Must Christianity Change or Die? (Book Review)
Dateline: August 18, 1998
John Shelby Spong, Anglican Bishop from New Jersey, has written numerous books critical of conservative ideologies which form the foundation of traditional Christianity. In Living in Sin? A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality he called upon Christians to revise ancient notions of what constituted proper human sexual conduct - which included an exhortation to Christians to accept homosexuality. In Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, he sharply criticizes the literalistic readings of the Bible common among American fundamentalists. With Born of a Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Birth of Jesus, he challenges the Christian church's traditional mysogynistic practices and teachings. His 1994 book Resurrection: Myth of Reality took on the possibility that the theology of a literal, physical resurrection was a late addition to Christianity and, hence, might not have actually happened. Liberating the Gospels, published in 1996, explored the authorship of the four gospels and the origins of the stories told therein.
All of these themes come together in one magnum opus, Why Christianity Must Change or Die. And, such as they are, Spong does an excellent job synthesizing those themes. He is a fantastic spokesman for the kinder, gentler side of Christian theology and is knowledgable enough that his books are great sources of information on Christian history and beliefs. It is relative easy for an atheist or agnostic to find agreement with particular ideas, for example when he says "The Bible is not the word of God in any literal or verbal sense. It never has been!"
But there are also new ideas in this book - and it is these ideas which I shall address in more detail. I'm sorry to say that I do not find quite the degree of agreement here as I did above.
His first, and most fundamental proposal, is self-evident in the title: it is his contention that "Christianity must change or die." He takes some time and care to delineate the numerous ways in which the past few hundred years of scientific discovery have invalidated one after another of traditional Christian beliefs and presuppositions. On a theoretical level, this seems like it might be enough to make his case, but we all know that reality has a nasty habit of diverging from theory. I myself agree with Spong that basic facts about our world discovered through the physical sciences and psychology are mutually exclusive of a great many religious beliefs. For Spong, myself, and many others, this entails rejecting those religious beliefs. Another group manages an amazing feat of compartmentalization, retaining their religious beliefs along side acceptance of modern scientific discoveries but without the two ever impinging upon each other.
An ever growing number of people, however, take a third tact: rejecting the discoveries of modern science. Conservative, evangelical, and fundamentalist denominations across the country are experiencing rapid growth in numbers while moderate-to-liberal denominations like Spongs often struggle. It appears that many people are abandoning the theologies which accomodate themselves to facts of nature. Many Christians - even those who aren't fundamentalists - will read his works and correctly feel that he is abandoning traditional faith for the sake of accomodating his religion to modernity. They won't like it and won't accept it - and why should they? In the choice between modern science and Christianity, they'll choose Christianity without hestitation.
What is going on here? Although Christian fundamentalists in America demonstrate the dangers of taking religious rituals and myths too literally, not taking them literally at all robs them of most of their power to move and transform the average person. That is why naturalistic theologies like Spong's fail to replace traditional religion in the hearts of believers. This is no place to try and fully address this difficult and complicated question, but it is clear that it is not obviously true that "Christianity must change or die." There is certainly no evidence or logical reason to suppose that reactionary forms of Christianity (or any religion) will not survive and remain healthy over the long term.
So Bishop Spong does not establish to my satisfaction *that Christianity will need to change or die - but let us turn now to how he thinks Christianity must change. The fundamental idea upon which his thesis turns is that Christians need to move beyond a "theistic God" and view "God" in mystical, nontheistic terms.
Upon examination, it appears that he is engaging in a radical redefinition of what "theism" means without ever explaining to his audience that this is what is going on. He does tell us that he "...will define theism as belief in an external, personal, supernatural, and potentially invasive being." I don't know what dictionary he is using for this and I wish he would have said, because it does not closely resemble the definition of theism traditionally used in the general study of religion. Basically, theism is normally defined as just the belief in a god or gods - and that is the first meaning given in most dictionaries, encyclopedias, and reference works about religion.
Theism can be more narrowly defined in subsets like monotheism or polytheism - and many dictionaries go on to provide a definition similar to Spong's, since that is the type of theism which is prevalent in the West. But Spong does not explain to us that the theism he rejects is only a specific type of theism. Instead, he makes us believe that this is the whole of theism, and that is simply incorrect. So does Spong reject theism in favor of a different conception of God? Not at all - as long as he believes in any god, he is a theist and subscribes to theism. He might advocate a new and more mystical type of Christian theism, but he shouldn't lead people to mistakenly think that this belief isn't theism at all.
Concurrent with this misdefinition of theism, he apparently misdefines atheism as well. Despite devoting an entire chapter to whether or atheism is the only alternative to the theism he wishes to reject, he never bothers to explain just what he thinks atheism is. In addition, although he takes the time to quote some Anglicans who seem to have become atheists, he never cites any atheist philosophers or activists, leading one to wonder whether or not he has genuinely entertained the possibility of choosing atheism/agnosticism as an alternative to the traditional theism he wishes to reject. I'd certainly like to think that he has, but he gives little evidence of it.
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Quote of the week:
And Jesus said unto them, "And whom do you say that I am?"
They replied,"You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the ontological foundation of the context of our very selfhood revealed."
And Jesus replied, "What?
Origin: Unknown. Taken from the Internet Infidels Quote File. |
What is this theism which Spong wishes to reject? The first characteristic is a god which is "external." Does that mean that his god is internal? It appears as though that might be the case, insofar as he follows in the footsteps of Paul Tillich, a point which I shall address below. But he does not offer good reasons to think that the subjective feelings he experiences warrant the label "god" - and he certainly doesn't give me any reason to think that there is any "god" internal to me. The second characteristic is "personal." Does that mean that his god is impersonal? Apparently so - much along the lines of an impersonal, universe-spanning life force. But if his god is as impersonal as gravity, why bother worshipping it? And how can it be the emodiment of "love" that he claims? An impersonal, unconscious god is emminently ignorable.
The third characteristic is "supernatural." Does that mean his god is natural? I'm not sure - but if it is, then that means that his god falls within the realm of scientific scruitiny and testing. I doubt, though, that he'd be willing to put his god to such an examination. The fouth and final characteristic is "potentially invasive." Does that mean that his god is *not potentially invasive to our lives? It seems like that might be the case - but again, if that is the case, why care about it? I wish to live this life to its fullest, and that being the case, why waste my time concerning myself with a god which can have no impact or relevance to this life? Spong seems be doing his darndest to define a god which is irrelevant, then wants us to suddenly care.
The connection to Paul Tillich, referenced above, is quite important. Tillich was one of Spong's early teachers and Spong follows him closely in identifiying "God" as "the infinite center of life", "the power that called being forth in all creatures", "The Ground of all Being" and "God is being-itself, not a being." None of these appear to make much sense until we remember that these assertions about God depend upon a certain amount of ambiguity. By insisting on ambiguity in theological terms, belief can be preserved in the face of critique. No one can say that you are incorrect if they can't quite figure out what you are talking about - and if you can plausibly shift what you mean whenever convenient.
This "being-itself" of Tillich and Spong is nothing like the God of Abraham or Isaac, Jesus or Paul. But people can read "being-itself" in a text, and think of whatever they believe their God to be. Some may not thinking of anything much at all - but will feel edified and justified in the the warm fuzzies they feel when looking up at a clear, stary sky. Since neither Tillich nor Spong point to anything specific in the terms they use, then they end up pointing to whatever the reader wishes to see. That is necessarily ambiguous. When Spong writes that "the divine" is "life lived fully and honestly," he is not saying anything that most atheists will argue with, except that we'll wonder why he's bothering to call it "the divine." He could replace that term with just about any other and make just as much sense. Or just as little.
Can any of these phrases be taken literally? I don't honestly see how - I cannot think of any literal interpretation of them. But Tillich makes much of the necessarily symbolic nature of discourse about God. Spong follows along in this, pointing out how literal language does not in his opinion do justice to the idea of God and explaining that he feels the need to "find another God language" or new meaning for the concept of God.
Thus, assertions about God, like those in the Bible, are not literally true but may be said to be symbolically true. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no nonsense which may not be said to be "symbolically true," espcially when the symbolic meaning is left unspecified. It is not at all clear that God-talk does not fall under such nonsense.
Unfortunately, Spong is somewhat trapped in the use of symbolic and non-literal language. Such a reading of the Bible is what allows him to retain an abiding faith in the Jesus who said "love one another," but categorically dismiss the Jesus who commanded that his enemies be slain before him. Sometimes Jesus preaches universal love, sometimes he divides humanity into two camps: the saved and the damned. All of this is compatible, as long as you concentrate hard enough on reading inconvenient passages symbollically enough.
If Spong wishes to argue that his statements about God are symbolically true, he will first have to be specific about what each assertion symbolizes, second demonstrate that the meaning found in that symbol is not simply arbitrary, and finally explain how other interpretations are not equally or more plausible. I don't think that he can do it - and he certainly doesn't do it in this book.
What if we took Spong at his word? What if we accepted the definition of "God" as "The Ground of all Being?" Well, that isn't something to which the concepts of existence or nonexistence can really apply. In such a case, we can't say that his god "exists, " and can reasonably ignore it as irrelevant to our lives. If that's Spong's vision of Christianity, it will die - out of apathy and irrelevancy.
Interestingly, little of what Spong writes is all that new or surprising - to Unitarian-Universalists, that is. Spong has apparently dismissed UUs as "not taking religion seriously," but just about everything he writes looks like it could come straight from a non-Christian, atheist, humanist, UU minister. So what's his beef? I can't really say - although I suspect that he is still coming to terms with his lack of Christian belief, and is doing all he can to get rid of his previous superstitious beliefs while still retaining the labels and trappings of Christianity.
Nonbelievers who enjoy reading interesting critiques of traditional religion will, I think, enjoy this book as much as his others. Christians who are interested in an unusual perspective on their religion will, I think, also enjoy this book. People with a vague sense of spirituality and little concrete idea about the sort of god they want to believe in may very well find themselves here, but I'm not that that is good. Is there any merit in a god when belief is rescued at the expense of coherence and comprehensibility? Is there merit in the belief in a god when that belief exists primarily due to an inability to understand or experience the world without the use of that ambiuous term?
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