Why Christianity Must Change or Die (part 4 Chapters 3 and 4)

The last chapter ended with Spong explaining how even though he basically agrees with all of the arguments of Atheism yet he remains a "Christian" because he has experienced something "other". This is a reduction to sheer mysticism, and Spong is more forth coming with this confession in following two chapters. It really was evident to me in reading chapters 3 and 4 that Spong was really beginning to contradict himself in several areas. I will point out these areas as I go along through these chapters.

Chapter 3:


This chapter is rather uneventful as Spong is basically trying to explain why he is just not an Atheist. In this chapter he relies fairly heavily on using outdated Atheistic arguments against Christianity (the straw man understanding Spong has of Biblical Christianity). He relies very heavily on the argument against God's existence posed by Freud which basically goes as follows:

1) People view God as a Divine Parent who is watching over them, and caring for them.

2) People would like to think that 1) is true because it gives comfort.

3) Therefore, people invent an omnibenevolant prayer hearing/answering God to provide a sort of comfort. (This is out of the longing for father figures in our lives as we grow up away from our parents, or just pie in the sky hopes for heaven)

/.:4) Therefore God does not exist, He is just a figment of our imagination longing for comfort.

Spong simply loves Freud's arguments and uses it to slap around the classical Christian ideas of a God who acts in time and space, hears and answers prayer, and tenderly cares for His people. Unfortunately for Spong if he had spent just a little time in critical thought on Freud's argument he would see how it can easily be flipped right around as follows:

1) People don't believe God exists.

2) People would like to think that 1) is true because it gives them comfort.

3) Therefore, people who reject the existence of God do so out of a desire for psychological comfort. (To eliminate the sense of moral accountability, and fear of judgement.)

/.:4) Therefore, God exists, the denial of His existence is out of wishful thinking motivated by a longing for comfort.

So in short with chapter 3 we have Spong basically agreeing with all these Atheistic statements. This is because he works from the same Materialist presuppositions as Atheists do. So why then does Spong still consider himself a believer, nonetheless a Christian? At the very end of the chapter he dedicates an entire two sentences to tell us why he still believes in God as he writes:

"It was when I reached this conclusion [Freud's argument against God's existance] but still could not dismiss what seemed to me to be an experience of something other, transcendent, and beyond all my limits that I knew I had to find another God language. Theism was no more." (p.55)

A couple of things need to be noted here. Firstly we see that Spong's belief in God is not rational. Spong can not give any rational reason as to why he is a believer higher than "I have felt things mystically I know it is God." Now I don't fault him entirely on this, I don't think every person needs to have an airtight explanation for why they believe. But if this is all we have and we don't go beyond this as we grow then we have divorced our belief from reason. And that is precisely what Spong's faith is, an irrational mystical leap into an area of non-reason. His materialist presuppositions logically lead to Atheism, yet Spong rejects that in favor of an irrational mysticism.

Secondly, I guess what I just don't understand is why at this point Spong didn't stop calling himself a Christian, and just dub himself a mystic. If God does not hear prayer, Jesus did not rise from the dead, nor is there any real judgement to come, than I would say, with I think common sense, I don't think Christianity needs to change in order to stay alive (As the book title states). I would say that Christianity is already dead, (being never really alive to begin with, just a big fat lie) and in need of being abandoned altogether.

Chapter 4
The chapter begins with Spong recounting a question a parishioner asked him:

"Bishop, is it possible to be a Christian without being a theist?"

Now for those of you who aren't immersed in Spong's language games, theist does not properly mean belief in God. Spong uses the word "theist" as a dirty word referring to man's placing of attributes to God (statements like: "God is personal", or "God answers prayer") . So reworded the person is asking: "Can I be a Christian and not believe in propositional truth?"

No. You can be a mystic, but not a Christian.

Spong goes on to explain how his view of God really has become one that can not be defined, just experienced. This is particularly clear as he recounts a trip to China where he was deeply touched by the Buddhist religion:

"Buddhists believe in God, but not in a deity who is defined in theistic terms. Exploring the levels of meaning that can be found in an Eastern faith tradition can help us learn to see through such limited words as theism. It also reveals that our ancient Western definitions of God do not exhaust the reality of God." (p.57-58)

Spong clearly finds a more kindred spirit in Eastern faiths than he does with the faith of the Apostle Paul. This is because the Eastern beliefs really are not logical, they are mystical leaps into non-reason and that is all we are left with when you are operating upon materialist assumptions.

Now as for the "sxhausting" of God, I don't think any Orthodox theologian has claimed that we as Christians have an exhaustive knowledge of God. However, simply because we do not have exhaustive knowledge that does not necessarily mean that we do no have true knowledge of God. He has revealed Himself truly, although not exhaustively in His word the Bible.

Having, defined his view of religion really as mystic, Spong begins to try to attack the traditional view of God the Christian faith has held to, he again points to the Jewish captivity to give support for gods needing to change with the social setting as he writes:

"The God worshiped by the Jews before their Babylonian exile was not the same God who emerged from the exile. Much later a longer-range view of Jewish history reconnected the two, but that was not the sense of the people who lived at the time of the exile...The Jew's came out of the captivity as a people of faith with a God who had been transformed from the tribal deity of Israel's past." (p.59)

This is all he says about this. If you read the post where I dealt with this you will see that this idea has no merit whatsoever. That is why Spong continues to give no references which would lead us to think a change occured in the Jewish view of God due to the exile, there simply are no passages to support this notion. This is simply put an unjustified statement. In the previous post I gave numerous Biblical examples of Jews in exile (Daniel) and those coming out (Nehemiah) to show that their ideas of God were simply nothing like Spong has repeatedly asserted throughout this book. They still believed God was sovereign, they still believed He heard prayer, and they still believed He was worthy of worship. This is in radical contrast to Spong's assertions, that continue to go uncited, alleging that they no longer believed these things.

The Jews in no way viewed their faith in God prior to the exile as faith in a mere tribal deity, at least that is not what is represented in the Law. Jehovah is represented as the sovereign Lord over all the earth, the one true God, not some tribal deity.

Moving on Spong begins to attack the precious truths that God is a personal God. Again this is because Spong assumes a closed system, it necessarily cuts off any possibility of personal relationship between Creator and creature. So Spong states that God is simply not personal. He writes:

"To go beyond all definitions, it is necessary to pose the religious questions not by pretending we have a source of divine revelation, but by looking at the human experience in a different way. That is why the word what [In reference to God] instead of who becomes important as our guide." (p.59-60)

I think Spong is logical here, if you hold to a closed system, that cuts off the possibility of revelation. If there is no revelation from God than God can not be seen as being personal. He goes on to try to use Scirpture to support his view that God is impersonal as he writes:

"Still another impersonal image for God found in the Hebrew scriptures was contained in the word rock. Surely one cannot imagine an image less personal than a rock. Yet we find in the book of Samuel the phrase, 'There is no rock like our God' (1 Sam 2:2), and the rock like aspects of God was celebrated in the Hebrew scriptures. The Psalter proclaims, 'The Lord is my rock and my salvation' (ps 18:2) and later, 'Who is a rock except our God?' (ps 18:31) Paul even called Christ the rock from which the Hebrews drank water during the wilderness years (i Cor 10:4)" (p.61)

Now if your a Bible believing Christian and you just read this quote and you see ho Spong is using scriptures you probably muttered the words: "This man is an idiot." Well, I don't think that is wrong given how wretchedly Spong handles the Scriptures every time he points to the Bible. To state with honesty that you think when David said "The Lord is my rock" that therefore God is impersonal is to be guilty of the most absurd form of literalism. Spong's exposition of scripture seems akin to a caveman selling car insurance.

Seriously though there are multiple things wrong with Spong's reasoning here. Not only does his citation of scripture have absolutely nothing to do with what the writers of scripture meant when they penned those words, but also he is in a contradiction with past things he has said here.

Firstly, the use of "Rock" is not remotely talking about the personhood of God, that idea is smuggled in by Spong.
A) The term "rock" is in reference to the steadfast trustworthiness of God that these men had come to celebrate. Just like a large rock is immovable, constant, always there, so is God.

B) The concept of God being a "Rock" was based upon men who claimed to have personal relations with God, so Spong's citation really completely backfires. You can't use scripture, which was penned by men who claimed to know God personally to support arguments that God is impersonal.

C) Why is Spong pointing to Scripture anyway? After all it is just the reflection of archaic thinking about God, it is not authoritative in any way. These are just the projected ideas of ancient men onto God (as Spong said earlier), as such why even bother citing it?

Secondly, this contradicts Spong's notions that we can not define God. He is really engaged in defining God here, he is saying God is not personal, that is a proposition. So in reality Spong is guilty of the disease that he seems to be at war with. The only way to truly avoid it is for Spong to just write about his private experiences with God, he can in no way criticize anyone else's view, for in doing so you necessarily begin to define God, albeit in negative terms but it is still defining God. This conflict begins to become all the more clear as Spong writes:

"The mystics of every religious tradition have always cried out against every specific definition of God." (p.61)

Well, by saying God is an impersonal force I would say you are engaged in defining God. Spong might not use any positive statements but he can not escape propositions about God, he just avoids positive ones about God because they seem arrogant in our relativistic culture. He seems to think that by not defining God, God is "bigger" (inclusive of all faiths except evangelicalism) and therefore better.

Spong goes on and begins to openly admit his mysticism, which really is pantheistic. He views God as an impersonal force which we are all part of. It is again in his definitions of what true belief in God should look like that yet another blatant tension/contradiction in Spong's ideas surfaces, as he writes:

"So to the Mystic, the God of one person is never quite the same as the God of another person. Idolatry is thus countered. 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". (p.62)

There are a few obvious problems with this statement when placed alongside everything else Spong has been saying.

1) Why is he so harsh on Fundamentalist literalist Christians if what he just said above is true? They are on their own personal trip with God and Spong throughout this book has the audacity to do what he says is arrogant, namely say that the Fundamentalist is wrong in their views on God. Spong is guilty of arrogance as he himself has defined it.

Spong has had no problem at all writing mockingly and polemically against classical Christian theology, yet if we put those writings/actions beside the above quote we have a flagrant contradiction. Spong in the above quote relegates all truth/knowledge about God to the subjective sector of private experience thus shunning any hope for objective knowledge of God. Yet, he does not act as though there is no objective knowledge of God. This is clear as he wants to and does attack the Classical Christian theology. This I think is because the statement "Objective knowledge of God is impossible" is self contradictory, it in itself is an objective proposition about God.

2) Spong in dubbing himself a mystic and a rejector of any objective propositions about God is simply out of step with the men who wrote the Bible. That said I again question why Spong wants to hold to the label "Christian" when really he has more in common with mystics and Eastern thinkers than the men of the Bible.

What follows next in chapter 4 is pages of an appeal to authority. Spong points to numerous famous Christians and thinkers who embraced a sort of mysticism, among these are Paul Tillich and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Towards the end of the chapter Spong begins to make more assertions that contradict previous statements as he writes:

"Does this reality not reflect a new way to view and to understand that biblical dictum, 'in the image of God, created God him. Male and female created God them"? Is it possible that we bear God's image because we are part of who God is? Those are the concepts that beckon our consideration as believers in exile." (p.69)

This is the pantheism I referred to earlier. What I mainly have beef with is his use of scripture again. Earlier Spong asserted that when we say God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent he accuses the Bible writers of making God in man's image (projecting human qualities to the infinite degree onto God). I say he had it backwards. We as human beings have knowledge, and love and personality because we are made in God's image. That's is what the Biblical authors mean when they refer to man being made in the image of God, there is simply not any hint of pantheism in the Biblical context of that proposition. Spong and the mystics import their Eastern ideas into the text.

To conclude, I just want to reiterate what I said earlier. If what Spong is saying is true (which it simply is not) than there is no hope of saving "Christianity" from death, because in never was alive. Just go smoke some pot and listen to some Zepplin and have some irrational "other" experiences.

Review: "Why Christianity Must Chrange or Die" (part 3, Ch.2)

In this next chapter entitled "The Meaning of Exile and How We Got There" Spong describes the current status of the Church as being in "Exile". He borrows this imagery obviously from the Old Testament history of Israel and explains that just like Israel was conquered and taken away into captivity so has the Church been conquered by Modernism. Spong spends the first half of the chapter explaining the OT history and what "Exile meant" then (of course he removes any Providence and guts the heart of the OT historical account of a people that are being punished by a sovereign God for turning from Him to idols) but this is not the main problem with what Spong has to say, it is merely a symptom.

The real heart of the problem as I have stated in the last post and it only becomes more clear as I read on is Spong's presuppositions. Spong really presupposes a naturalistic closed system in regards to the universe, or put simply he has a deistic view of God, namely God does not act in time space and history. God is just out there somewhere...we can not in any way make definitive statements about God because Spong has rejected propositional Revelation (had he not he wouldn't presuppose naturalistic closed system). This is at the heart of Spong's error, he operates on materialist presuppositions. And really that is what he is calling all "believers" to do (operate on these same presuppositions), this is what needs to change in Christianity in the modern/post-modern world.

The Exile:

So Spong begins giving a bit of background from the OT history which is VERY POORLY understood if not manipulated altogether by Spong. Spong gives the reader the idea that the Jews god was conquered, they had the notion that the Temple was god's house in a literal sense and the Jerusalem would never be conquered because of this fact. Yet Jerusalem was conquered. The results according to Spong were devastating as he closes this section summing up what he wants us to get out of this, he writes:

"These Jews had once believed that God fought at their side against their enemies. They could believe no longer. They once believed that God might punish them for their waywardness but that God would not destroy them. They could believe that no longer. They once believed they were a specially chosen people. They could believe that no longer. They once believed that God had instructed them on where to live and how to worship. They could believe that no longer. They once believed that God dwelled in Jerusalem and ruled over Judah. They could believe that no longer. They once believed God could hear their prayers. They could believe that no longer. They once believed that they had a destiny and a future. They could believe that no longer. They once believed that God could and would care for them. They could believe that no longer.

They could not sing the Lord's song again, for they were in a strange and devastating exile, and in that exile the God they had once served lost all meaning. This God, quite frankly, could no longer be God for them. It is traumatic to watch the God who has given shape, definition and meaning to life be removed from a peoples awareness. there are but two alternatives for such a displaced deity. This God must grow or die. That is what being in a spiritual exile is all about." (p.28-29)

Now to anyone who has a decent grasp on OT history and Theology almost everything Spong just concluded about the Babylonian exile is simply wrong. In this whole section Spong chooses not to mention the prophets who spoke of the coming captivity to an unrepentant people (Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel) the three largest books in the OT all predicted the captivity that was to come! These men were moved by God to speak to the unrepentant idolatrous Jews of the judgement God was about to bring for their sins. But of course because Spong doesn't believe in an open system or propositional truth prophecy simply doesn't happen. Again this comes back to presuppositions, which is why when someone who has Biblical presuppositions everything Spong said just is obviously inaccurate and cherry picking the data. Spong because he is operating upon a materialist set of presuppositions simply can not accept the majority of what the historical narratives surrounding the captivity really say, because the involve a personal God who sovereignly operates in real time and space with people.

Let's look Biblically at some of Spong's assertions as to what happened to the Jewish faith because of the captivity:

"These Jews had once believed that God fought at their side against their enemies. They could believe no longer."

Well, not really. Prior to the captivity the people were looking to Egypt for help, NOT God:

"The army of Pharaoh had come out of Egypt. And when the Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem heard news about them, they withdrew from Jerusalem. Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet:
"Thus says the LORD, God of Israel: Thus shall you say to the king of Judah who sent you to me to inquire of me, 'Behold, Pharaoh's army that came to help you is about to return to Egypt, to its own land.
And the Chaldeans shall come back and fight against this city. They shall capture it and burn it with fire. Thus says the LORD, Do not deceive yourselves, saying, "The Chaldeans will surely go away from us," for they will not go away." (Jer 37:5-9)

The reason God did not fight for the people is not that he couldn't because we live in a closed system in which God does not operate in, but rather because they had rejected Him and were serving idols. This simple yet repeated truth is completely missing from Spong's analysis, again because he simply doesn't really think He is there in any substantial way of speaking about God really being there.

"They once believed they were a specially chosen people. They could believe that no longer."

Actually it was BECAUSE they were a chosen people that they went into captivity, they had broken their covenant with God thus God was casting them off. The theme of the election of the Jewish people continues on throughout Biblical history in the captivity and beyond, just read Daniel, Nehemiah and Zechariah and you will see that the captivity in no way extinguished the idea of being the chosen people to the Jews, rather it was reinforced because the captivity was prophetically predicted and brought on by God Himself.

"They once believed that God had instructed them on where to live and how to worship. They could believe that no longer."

Again actually the notion of Revelation was reinforced by the captivity, because the captivity was clearly prophetically predicted by men moved by the God who acts in time and space. We see this strongly in Nehemiah which reads:

"They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading. And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, "This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or weep." For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law." (Neh 8:8-9)

These were tears of repentance and sorrow over disobedience to the revealed word of God. This is again post-captivity. So the captivity rather than extinguishing a trust in special revelation as Spong asserts really causes a return to the revealed word of God mixed with sorrow over past disobedience. I will address but one more as Spong writes:

"They once believed God could hear their prayers. They could believe that no longer."

Well, the Bible says:

"Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the LORD my God and made confession, saying, "O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.

To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets." (Dan 9:3-10)

It seems clear that Daniel (who was in captivity) trusted that God heard prayer, and that God had spoken, and acted in time and space. The interesting thing is that God answered Daniels prayer while he was still praying!(see 8:20-27) Daniel, Nehemiah, Ezra, and Zechariah all reached drastically different conclusions regarding the captivity then Spong paints in the first half of chapter 2. This is because they were not operating on materialist presuppositions, but on Biblical presuppositions, namely that God is there and He interacts with man in an open system.

The Exile Today:

Spong proceeds to try to apply this exile/conquered notion to the modern church, saying that just like the Jews "God" was conquered so has the Fundamentalist "God" been conquered. Not by armies taken the Church into a literal captivity but by a growth in knowledge and scientific discovery. This growth in facts/knowledge make the classical Christian God completely obsolete and in need to be cast off in favor of a more modern "God" that has adapted to the new knowledge.

I will not be too tedious with citations here but one in reading this chapter gets the idea that Spong really thinks people of antiquity were stupid. That really is the picture he is trying to present here, people used to be really stupid and now we are smarter and need to cast off their ideas of deity. He paints the picture that people used to believe the earth was flat, the sun went around the earth, and that God was floating around in outer space on a golden throne somewhere. To give you a taste, Spong writes:

"In this cozy three-tiered world everything that was not understood or that seemed either irrational or inconvenient was assumed to be a manifestation of this heavenly God's specific divine intervention. Concepts like miracle and magic abounded." (p.29-30)

I don't fully disagree, I think people were superstitious, but I think we are just as superstitious today. And I would not merely apply the label of superstition to the religious (Catholics kissing relics) but also to the secularists, with their "lucky" baseball caps or whatever other ritual to try to bring good fortune. Spong goes on to talk about how the Christian view of theism "evolved" out of the tribal deity notions. This I think really is the only avenue if you operate upon materialist presuppositions to explain the existence of Christianity away, it just evolved, which I am beginning to think is the greatest form of magical invocation and gap filler of our day... just say "evolution did it" and the problems disappear.

Of course Spong next points us to the Catholic Churches dealings with Galileo and Copernicus to try show that their "God" just wouldn't cut it as the world modernized and grew in knowledge. The classic Christian theology was based upon the ideas of God that stupid ignorant people created in the first century. As we grew in knowledge these ideas grew absurd. Spong writes:

"The Church began to wonder how it could continue to talk about a God beyond the sky who, according to the biblical story, had once sent fire from those same heavens to burn up the sacrifices offered by Elijah on Mount Carmel and thus to defeat the priests of an alien deity known as Baal )1 kings 18) How could the story of Jesus ascending into the sky to return to God after his death still be proclaimed with intellectual integrity? The stories of Jesus appearing out of the sky to his disciples on a mountaintop in Galilee (Matt 28) or of Paul seeing a heavenly Jesus in that same sky on the road to Damascus (Acts 9) became increasingly problematic. Those Biblical accounts were so obviously shaped by the ancient three-tiered worldview that no longer existed." (p.33)

So because Paul probably didn't have as much understanding about how the solar system operated as we do today what he saw and recorded has no real relevance for today? That's a pretty schlocky conclusion to draw. As for the ascension what we have is a recording of what people saw, that is what they saw, Jesus going up. Now I doubt there is a throne somewhere in outer space floating there with Jesus on it, but that doesn't change what these people saw. In going up did Jesus go into outer space? Maybe, but why is that ridiculous and unbelievable if He did? I tend to think that He in some sense went into a different dimension, where God is. I don't have all the metaphysical mechanics of the ascension pinned down but I don't see why we need to in order to believe that this is what these men saw. There is only a problem if you are operating on materialist/naturalistic closed system presuppositions like Spong and deny that miracles, or Divine intervention are possible to begin with.

I also don't think that Spong has accurately represented the first century Judaeo-Christian view of heaven. Spong would have us to believe that these people crudely believed (and need I remind you they were stupid) that God was somewhere in outer space basically. Actually this is really inaccurate. The concept was that there were three heavens, the first heaven was where the birds and the clouds (now planes) all flew. The second heaven was outer space where the stars are. Then there is the third heaven and that is where God dwells. Paul speaks of being in this third heaven as he writes:

"I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven--whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. " (2 Cor 12:2)

Paul says he doesn't know all the intricacies of what happened but he knows that he was taken to the third heaven and saw wonderful things. I would say the same thing, I don't know all the mechanics of the how and where the heaven in which God dwells is but I know it is there just as much as I know God is there.

Spong continues on and gives a brief recap of the "progression" of Western science and how it has basically destroyed the believability of the classic Christian faith. He goes through Newton, to Darwin to Freud and Einstein to show how there really in our modern world is no room if you want to be intellectually honest for classic Christian theism. Apart from evolution theory Spong simply fails to explain how any of the discoveries made really challenge classical Christian theism. I think just because people like Freud and Sagan were operating on rationalistic (autonomous man starting with the presupposition that his reason alone will answer all of the questions eventually leaving no room for any gods) that somehow anything they discovered was yet another blow to classical Christian Theism.

Spong's argument for how Classical Christian theism is unable to be tenable in a world that has made these scientific advancements remains to be found. He basically just lists a bunch of men and announces that because of Sagan Christianity became all the more ridiculous without explaining how and why. Perhaps it is because all of the men (except for Newton) which Spong points to unabashedly rejected Christianity and based upon their fields tried to make arguments against it. Sagan is popular for the quote:

"The universe is all that there is was and ever will be." Carl Sagan

Basically he is saying only things that are material, and empirically testable exist. Unfortunately for Sagan there is no way for him to prove that above statement. Anyway supposedly all these developments have dealt crushing blows upon classical Christian theism. Again the problem is that Spong completely fails to explain how and why. I think Spong really thinks that these men have crushed classical Christian theology because he seems to have a rather brutish understanding of classical Christian theology. So when some one like Yuri Geiger (A Russian Cosmonaut) goes into space and says, "I don't see any god up here." people like Spong view it as another nail in the coffin of classical Christian Theism which views God and Jesus as floating around in outer space.

Conclusion:

So how do we react to all these modern changes according to Spong? Well you can be like the dumb Fundies as Spong writes:

"These people maintain their pre-modern convictions with hostile vigour while asserting that everyone must be wrong but them. With great vehemence, they deny the realities that have produced the exile. They refuse to engage the debate. They even produce bumper stickers..."God wrote it! I believe it! That settles it!" (p.41)

Well I think that first sentence is really the issue, do we adopt the modernist convictions about reality or the Biblical? Which presuppositions do we begin with? Spong says we need to be "modern" which means adopt a sort of enlightenment rationalistic epistemology. By that I mean we begin our search for answers with autonomous man and his reason alone. The Biblical epistemology says we start with the God who is there and has revealed Himself to man, not exhaustively but truly in the Bible.

As for not engaging the debate, I think that is a real problem and I agree with Spong here. We need greater intellectual integrity in the Evangelical church. Believers should be able to apologetically talk with guys like Spong and explain why everything he is saying is simply wrong. I think the most obvious manner of doing so is to address Spong's presuppositions, which are really based upon man's autonomous reason.

"Still others like me and perhaps the audience to which I have some appeal, have begun to define themselves as believers in exile. They refuse to abandon the reality of God, yeth they have been driven by the forces over which they have no control to sacrifice much of the content of that God reality. So they are left with an almost contentless concept, which must be allowed to find new meaning or it will die." (p.41)

To that I completely agree, the God of Spong and the Liberal theology has become an utterly contentless concept, as I said earlier 'god' is just a word. This is because they have abandoned the Biblical system based upon propositional revelation. All they are left with is subjective god words. In the following chapters I think it is Spong's goal to give content and meaning to the god words.

Why Christianity Must Change or Die (A critique of chapter 1)

I left off in the last post talking about the intro and Spong's debate casting style of writing. He begins the book itself in chapter one by going through the Apostles Creed and explaining why he doesn't believe a lick of it. It is outdated and has no place in our modern world is basically Spong's synopsis. He goes through it hunk by hunk and argues why it is irrelevant. It his arguments that I find to be bereft of any genuine weight, and I will give my rebuttal to Spong's chapter one arguments in this post. I will try to be as thorough and concise as possible.

Starting with the words "We believe in God..." Spong leaps into an explanation of how he is in fact a believer, he loves God and sees everything with God in mind. I find this hard to be taken as anything more than just that he is a mystic and has irrational upperstory experiences (as Schaeffer would say) and calls these experiences "god". I say this because as we go on we see Spong stands very strongly against any views of Theistic providence. At any rate I think my description of Spong's spirituality is accurate as he himself borrows from Eastern mystical metaphor saying:

"I live in a constant and almost mystical awareness of the divine presence. I sometimes think of myself as one who breathes the very air of God, or to borrow an image from the East, as one who swims in the ignite depths of the sea of God...I am what I would call a God-intoxicated human being."(p.3)

To that I say amen, of course not taking the Eastern metaphor literally but more of a description of our communion with God as believers. But Spong adds at the end of this "YET..." and proceeds to go on to say that propositional forms of describing God are outdated and passe and have no place in our modern world.

If that is the case what is the Christian "faith"? What Spong just described above divorced from propositional truth are mere privatized irrational experiences with "god". There is no Christian faith just a common subjective experience which we really can't communicate to others (propositionally) because they are on their own privatized trip with "god". So to quote Spong:

"The God I know is not concrete or specific. This God is rather shrouded in mystery, wonder, and awe. The deeper I journey into this divine presence, the less any literlaized phrases, including the phrases of the Christian Creed, seem relevant. The God I know can only be pointed to; this God can never be enclosed by propositional statements." (p.4)

So again this is a purely subjective and mystical spirituality Spong is describing, it is a leap into non-reason. Basically Spong is a materialist based upon "reason" but he can not accept these conclusions so he makes irrational leaps and experiences "god".

As for propositional statements not being possible to describe God I think there are a few problems with what Spong says here:

1) The above paragraph is itself propositional, in that it says that propositional language is inadequate to describe God. That is a proposition about God.

2) It misrepresents the classical Christian view about systematic theology. No theologian ever thought that any one creed would encapsulate all that God is, so I would join Spong in saying that to think that it is possible to contain all that God is in propositions via creeds/confessions is simply wrong. However, the Bible is itself propositions about God, it is not exhaustive but it is nevertheless true propositions about the nature of God.

3) Therefore, Spong from the outset has rejected any objective authority to be a sort of map in his Christianity whether it is creeds/confessions or as these notions imply, the Bible itself.

Continuing explaining why he thinks the Apostles Creed is really just irrelevant rubbish, Spong moves to the words "Father Almighty" stating:

"Both of these words offend me deeply...The word Father is such a human word-so male so dated...It shouts of the masculinity of the deity, a concept that has been used for thousands of years to justify the oppression of women by religious institutions." (p.5)

Spong cites some of the historical chauvinism to bolster why he is offended about the word "Father" being attributed to God. Again I agree with the lamentation over the treatment of women throughout history, however that can't be the bases of throwing away theological truth because people have abused it! People have abused justification by faith alone by adopting an antinomianism, that does not mean we throw out the doctrine because it has been twisted by fallen men.

To this I would just simply reply, that in being offended at the Father label of God Spong is offended by the God and Father of Jesus Christ. That is simply the Biblical language applied to God. Of course I am sure Spong would just say that the Bible itself is a culturally entrenched document and that it merely reflects the thinking of 1st century Palestine, which was patriarchal.

Also, if all our thinking is just culturally entrenched what right does Spong even have to criticise the God of the Apostles Creed? Just because he is in a post-feminist culture does not mean his culturally relevant theology is any more "right" than the culturally entrenched theology of the men who wrote the Apostle's Creed. We are left with sheer relativism. So Mr. Spong, you say that the word "Father" offends you, well that is just your subjective opinion.

Moving on to "Almighty" (this is what I find to be the most schlocky):

"The word Almighty is equally troubling [subjective opinion]. Almighty has been translated theologically by the Church into such concepts as omnipotence (all-powerful) and omniscience (all-knowing)...By attributing omnipotence to God, one also attributes to the deity the power to remedy any wrong or to prevent disaster. Yet wrongs and disasters continue to be a part of life." (p.6)

Well this assumes that Spong is operating on a rational foundation of morality. I would challenge him that he has no right to make such assertions as "X is wrong" based upon his subjective and mystical worldview. He can not justifiably make the above statement based upon his non-Christian worldview. I assume he would reject a literal fall of man so man really is in the state in which God intended him to be. That so he can not call what is "wrong", this is just the way things are. Anyway that is a major side note, so how does Spong deal with the problem of evil? By hacking attributes off of God of course.

These following quotes I find to be some of the poorest understanding of a Christian worldview I have heard, Atheists do a better job than Spong when arguing against Christianity:

"If an all knowing God had really made many of the assumptions that the Bible makes, then this God would be hopelessly ignorant. For many biblical assumptions are today dismissed as quite simply wrong. Sickness, for example, does not result from sin being punished. Nor does a cure result from our prayers for God's intervention or from the sense that we have been sufficiently chastised so that the punishment of our sickness might cease...God, called "Almighty", appears. in our time to have little or nothing to do with either our sickness or our cures.

In our generation, we attack viruses, germs, leukemia, and tumors not with appeals to an almighty God, but with drugs, chemotherapy, and surgery. [to appeal to Go alone would be naive]. Epilepsy and mental illness are no longer understood to result from demon possession, even though Jesus was portrayed in the Bible as believing that they did (Mk 5:8 and 9:25). Once again honesty requires that we confront the Bible's limited grasp on truth." (p.6-7)

I in no way think that it is out of bounds to say that everything he just said is absolutely ridiculous and is nothing short of a straw man argument against Biblical Christianity. Spong talks as if God's being sovereign over sickness and the germ theory are incompatible, I as a "thinking Christian" have not at all felt the tension in this area. I rather think it is Spong's understanding of the Orthodox view of Sovereignty and Omnipotence that is naive. God is sovereign over germs, and viruses, therefore He is sovereign over disease and sickness. Spong seems to think that to be a Biblical Christian you must think that sickness can not be explained scientifically but just by mystical forces which only prayer can deliver us from.

You see what it really comes down to and this is the reason why Spong's assertion seems so out of left field, it is because Spong and Liberal theologians for the most part are really mystical materialists. This is why he speaks so mockingly of prayer for the sick, he simply does not believe God really is there. It is through God's common grace that we have doctors and surgeons and medicine, this is in no way in conflict with the Biblical testimony on disease. Luke who traveled with Paul and wrote one of the 4 Gospels was himself a physician, so he did not feel this tension Spong is bringing up.

As for Jesus and demon possession, I have had my Atheist professors bring this up (that should shed some light onto the types of presuppositions Spong is operating upon). They assert that the demon possession accounts in the Gospels were all really forms of epilespy and not demon possession, the 1st century people were basically just so stupid they just labelled all diseases that caused involuntary convulsion demon possession. But this is simply cherry picking the evidence and presupposing materialism. In the examples Spong cites himself there is clearly more going on then just a man with a disease being declared demon possessed because that's all these stupid people understood in their primitive unscientific minds. Jesus actually talks with the demon(s) in the young man and casts them out. What I find odd is that there is no mention of epilepsy whatsoever in the Mark 5 account, Spong just comes to the text and ASSUMES a materialist explanation, because after all we know that there are no such things as demons, nor miracles because God doesn't act in this world, He is just out there for us to experience subjectively, not to call upon.

So as far as honesty goes I think it is Spong who needs to be honest in his reading of the Bible, epilepsy is NOT MENTIONED at all in Mark 5. Rather we read a description of a man who because he was demonized did things that were naturally impossible to do (like breaking shackles). Spong because he presupposes materialism and an anti-supernaturalist closed system ASSUMES that all demon possession accounts are really just some sickness that these dumb people could not explain and just labeled it "possession". This is what it means to be unscholarly.

Anyway, Spong carries his materialist assumptions and does the same for whether, and "natural disasters" saying that we don't need any God to explain these anymore because we have Doppler radar. Again this is very naive, and misunderstands an Orthodox view of sovereignty. I would just assert that upon reading all of this, which presupposes materialism I don't know how the opening phrase "I am a God intoxicated human being" can have any real meaning. Spong sees everything through materialist presuppositions, we know how cancer works, therefore God is not in control of it. We know how Tornadoes work, therefore sovereignty is ridiculous.

Next Spong takes on some of the OT miracles of the Red Sea, and the sun's standing still in the sky in order to basically help the Israelites destroy their enemies. Spong makes the standard claims saying that if these things happened God is not ethical.

Again, this presupposes a standard of ethics by which Spong can look at these actions and say "That is wrong" Spong does not have this, again we are left with just opinion. What Spong meant to say is, "I think if God did X [which I don't of course because miracles don't happen] God would be immoral" This statement without an objective standard is just moral words, empty moral words to aid in polemics against the Christian worldview.

Spong goes on and basically argues against the words "Creator of heaven and earth" by affirming that we are really just cosmic accidents after 5 billion years, I find this to be really tragic as Spong who wants to say that he is a Christian and what being a Christian means is loving others and caring for the downtrodden of the world, unwittingly strips man of his dignity (which only Biblical Christianity can give man) by saying:

"There is also no scientific confidence today that human life was either the purpose or is the end of the creative process. Human beings feel so fragile and so accidental as these insights cascade in upon us." (p.10)

How can Spong with such a view affirm the dignity and worth of man RATIONALLY? He simply can not. This is the tragic. This is tragic because Spong probably really does love people, he probably really does think that human beings have dignity, but in his denial of the special Creation of man in God's image he has stripped man of any rationally explained dignity. I am sure Spong would be quick to affirm to worth and dignity of man, but I would say he can not do so rationally, he must do so by a leap into non-reason, just like he does with explaining the word "God".

"We believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord." Spong takes offense here as well stating:

"He is first called 'God's only Son.' Does that mean that none of the rest is or can be called the son or daughter of God? That kind of exclusive claim has been made throughout the ages with great power by the Christian church...The phrase also seems to suggest that none of the other religious systems of the world can offer its people a point of connection with the divine...This arrogant claim also denies our modern experience." (p.11)

Well yet again a misunderstanding of basic historical Christian doctrine is afoot here. Christ is called the only begotten of the Father, because unlike us He was born directly of God in His incarnation. We are given the right to be called the children of God through faith in Christ alone as Romans 8 clearly teaches. This is because we unlike Christ are not born right with God, but are fallen and in need of redemption.

Also, yes this is exclusive, and I am sorry this doesn't jive with Spong's subjective opinion, but it is either true or it isn't. Christ is portrayed throughout the scriptures as unique, He is the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, and without Him we have no life in us (John 6). What Spong is hung up on is the fact that he is a relativist and pluralist, that comes out clearly in the above statement of his. That said why is he even bothering to write this book? If any old path is fine why is he trying to convince Evangelicals that the path they are on is wrong? He is simply in conflict with his own ideas here.

"He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary." Certainly if that phrase is to be understood literally it violates everything we know about biology.[all the virgin birth tales are legendary]" (p.12)

Spong goes on and talks about the discovery that discredited "ALL" the virgin birth tales in 1724 that discovery was the female egg. Again Spong is presupposing Materialism, if it can be explained naturally then God is not in control. He goes on and talks about how the virgin birth is sexist (I don't know how it could be sexist but it's a nice phrase to win the Feministically minded) and just frankly how stupid the whole notion is.

My reply: Mr. Spong do you believe that God is really there? Or is "god" just a helpful word to describe you private experiences that give you a pseudo-sense of meaning?

Spong makes little ripples over the phrase "Was crucified under Pontias Pilate." However again because Spong really holds to Materialism he denies the resurrection flat out. He asserts there are contradictions in the Gospels about the post resurrection events in Jesus' life, yet fails to explicitly explain what is in conflict and how.

I of course because I do not come to the Bible doubting the notion that God exists and can and does act in our universe do not need to write of miracles out of hand. I find no conflict in the post resurrection passages but rather just see them as describing different events that ALL happened after the resurrection. So just because say Matthew doesn't talk about Jesus eating fish with the disciples after rising that does not mean that it is in conflict with John because John talks of Jesus eating fish after the resurrection. I mean good night in any court two witnesses never have perfectly identicle stories, but there is enough identicle overlap to gather a picture of what happened. This is what we have in the Gospels.

Anyway I want to get to the end where Spong gives his closing insights for us to live by:

"So while claiming to be a believer, and still asserting my deeply held commitment to Jesus as Lord and Christ, I also reckognize the I live in a state of exile from the presupposions of the religious past. I am exiled from the literal understandings that shaped the creed at its creation." (p.19)

Well, my charge would simply be that all those words in bold are literally meaningless without having any literal content.

"Lord" is just a dead word like calling Jesus "Mr." it is just a polite way of referring to Him. It doesn't mean He rules and reigns and is THE Lord (sovereign) over all of creation and all of my life. It no longer means that He is the one to whom I turn with ALL of my problems whether sickness, or any other "natural" problem. So yes, Spong is exiled from any real and meaningful use of "Lord", it is just a religious sounding word.

"Jesus" is no longer the Biblical God-man, but is reduced to a mere man, who probably existed. That said how can we call him Lord or Christ, he was just some guy. If he is neither the Lord of the universe nor the Christ (Messiah) what makes him worthy of being followed at all? Jesus=a religious sounding word.

"Christ" too is bereft of any real meaning, it too is just a religious sounding word. Spong has divorced it from it's original content of Jesus being "the anointed One" the Saviour of the world basically. The only Saviour, that is what Christ has always meant, now it is just a cute religious sounding word.

This is all we are left with when we reject the Bible as central, God as truly active in our world, and we assume the views of the culture we are surrounded by, we are left with unbelief and empty god words. So yes Spong may say "I am a believer", or "I am a Christian", but these words are empty and meaningless. All that is being said is I am a modern materialist who makes irrational mystical leaps and use religious god words (divorced from their meaning) to describe my mysticism.

Intro Into First Book Review

The first book I will be reviewing here will be John Shelby Spong's "Why Christianity Must Change or Die". In the following posts I will put quotes from the book in black italics and my thoughts/response in blue. To jump right in, Spong is basically one of the most popular Liberal theologians (I use the term loosely) in our day. This book is seen as his central work and message. That being said I thought that the responsible thing to do would be to read it and give a response as a Christian to the ideas Spong presents.

Recommendations and preface:

On the inside of the book we read an endorsement saying:

"Should be required for everyone concerned with facing the head-on the intellectual and spiritual challenges of the late twentieth-century religious life. By working through his own Christian faith and tradition with honesty, intelligence, and courage, he provides a challenge for others, wherever they are, to do the same. And what is better, he provides hope and guidance for the journey." (Karen King Harvard Divinity School)

I want this up here because I somehow doubt that there is a real message of hope for anybody in this book, all we have is God words like "faith", "god", "hope", "Jesus" and "spiritual" all emptied of any meaning and left to be filled with meaning on a subjective interpretation of them. Further we read:

"Not since Martin Luther has a leader risen from within the church to call for a more powerful reformation than that found in the pages of this book. Here Spong integrates his compelling stands on the Bible, Jesus, sin, and morality into an intelligible creed that today's thinking Christians can embrace."

That's pretty bold to compare Spong to Luther. But since I consider myself a thinking Christian I will read on. Next we are given a sort of outline of what Spong will present in the book:

1) Traditional Theism is no longer credible, we need a new contemporary understanding of God as the source of life and love, not as a superperson running the universe,

2)If theism is no longer a viable way to think about God, then the way we approach the Christ figure has got to be radically revised. Jesus can no longer be the incarnation of a theistic deity.

3)The church as a hierarchical institution was not founded by God or Jesus, what Jesus initiated was a community of faith and service and that's what the church should be,

4)heaven and hell don't exist, but what they powerfully symbolize is that our deeds have eternal consequences-a sobering reality for so-called Christians who persecute gays, marginalize women, and use doctrine to justify their acts of violence.

Wow. Pretty condescending towards "unthinking" evangelicals. This again is a perfect illustration of using God words that have no meaning. It is hypocritical to allow the phrase "so-called Christians" in the book when several times I have heard Spong himself when debating evangelicals who say he simply is not a Christian start whining about how no one owns the corner on the label "Christian". Basically Spong has said they have no right to draw a circle and say "This is historic Christianity, Spong you are way out of the circle!" Yet that is the very thing that is done on the jacket of Spong's book, he puts evangelicals outside of his circle of what Christianity is.

I will tackle the specific issues that are presented as the arise in the book, but this should give the reader a nice overview of what Spong believes. Moving to the preface, in it Spong presents his views in his own words, he denies the divinity of Christ, thinks homosexual relationships are perfectly compatible with Christian morals and talks about the influences upon his thinking. To cite some passages:

(Speaking of the controversy his ideas have made...) "It arises out of the sense that God must be worshipped with the mind as well as the heart. It also reveals that any god who is threatened by new truth from any source is clearly dead already. Such a deceased god needs to be snatched away from threatened believers so that the anxiety of "a god vacuum" at the heart of some people's lives will drive them into honesty and integrity as either believers or non-believers. There is no hope for the revival of worship so long as an idol lives undisturbed in the place reserved for the living God."

I must comment here, this is a thoroughly modernist critique of classical theology. The historical Christian belief system simply does not work any more in a scientific and modern world, therefore we need to scrap it and have a "faith" that is modern. What I find most interesting in a tragic way is the last sentence, because I agree with it completely. Yet I would say that it is Spong's play-dough modernistic god that is the idol and unfit of worship.

Also again Spong seems fond as casting his beliefs as those with intellectual integrity while classical Christianity (which believes in the supernatural action of God in the world which He has made) is simply irrational. I on the other hand would hold that it is irrational to assert that whether someone who is a believer (evangelical) becomes a modernist believer or an unbeliever so long as he becomes modern as Spong basically asserts above is the idol.

"Clifford L. Stanly, one of my theology professors almost 45 years ago, was fond of saying, "Any god who can be killed ought to be killed."

So we see Spong's theological training was thoroughly Liberal and Modernist.

Theology aside, what I find to be the most inconsistent in Spong's writing is how he constantly casts himself and other Liberals as the victims of bigoted fundamentalist Christians. For example he writes:

"I have had a "truth squad" based at an evangelical theological college in Sydney follow me throughout Australia wherever I lectured, handing out their tracts and publications designed to mute my witness. I have lectured with guards protecting me in Calgary, Alberta. [in Liberal Canada eh?] I have walked through shouting picket lines in San Diego, California, to deliver a lecture. I have endured a bomb threat at Catholic University in Brisband, Queensland. I have been the recipient of sixteen death threats, all of which came from Bible quoting "true-believers". Finally I have been attacked in books from the religious right by such people as Alistair MacGrath N.T. Wright, and Luke Timothy Johnson and in a proposed monograph of an essay "Can a Bishop be Wrong"."

Spong then goes on to say the "attacks from MacGrath and Wright were "revelingly hostile and without academic merit." When I read this stuff I can't help but think that this guy is just a big whiner in comparison to the real persecutions that Christians endure throughout the world. As for shouting picket lines and books that "attack" what do you expect when you are one of the most renown "theologians" going around and basically making assertions that the historical Christian faith is a bunch of rubbish?

Also I highly doubt that Wright and MacGrath's books were hostile and lacked academic merit, that is simply a nice brush off, both these men are renown scholars and known for their excruciating integrity. Rather I find just in the introductions and preface that it is Spong who is the hostile one, he is hostile to the evangelical Christian believer. Mr. Spong you can't have it both ways.

He has repeatedly put down evangelicals in an un -subtle manner, basically calling them stupid, all the while portraying himself as the victim of their bigotry. Yet when men like Wright and MacGrath who are intellectual evangelicals critique Spong's ideas they are written off as hostile.

I hope this isn't the way the rest of the book goes, or this won't make for a very exciting review. All I have seen so far is the use of God words that have no meaning, ad hominems against evangelicalism, double standards, and a portrayal of Spong as an intellectual knight in shinning armor who is withstanding the constant buffets from evangelical bigots. This is classic casting the debate.