” about the resurrection, the Deity of Christ, the fall of man, the need for salvation or Christ’s death on the cross, or pretty much the entirety of the gospel. Sure — they talk the loudest about their preferred fad, that of sexual relativism. But dig a little and it transpires that the reason they are able to believe as they do about sexual expression is because they have essentially rejected the authority of Scripture, the meaning of marriage, the nature of mankind, the nature of Christ, and on and on it goes — Kendall Harmon well expresses and fleshes all of this out in his excellent Iceberg talk.
RE: “Yet I see over and over again (especially in That Other Forum) the hyperbolic assertion that the liberals are sexual libertines AND Unitarians.”
Yep — and not only the *assertion* but daily, weekly evidence of that truth. Evidence supplied by the very words and actions of the bishops and other leaders of TEC.
And not only that, but T19 provides it and has provided it in spades over the years too. Fortunately there’s plenty of fodder — the Nicene heresies that drip from the pens and keyboards of our Dear Leaders are constant and never-ending.
RE: ” . . . because nobody is going to listen to someone who is so blatantly misrepresenting the potential listener’s position.”
I have no interest in the heretics “listening” to the reasserters’ positions. This is not about dialogue or conversation — that possibility ended back in 2003 when the decisions were made as they were made. What blogland is about is communicating and spreading information to moderates and little-informed conservatives who have only had the spigots of the diocesan engines and ENS and Episcopal Life to discover news and events. Thankfully — blogland is doing its job.
But those who have chosen to follow the cultural zeitgeist of affirmation of various forms of sexual expression aren’t going to change their minds from “dialogue” anyway, precisely because their foundational worldviews are as C. Wingate attempts to maintain they are not. Were it *merely* sexual expression that was at issue, there might have been a hope of convincing or persuasion of their errors. But of course, it is not *merely* sexual expression but all of the other foundational beliefs that Kendall so well describes that are at issue. As such, it is rather like attempting to hold a dialogue between a Soviet Communist and a libertarian about “private property and why American laws are so important” — the two parties don’t share enough of the same core beliefs to even begin that discussion or “dialogue.”
RE: “It provides evidence for the revisionist accusation that all we care about is sex.”
Which is countered by the pointing out that it is the revisionists who are obsessed with sex. If it weren’t all that important, then they’d stop trying to change the rules. But of course, both assertions are silly. Both sides care far far far more about matters that are far more important than “sex.” Hence . . . the war that we are in.
RE: “. . . that’s exactly the rhetoric that makes enemies out of people who could be allies.”
Well . . . no. The revisionists could not be our “allies.” And yes — they’re opponents [a word I prefer to “enemies”] already. So why should anyone be concerned about saying the truth and “making enemies” out of revisionists?
Thankfully, moderates eventually find their way into blogland. I know — I talk with them all the time. And they their discover all of the *written evidence and actions* that they need — in spades — to then recognize that yes, Jane Dixon and Barbara Harris do not share the same Nicene gospel in the least — which well explains their more minor issues of approval of immoral sexual expression.
Obviously, none of what I assert above will convince C. Wingate, nor am I endeavoring to do so — I am asserting as I have done so that C Wingate’s false assertions may merely have a series of counter-assertions from another.
[Comment deleted by Elf]
LogicGuru, I think you are exactly right. One of the things that stood out in Spong’s writing, back in the days when I could stomach putting myself through reading it, was how strongly it evinced his embarrassment when other clerics made theologically naive statements. From what I can tell, he always had trouble being an Anglican: having (IIRC) arisen from the conservative Presbyterian milieu formed by fundamentalism (the real thing, not the swear word), he welcomed PECUSA as an intellectual and theological refuge, but I don’t think he ever really absorbed the Anglican theological ethos. All he got from us was freedom to break from his old theology, but for instance it seems to me that he was never comfortable with the incarnation, a doctrine which Urban Holmes at least held central to Anglicanism.
#36 LogicGuru, there are a variety of positions that the “cultured despisers” take. I can see it within my own congregation.
On one hand are the young men who are culturally and politically conservative but don’t believe the bible should be taken literally. They have no problem with women priests, but don’t believe in gay marriage, but tolerate the idea of civil unions. They are libertarian in many ways. There are a set of people who are politically conservative but theologically “liberal” in that they’ve given up the cosmology that pervaded in the 3rd century. Why do they come to my church? I don’t insist they think the same, we enjoy a glass of scotch, and I’m not “preachy.” They know where I stand, but my sermons are biblical.
There are the people who are returning to church after a long haitus. Somewhere they thought the church had something to offer, but they associated Christians with self-righteousness, perfectionism, and meanness. As they met Christians who didn’t draw a line in the sand because of sexuality or other cultural issues, they found communities where they found a place to participate. These include Catholics and former conservative evangelicals who believe in God; the centrality of Christ, but not the correlation with Christ and right-wing politics.
There are others who are just hostile to any sort of religion. They believe that the only people who are truly religious are people who really don’t like gay people, because the bible says it. They agree that if you are religious, you believe in what the bible says. And that Christianity means only what Christianity has always taught. And they reject it. The rest of us liberals are just enabling conservatives by whitewashing a religion that is violent, cruel, inhumane and ignorant. I encounter people who believe that. For them, being a Christian means fundamentally, calling gay sex a sin, rejoicing in tax cuts and bombing Muslims (although Christopher Hitchens would relish the latter).
Sarah’s comment to C. Wingate should be illuminating for those interested in how the rhetoric frames the issue. For her, the reexamining view is as follows: “gay sex is cool.” (well, it is as cool for them as straight sex is for straights, probably). And we have essentially rejected the “authority of scripture” etc, etc.
Most telling is the comparison of the conversation with a hypothetical one between a Soviet communist (a particular sort) with a Freedom Loving property owner. It is a Manichean view of the debate, one which she eloquently repeats: two different foundational views. No discussion. I don’t think it’s quite as she describes, but undoubtedly there are some on both ends who think as she does.
I admit, when I’m uncharitable, the reasserting worldview seems like defending the [url=http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/medievalcosmology.htm]Ptolemaic worldview[/url] to an astronomer. If anything, the reasserting understanding of scripture seems a lot like astrology. And in this way, we do have completely different perspectives. I do believe in the authority of scripture, for example, but more as a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postliberal_theology]narrative[/url] rather than as a book of laws. There is another religion that reads its scripture in that way.
Admittedly, a heliocentric, or an empiricist view of the world does render the hermeneutical stance of the “faith once delivered” a bit shakier and more challenging to defend. That said, I will defend the simple faith of the people, the Elizabethian sense that we can afford a greater breath of belief for the sake of peace. And I do think that the Episcopal Church has room enough for those who think differently.
Here’s the information I referenced above. If you are in the UK, you might want to consider protesting or emailing your objection to a Christian-denier speaking at a Christian gathering. {grin}
Jim Elliott <>< [blockquote]for your interest.... Bishop Jack Spong, one of the Living The Questions favourites, is in Edinburgh soon, with a talk entitled: 'Eternal Life: A New Vision', 7.30 pm, Thursday 22nd October at St John’s Episcopal Church, Princes Street, Edinburgh. For further information write to Jill Sandham, PCN Britain, St Faith’s Vicarage, 62 Red Post Hill, London SE24 9JQ, email: info@pcnbritain.org.uk or visit the PCN website:
http://www.pcnbritain.org.uk.
Bishop Spong’s tour is organised by the Progressive Christianity Network – Britain, which works to support and promote open Christian understanding. For more information on their work contact as above.[/blockquote]