Bishop Spongs 12 Points of Reformation of Christianity

[Omega Green]

1. Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.
2. Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.
3. The Biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.
4. The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.
5. The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.
6. The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.
7. Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history.
8. The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.
9. There is no external, objective, revealed standard written in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time.
10. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.
11. The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.
12. All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender orsexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination.

 

[Sunstone]

Absolutely fascinating! Thanks for posting this!

 

[Eliab ben Benjamin]

Interesting concept and proposition

 

[Tumah]

I don't understand the basis for the first statement.

 

[Sunstone]

I don't understand the basis for the first statement.

Not sure I understand it, either.

 

[Omega Green]

Bishop Spongs first proposal to reform Christianity is that we move beyond using the terminology which declares a "theistic God". "Theism" is the belief in a supernatural personal god as the creator and sustainer of the universe. Spong is conceding to Nietzsche and Atheism and people like that, that the God is theism is indeed dead. Where was he for 9/11? Where is he for babies born with bone cancer? Generally, Spong (following Paul Tillich) goes with the definition of "God" as "the ground of all-being" - a presence at the heart of life itself. It's sort of a pantheistic definition but Spong has been known to admit that pantheism leaves him seeking more. Spong would say that, the precious energy that is present within each of us, is God. Another possible atheistic definition of "God" is that "God" is "the condition of possibility for any entity whatsoever".

 

[jeager106]

Bishop Spongs is but a mere mortal entitled to his opinions educated or not.
That does not make his opinions any more valid than yours or mine.
Opinions are like ###****'s.
Everyone has one.
Some are more willing to expose them in public than others. :>)

 

[Omega Green]

Bishop Spong is of course mortal; though I notice you say "mere" as if you were perhaps not one yourself?

I remember that train ride; it's catchy... "Jesus loves me this I know..." - it's catchy, i'll admit that. But I don't think I disagree with the 12 points for reformation that Spong points out. I myself am a little less informed on the alternative views of resurrection he has; plus, I am not convinced of an after-life, or after-death. It would be nice. I think I can look within myself and tell the difference between the wishful and the obvious. Do you seriously think that an uneducated opinion has gained equal merit to an educated one? I'm not sure I can go that far with you. Either way, you seem to recognize that opinions are like a bleeped out body part - so i'll remember to try be around to soak up all the enlightenment the next time you get gas :>)

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Not sure I understand it, either.

Seems like he's arguing that Christianity should trade a position that's untenable in the face of evidence for one that's downright logically incoherent. Not exactly an improvement, IMO.

Either that or he has some new definition for the word "God" where "God" doesn't refer to a god. In that case, I'd like to know what he means by the term. I'd probably have more questions once I find out what he means.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

These two bug me:

1. The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.

1. The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.

Modern understanding of science is irrelevant to the intent of an author thousands of years ago. Interpretation - i.e. inference of meaning - can't ignore the intended meaning of the message. If it does, then the reader is really just engaging in pareidolia.

If Spong thinks that the author's understanding was wrong, this is a reason for Spong to reject the passage as incorrect. It isn't a reason for Spong to slap an interpretation onto the passage that doesn't reflect the author's intended meaning, as far as we can tell what that intent was.

This bugs me too:

1. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.

This is precisely what prayer is quite a bit of the time. IMO, this sort of prayer is futile, but this fact doesn't change the intent behind it.

And this just confuses me:

1. All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender orsexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination.

Given that he's rejected traditional concepts of God and is using the word in his own unique way, I have no idea what "God's image" is supposed to mean.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Generally, Spong (following Paul Tillich) goes with the definition of "God" as "the ground of all-being"

Which is nonsense, of course.

Another possible atheistic definition of "God" is that "God" is "the condition of possibility for any entity whatsoever".

There are no "atheistic definitions of 'God'":

- if the term "God" is valid, then the term isn't atheistic.
- if the definition is atheistic, then it would be incorrect to use "God" to describe it.

 

[Windwalker]

Bishop Spongs is but a mere mortal entitled to his opinions educated or not.
That does not make his opinions any more valid than yours or mine.

Yes it does. Some opinions carry far more weight and are far more informed than others. Some opinions are just dog poop. Others are highly respectable. Some are warranted, others are complete garbage. Here's a great article on that very thing, and why you are wrong: http://theconversation.com/no-youre-not-entitled-to-your-opinion-9978

 

[Windwalker]

If Spong thinks that the author's understanding was wrong, this is a reason for Spong to reject the passage as incorrect. It isn't a reason for Spong to slap an interpretation onto the passage that doesn't reflect the author's intended meaning, as far as we can tell what that intent was.

People like Spong, and certainly those like myself, generally do not think in these terms of true versus false, right versus wrong, and so forth. There are layers of meaning rather than binary true/false statements in everything that exists, and certainly within the thoughts of humans no matter when they lived. It's really about differing and evolving ways to look at the same things.

I do not think saying a passage is "incorrect" adequately portrays this. More appropriately would be to say it is "insufficient" or "outdated", or "not relevant" to the way we talk about these things in a modern society. He feels no obligation to retain the way they talked about God then, now in a modern age. Hence the "liberal" versus "conservative" approaches. Consider it redeeming the baby from the bathwater of myth, or reclaiming the language from those who want to define it their own way from their point of view only. Those like us do not consider something has to be factual in order to have truth, no matter what area of life we look at.

This is precisely what prayer is quite a bit of the time. IMO, this sort of prayer is futile, but this fact doesn't change the intent behind it.

Actually, that's just a petitionary style of prayer. Prayer is more properly seen as a communication, or as communion. The intent behind it is communion with God, even if the immature person wants God to send them a puppy to make them happy. A child wanting daddy to get them a toy, is in fact firstly engaging in a relationship with their perceived parent. They are extending their beliefs, their hopes symbolically to the parent figure. Of course eventually as they grow up they just have a relationship with the parents as mature individuals, rather than begging them for stuff like they did when they were five years old.

And this just confuses me:

Given that he's rejected traditional concepts of God and is using the word in his own unique way, I have no idea what "God's image" is supposed to mean.

It's not a unique way. It's quite commonly used the way he does the world over. The radical theistic view of traditionalist Christianity is not the defining understanding of that word by any means whatsoever, both outside Christianity, and within it.

 

[Windwalker]

Which is nonsense, of course.


There are no "atheistic definitions of 'God'":

- if the term "God" is valid, then the term isn't atheistic.
- if the definition is atheistic, then it would be incorrect to use "God" to describe it.

Respectfully, aren't you trying to define atheism by how you see it from your vantage point, much the same way many traditional theists try to limit the meaning of the word God to their understanding (guy in the sky sort of deity)? Like Spong rejecting that understanding of theism, while feeling both free and justified to use the word God, there are plenty of atheists who don't like other atheist defining what atheism means to them. I certainly didn't care for that while I still continued to identify myself with that term, atheist, eventually just dropping it because of that very reason, finding it too limiting to my thinking beyond just that definition - like Spong not liking the term theist.

I would disagree there is no atheistic way to speak about Ultimate Reality or "God" (as they as atheists hold it without a deity figure of classic theism). "God" is a metaphor, after all. One does not have to literally believe it is Orion up in the sky to refer to the constellation as "Orion". That understanding is key to understanding those like Bishop Spong, or myself. Like I say under my Avitar, "Start seeing metaphors". It all has to do with seeing things in literal terms, where metaphors become descriptors of reality (and hence a dead metaphor), or seeing metaphors actively as non-literal faces we pattern on the ultimately undefined openness and possibility. Two very different approaches, and those approaches exist both within theism and atheism. I rebuff against the voices in either side trying to limit the conversation to themselves in how they understand what those terms means.

 

[jeager106]

Yes it does. Some opinions carry far more weight and are far more informed than others. Some opinions are just dog poop. Others are highly respectable. Some are warranted, others are complete garbage. Here's a great article on that very thing, and why you are wrong: http://theconversation.com/no-youre-not-entitled-to-your-opinion-9978

I appreciate you views and comments.
Thank you.

 

[YmirGF]

1. Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.
2. Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.
3. The Biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.
4. The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.
5. The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.
6. The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.
7. Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history.
8. The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.
9. There is no external, objective, revealed standard written in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time.
10. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.
11. The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.
12. All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender orsexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination.

This is an interesting collection of observations, but if Christianity was reformed to get past these points, what would be left of Christianity? Further to this, if point 1 is accurate what makes the good Bishop think that this new way to speak of God could realistically be called Christianity?

 

[Windwalker]

This is an interesting collection of observations, but if Christianity was reformed to get past these points, what would be left of Christianity?

An evolved modern Christianity. Truth be told, it's been evolving all along. It's just stuck at the gate for the last 300 years, try as it has to push itself ahead into today.

Further to this, if point 1 is accurate what makes the good Bishop think that this new way to speak of God could realistically be called Christianity?

See my post before this one where I speak at some length about metaphors and dead metaphors. I could explain my thoughts much more in depth (as you can well imagine), but I'll keep it basic in this forum.

 

[YmirGF]

An evolved modern Christianity. Truth be told, it's been evolving all along. It's just stuck at the gate for the last 300 years, try as it has to push itself ahead into today.

That is much what my take on it was. The Spongist Reformed Church? Yet another Christian sect. It's like the man wants to wear modern clothes but is still in love with his now thread-bare tie-dyed T-shirt that he can't bring himself to part with.

See my post before this one where I speak at some length about metaphors and dead metaphors. I could explain my thoughts much more in depth (as you can well imagine), but I'll keep it basic in this forum.

No doubt.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

1. Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.
2. Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.
3. The Biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.
4. The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.
5. The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.
6. The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.
7. Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history.
8. The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.
9. There is no external, objective, revealed standard written in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time.
10. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.
11. The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.
12. All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender orsexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination.

Humanism then?

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Seems like he's arguing that Christianity should trade a position that's untenable in the face of evidence for one that's downright logically incoherent.

Yes. Pointless even calling it "Christianity" really.