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Beautiful sermon
- Thread starter JRMcC
- Start date
I can't stand Spong. He's an apostate heretic and no Christian.
JRMcC
Active Member
Those who say this of other Christian casts themselves as suspect in that regard.
McBell
Unbound
Why is that?
Aquitaine
Well-Known Member
Y' know there probably exist some Christians who would say the same about you.
I don't really care and this is the Christian DIR.
It brings to mind what Jesus said to his followers, "Judge not, lest you be judged. For with what judgement you judge it will be meeted unto you", and then the verses about taking the spec out of your brother's eye when you have a beam in your own.
That's a warning against hypocrisy, not saying that you should never judge people. Christians are called to judge aka discern. If we don't judge there's not much point in being a Christian. There's nothing wrong with pointing out that a person has stepped outside of a religion by rejecting major doctrines of it.
gsa
Well-Known Member
Spong rejects pretty much every major creed of traditional Christianity. He started as a liberal reformer and became more radical as time wore on. For what it is worth, I think that he is right to reject supernaturalism. But once you do that and continue hanging on to the vestiges of Christianity, you shouldn't be surprised that other Christians call you an apostate.
McBell
Unbound
So where is the line drawn?
I mean, if you are judging another persons judging...
Interestingly enough, that is not a command against judging.
It is a warning.
A warning that the standards you use to judge others will be the same standards used to judge you.
Again, where is the line to be drawn?
Then was Jesus judging when he said this? This is nonsense. To criticize someone's intolerance, does this make you intolerant? No. It's not that hard to understand the legitimacy of the point.
I didn't say "commandment". But the point remains, those who place themselves as the judge of another, are demonstrating a problem with themselves. Like the old saying goes, as you point a finger at someone else, three are pointing back at you. To point that out is not passing judgement on them. They are judging themselves.
You tell me. What does your common sense tell you?
BTW, I listened to the whole sermon. It was quite insightful and inspiring. Nice to hear someone speak with a genuine regard for the meaning of the life of Jesus. To me, he embodies the true heart of a Christian.
Spong is someone who rejects the Calvinism of his denomination, but didn't have the knowledge of early Christianity to go back to the original teachings on what Jesus dying for our sins actually means in the first place. Instead, he threw out the baby with the bathwater and went off the deep end in misinterpreting the Bible.
I did, too. Asserting that the meaning of Gospel of John was distorted in the 300's, and making the claims about it that he does (saying it denies that Jesus died for our sins or came to save and redeem us) is nothing short of facepalm-worthy.
So? The Episcopal church has many strands of differing views. Spong falls into the liberal strand. Does this negate his views? Outside that, very few Anglicans are considered Calvinists today and few accept his "TULIP" doctrine of 'Total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints". Calvin is not considered to be a prophet of God who had no ideas that people are not allowed to disagree with.
I'm quite certain he does have knowledge of early Christianity as the scholar that he is. Just because he rejects that particular understanding of some of the early Christians, and prefers the Johannian school of thought in early Christianity over the other schools of thought of the time, that doesn't mean he is ignorant of them. It simply means he does not accept Biblical writings as infallible. He's a liberal theologian, after all.
Perhaps your argument is against all liberal theologians, and consider them to be "ignorant of the facts" because they don't believe the same things other have adopted to believe in? In reality liberals aren't ignorant, they simply have a different point of view of the matter. And that is in fact allowed in Christianity, outside strict authoritative hierarchies which seek to impose a single strand of thought on these matters. Each has their place in the whole, I believe.
I believe he is arguing that the baby and the bathwater analogy goes the other way around.
That the total depravity of man is the bathwater and needs to be thrown out in favor of the other understanding of the life of Jesus which says that Jesus is here to complete us, not rescue us from being "wretched sinners". These understandings did in fact exist in early Christianity right alongside the Augustinian interpretation which became mainstay in the church in the early centuries, and all other views than its own were branded "heresy", as if that sealed the matter in heaven and on earth, or something like that. That's just administrative control, not the hearts and minds of people with faith. Pelagius is who I am thinking of right now.Actually, I think he has valid insights into this. Pelagius certainly thought as Spong is speaking of here. He did not teach one can "earn their salvation", as his detractors chose to recast his views. Jesus was seen as Spong says to teach us the way to fulfill God's will in our lives as Teacher, Guide, Help, etc. It was to "complete" us in our divine nature given to us by God. You call this facepalm-worthy, but I think that is a mistake on your part.
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Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm glad he rejects Calvin. There was a time when Calvin's teachings were strong within Anglicanism--see Articles 9 and 10 of the 39 Articles of Faith from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:
IX.
Of Original or Birth-Sin.
Original Sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk
but it is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is ingendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original Righteousness, and is of his own Nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation. And this infection of nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated; whereby the lust of the flesh, called in Greek, Φρονημα σαρκος, which some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affection some the desire, of the flesh, is not subject to the Law of God. And although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized; yet the Apostle doth confess, that concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin.X.
Of Free-Will.
The condition of Man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith, and calling upon God: Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when wehave that good will.
That being said, I'm glad he found these doctrines repugnant as many reasonable people have.
Except, he doesn't even follow the Johannine school of thought. He cherrypicks from it. He says that the Gospel of John Jesus didn't come to save us from our sins, which is explicitly stated in John's Gospel and in the First Epistle of John. He denies that the Gospel of John teaches that Jesus died for us, when the Gospel of John depicts Jesus as the Lamb of God who is slain for the sins of the world.I'm quite certain he does have knowledge of early Christianity as the scholar that he is. Just because he rejects that particular understanding of some of the early Christians, and prefers the Johannian school of thought in early Christianity over the other schools of thought of the time, that doesn't mean he is ignorant of them. It simply means he does not accept Biblical writings as infallible. He's a liberal theologian, after all.
Differing points of view are fine, as are different strains of thought. Catholicism manages to hold in harmony and tension Latin, Byzantine, Coptic, Syriac, Ge'ez and Chaldean strands of thought, and celebrates them all as true and authentic expressions of the Apostolic Tradition. But when you start throwing away fundamentals of the Christian faith because of tainted associations with Calvinism, that's a problem.
Total depravity is most certainly the bathwater, but the fact remains that Jesus did in fact come to save us from sin and death, and grant us eternal life and adoption as children of God. The Gospel of John speaks repeatedly of Jesus as having come to give us life--and without Him, we have only sin and death.I believe he is arguing that the baby and the bathwater analogy goes the other way around.
And this is the mistake that both you and Spong make--Augustine's ideas only became the mainstream in the Roman Church, and only because the Roman Church afterwards didn't put up such a prominent theologian until Thomas Aquinas in the 1200's. You forget the entire rest of Christianity--the Churches of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem and Assyria. None of these bought into the Augustinian definition. Spong could have easily drawn on the literal thousands of documents detailing the Apostolic and Patristic teachings which speak of humanity as being fundamentally good and capable of virtue. Pelagius isn't even all that far off from the standard of Eastern Christianity. We often are accused of being "Semi-Pelagians" by Calvinists, whatever that means...
I have no problems with that bit. That bit's fine. This view has been part of the teachings of all of Christianity since the first century--even of the post-Augustinian Roman Church. Calvin rejected it, but he was alone in that regard.
Ah, I see. You were simply making an observation of the fact. I mistook the point you were making about it.
A couple technical points about the authors of John and the Epistles of John. Scholars tend to think a redactor of John was the author of the Epistle, as it does reflect certain differences of view, along with writing style and language. So with any of the NT writings a certain amount of caution has to be held in trying to make potentially different voices speaking as some single unified thought stream. That can lead to trying to force-fit different views together into some "meta-theology" that was supernaturally embedded in all the different voices, which really in the end only reflect a group-mind imposing itself upon everything else in reads down into the details of the individual writers.
I think taking each as "tabula rasa" as best as possible is a far better approach. I see value in considered these as diverse points of view, where some saw Jesus this way, some saw Jesus that way. I would not call that cherry picking at all. That's simply understanding contextual differences. Cherry picking is when one ignores what it said elsewhere, or tries to force-fit them together to support one idea. Nothing is being ignored when you acknowledge they say something different, but you choose a prefered view over the other. That's not intellectual dishonesty, which cherry picking is.
That said, I think what Spong is looking at in his studies of John is that the lamb of God references in John are not overlooked, but simply understood in a less legal manner than other understandings of what the "sacrifice for sin" views that other Christian groups held were. Bear in mind, John, as any of the other narrative-style Gospels were, based on collections of sayings and stories woven together into a certain narrative story form. They are hardly historical records in some documentary sense. So the inclusion of things such as "behold the lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world", is included, but likely understood differently, at least with a deeper spiritual sense as most of the Johannine Gospel is unique this way in contrast to the others, the "spiritual Gospel" as it's called. John's community has a definite mystical mindset to it, whereas the other communities were more traditional sin-sacrifice model. Again, it is difficult for someone reading these writing apart from other "meta-theology" views superimposed upon it. The challenge is to try to strip away the patina of later points of view colorizing what you are looking at apart from them.
But being beholden to the "Apostolic Tradition" is not necessary a requirement of someone being a follower of Jesus. The apostolic tradition is a later created storyline that supports what became traditional orthodoxy in the evolution of the early church. I believe the term of that is the "master story", which was first exposed by the German biblical scholar Walter Bauer which was a crafted view of history linking an unbroken chain of transmission from Jesus to his disciples to the bishops of the early church, and all "heresies" later crept in was myth. In reality, and as was confirmed by the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts, there was never a single core Christian doctrine that was later corrupted, but was in reality many competing Christianities, one of which was the proto-orthodox church. So being beholden to "approved" doctrines was supported by the creation of the myth of apostolic succession to compete against other view of Jesus. I think being "liberal" allows for questioning such myths and their validity in how people interpret their faith.
As for calling oneself a Christian and not accepting that particular doctrine, this is not invalid at all. If you look at Buddhism, Narajuna was part of the Buddhist lineage, but Mahayana Buddhism takes the very fundamental teachings of traditional Theravada Buddhism and flatly disagrees with them. They are still Buddhists, because they are building on the lineage started by the Buddha. So someone like Spong is not a "heretic" to Christ, but only to those who are beholden to doctrinal points of view that must remain pure for themselves. And that is what starts such discussions when someone accuses someone like Spong of not being Christian, calling him apostate, and so forth.
It is perfectly legitimate to call oneself part of the Christian lineage while holding fundamental differences of view with historical traditional views. After all, it is evident the "master story" as Bauer coined it, was a later created mythology to support Church authority.Sure, but are you possibly reading that with a later understanding superimposed on it? I mean, yes, I read Jesus saying he has come that we might have life and more abundantly, and without Him we are lost in sin. But is that about a legal contract with God that blood is required to cover sins, literally? Or can that be understood that to have the Christ nature in you is to allow you to see God and realize God within, and be God in the world? That without that Knowledge in yourself, you are lost in your own separate self? So when Christ gives life, he literally awakens Spirit within you to see God and not be ruled by "sin", or the separate self and it lower, darkened imaginations?
You see, a mystical understanding of these things, and by mystical I mean actual lived experience of consciousness union with Christ, not some invisible thing that happens behind the scenes up in heaven somewhere, will expose a very different understanding of the words. And Spong's point was that John was in fact such a mystic! I do agree with that. Christ, or Spirit enlivens the mind to see God and know God in themselves. Jesus says the Truth shall set you free, but that is not some doctrinal knowledge, but Truth itself, Spirit that awakens the heart and mind to itself. He comes that you may have life more abundantly, in this very way. And without this "born again", or from above, as it were, experience, you shall in "no wise see the kingdom of God". Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is inside you. If your imagination is darkened through seeing yourself as separated from God, through your own self-loathing, guilt, shortcomings or sin, you do not allow God in you. So Christ "forgives", and we are set free, because we accept that Freedom, and let go of that sense of undeserving self-separation, which results in our own living in darkness. You see? I read all of this in John.
Ok, yes, there is a predominance of focus on the Western church. But don't assume Spong is ignorant of this. It's just the influence of the Western church in the world he is speaking is in fact the one with the most influence. He's speaking to an audience where that view is the view they have been taught. His sermon was not meant to be an academic treatise!
To get into all of those misses the point of the message to the ears of his audience, which is the laity.I myself do focus primarily on the West in my speaking of Christianity for that very reason. I am greatly please to learn more of the Eastern church, and I don't hold them in the same mind as the Western church. I'm happy they like Pelagius too.
JRMcC
Active Member
As for calling oneself a Christian and not accepting that particular doctrine, this is not invalid at all. If you look at Buddhism, Narajuna was part of the Buddhist lineage, but Mahayana Buddhism takes the very fundamental teachings of traditional Theravada Buddhism and flatly disagrees with them. They are still Buddhists, because they are building on the lineage started by the Buddha. So someone like Spong is not a "heretic" to Christ, but only to those who are beholden to doctrinal points of view that must remain pure for themselves. And that is what starts such discussions when someone accuses someone like Spong of not being Christian, calling him apostate, and so forth.
*Applause*