Thursday, May 3, 2007
Spong speaks out
I went to hear Bishop Jack Spong speak last night. It was quite an experience. He is an amazing speaker and very funny. I took away a lot from the evening. To sum it up, I left the church humming a new song I wrote called, "I'm confused." Seriously. Spong is OUT THERE. And yet, it just depends on who's listening to him. He's out there to me, someone raised in a traditional Presbyterian church. But to someone who can't accept traditional Christianity, his message is fresh and full of possibility. But he doesn't even believe in a Theistic God. He emphasized the damage the church has done proclaiming humanity as wretched and depraved and sinful. "Why do you like that?"he asked. "Why do you keep coming back for that message?" "Have you ever heard of anyone being helped by focusing on how evil they are?" He proclaimed a call for a new reformation. He wants to raise the consciousness of Christianity. He says no one can define or explain God for another. All we can do is describe our own experience of God, of the holy, and these are two very different things. He experiences God as the source of life, so we worship this God by living fully. And the more we do this, the more people will see God in us. He experiences God as the source of love and the only way we can worship God is to love wastefully and fully. And to quote Paul Tillich, Spong experiences God as the ground of all being, so the only way to worship God is by being all that we were created to be, and the more we do this, the more visible we make God. If he could capture the message of Jesus in one line, he'd say there is nothing you could ever do or be that could separate you from the love of God. Good quote: "You don't give your life away unless you possess it." So all this is cool. A new way to view what I already believe...just different and fresh language. But when he talks about Jesus I kind of freak out. He doesn't believe Jesus was God. He wasn't divine. But he was fully human...and example of how we could be fully human. This just doesn't ring true to me. Or maybe I don't want to let go of the notion of Jesus as fully divine and fully human. As God incarnate. But there again, it could be a language thing. He sees Jesus as the reconciling person drawing humanity to a new level of humanity. And that is a very different notion of salvation. Spong's favorite text in the Bible is from John 10: "I have come that you might have life, and that you might have it abundantly." He calls us to be life-givers, not converters. He said, "The Bible is not the Word of God." And even though I have major issues with the Bible, that sentence gave me a little heart attack. Because he's just so incredibly unorthodox. I'm way too afraid to reject all that he rejects. He rejects all that I was raised to believe. And though I'm consciously shedding some of my narrow notions, there is much I'm still holding onto. He ended the evening by stating that we are the most spiritually hungry generation and the generation most suspicious of the church. So fellow seekers, I'm basically confused. He's just so far to one extreme. How do we navigate the middle waters? Is this why I'm an Episcopalian? Because I love the middle way? Because I choose to live in the tension between the more extreme versions of Christianity? Or is it a cop-out? An excuse to never make my mind up about what I do believe? But most of us are neither Falwells nor Spongs...what do YOU think, dear readers?
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6 comments:
Well, I'm a Spong cousin, so take my response with a grain of salt, since I have a personal relationship with him.
I go with him almost all the way, particularly in imaging God from that post-theistic place he describes, and I would say my view of salvation is much like his. But I'm still on board with the divinity of Jesus, so I've certainly found it's possible to incorporate some of what he believes without giving everything away.
Remember that he, too, rejects all HE was raised to believe, the faith that was used to justify segregation and the subjugation of women. His wake-up call on racism got him started on this journey.
I'm glad you got to hear him speak!
I'm glad he's spent his life thinking about Christianity. I don't have to agree with him theologically to appreciate his positions. For a person of his authority, he is just remarkable. He is Billy Graham's peer. Both are from N.C.
Glad to have your perspective!
eek, I'm blogging uner my cat's name!
St. Casserole
Great questions. Welcome to revgals!
Welcome, welcome, welcome to the RevGals--and to the rollercoaster of ordination discernment!
I have comments on almost all your thought-provoking posts, but don't want to fill up your box....So I will try to be quick:
(To set my stuff in context: I grew up RC, felt the call real young, and did all the various stuff RC women do with that while becoming a lay theologian and spiritual director. Spent several wonderful, challenging and deeply formative years as an Episcopalian, some in the ordination discernment process--including a happy semester at that local weekend seminary you mention--before becoming an Independent Catholic priest).
On Spong: he is a great advocate for justice in areas of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. But his theology and Christology I personally find weak and outdated--pretty much rehashing sixties "death of God" stuff which critiques watered down, bankrupt Enlightenment theism that has little to do with real Christian theology. There is much better stuff out there that claims Jesus as fully divine and fully human and still keeps the prophetic edge.
On "discernment"--you are so right. It's well meant and sometimes well executed but very often degenerates into grilling you and not praying with you. The manual for such discernment committees, *Listening Hearts*, was inspired by Quaker clearness committees which are freely chosen and carried out by folks very experienced in communal discernment. It specifically states that the process should never be required and yet every diocesan COM that I know of does!
With others, I share some concerns about your priest's attitude going in. And echo the fact that lay-ordained isn't the key distinction for spiritual directors, gifted and trained is--but most important someone who will respect and support you through what can be a really grueling process.
My director is an Episcopalian woman priest, Jesuit trained, who is quite amazing and completely gets the vagaries of the process. (She and her husband went through seminary together at Yale--she is a thousand times better priest than him IMHO--but he was ordained ten or fifteen years earlier because her diocese was way behind on the women's issue). She has moved to the Bay area, though, so maybe a little far for you (we now do our appointments on the phone). I am in Orange County, also a little far possibly, and will probably move east for a postdoc in a few months--but if you ever just want to talk ftf, on the phone, or email I would be delighted. You can get me at laura AT grimes DOT ws.
Many prayers, and a cyber-hug!
When I hear a phrase like "Have you ever heard of anyone being helped by focusing on how evil they are" I think of the movie Amazing Grace, and how the realization of personal evil can expand to include social evil. Spong is interesting, but if he doesn't believe in the divinity of Christ, then I wouldn't call him a Christian, and I'm not at all sure why he wants to continue calling himself a Christian--he's so far from the Apostle's and Nicene creed. He seems more a synchrenist who wants to take what he sees as the best of Christianity and shake it with a bit of paganism and pantheism and whatever else is in the cupboard. I don't actually mean that in a bad way. How not to like someone who says we should love wastefully and fully.
And although I've given up the idea of the Bible as the "infallible" word of God, I think you could end up in a tangle about what exactly is meant by "word of God", so why reject it?
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