Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #162965 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Synopsis
A spokesman for liberal Christianity argues that the Christian religion must move to a spirituality based on thought and love, and away from blind faith and damnation, discussing the dangers of fundamentalism, the role of women, and more. Reprint. Tour.

Customer Reviews

Who knows the truth?
As a non-Christian reading this book, I felt as though Bishop Spong came as close as anyone in my past to making me understand Christ and Christianity. Had he been influential earlier in my life, I may even have chosen Christianity!

Bishop Spong has "Rattled a Few Cages" in his most recent book, cages that needed rattling. No one knows "the truth" of whatever god/gods there be, yet one that is accepting and loving and is within us rather than "out in space" somewhere is certainly an appealing thought to consider.

Don't read this book unless you can handle a challenging read.

An engaging look into the future of the Christian faith
Why do you believe what you believe? This is a question that many people are ill-equipped to answer because they've been taught that it should never be asked. Faith is sufficient for some. Experience is the authority to which many appeal. Tradition makes sure that we don't stray far from the thoughts of the past. Often, our most cherished beliefs are grounded in little more than a desire to hold them or our fear of the consequences of the contrary. Into such a mix of certainty and uncertainly has ventured Bishop John Shelby Spong of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark. To some, he is the epitome of everything that is wrong with the "modern" church. Over the past 20 years, and more publically over the past 10, he has sought to skewer every sacred cow in the belief-system of "orthodox" Christianity, of which he says, "To be called an orthodox Christian does not mean that one's point of view is right. It only means that this point of view w! on out in the ancient debate."

Although Bishop Spong's conclusions are not original with his own thinking, he has systematically examined the nature of human sexuality, the Bible, the ideas of virgin birth and resurrection, and the nature of Jesus with the lens of rationality, scholarship, and a concern that the church is perpetuating ideas that make it less possible for people to have a serious commitment to the Christian faith in a modern, technological world. Bishop Spong has asked believers to take seriously the question of why they believe what they believe and to not be cowed when they find that some of what they have taken "for granted" has little else upon which to stand.

With his latest book Bishop Spong has moved beyond the realm of talking to seekers in church and directly addresses those who have left the church behind, even if they're still physically present. Although his critics dispute the claim, Bishop Spong says that the book is, "! ...a work of faith and conviction...as one who desires to w! orship as a citizen of the modern world and to be able to think as I worship." Throughout the 250 pages which follow, Bishop Spong identifies those Christian concepts which he claims are rooted in the "tribal identity" of an earlier time, not in any external or eternal reality. He identifies the ways in which the maintenance of those claims has strained under the history of human thought and scientific discovery. He goes ahead, then, to assert that a living, powerful Christian faith is possible, without the literal acceptance of the ideas that many people would consider to be essential to any religion.

Bishop Spong claims that such deconstruction is necessary because within and without the church there are those who use language which they "know" no longer speaks truth but for which there are few alternatives. Of such believers, he writes, "They refuse to abandon the reality of God, yet they have been driven by 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 a new meaning or it will die."

Bishop Spong's book is not for the "weak of heart!" He consistently overstates his case, in often dramatic terms, leaving himself open to critics who want to literalize the extremity of his views. He also makes sweeping conclusions based on appeals to scholarship that can even leave sympathetic readers scratching their heads at some of his lines of thought. But what Bishop Spong does well, in an engaging and easy to read fashion, is state the case for a "post-Christian" Christian faith that seeks to integrate many of the common understandings of theological and Biblical scholarship with the "facts of life" as we enter the 21st century. What he stops short of doing is providing easy answers for what comes next.

This book is part of a larger effort by Bishop S! pong to engage his church and other concerned persons in a ! new dialogue about what the church is and how Christian faith should be expressed. Coinciding with the release of this book, Bishop Spong also released a "Call for a New Reformation" in which he challenges the church to a new debate over it's fundamental doctrines

Those who are certain of what they believe and feel that "orthodox" Christian tradition has expressed eternal truths for all time and all people will be enraged by this book. Those who find themselves bothered by blanket appeals to "tradition" and "scripture," when those appeals take precedence over rationality and common sense, will likely find Bishop Spong's book an interesting excursion into an "alternative" future for Christianity that they might never have thought possible. Those who have dismissed Christianity as anachronistic may be pleasantly surprised by the future that Bishop Spong envisions. Bishop Spong's own assessment is that, "...the world ca! n judge my contribution as to whether it destroyed the old or created the new...I am content to let the passage of time make that determination."

It's time to give up "childish things."
This is a very moving and wise book. It is strong spiritual meat for those who are ready to give up "childish things," as St. Paul said. Bishop Spong refreshingly realizes that Christianity has a credibility problem. The Church has to start over again. It must stop thinking in terms of an old man in the sky, a supernatural Santa Claus who will swoop down to save us from natural disasters, illness, death, and the consequences of our own stupidity. It has to stop trying to impose moral prohibitions that have nothing to do with the truths of human biology and psychology, or with true justice and compassion. Freedom, knowledge, and wisdom must be our new commandments; our knowledge of God will based upon the truths revealed in our humanity, in which God truly exists. His style is powerful, clear, and sometimes lyrical. This is a great book by someone who speaks compassionately in a language we non-Christians can understand. I hoped to find in it some common ground from which believers and non-believers could begin a dialogue, and I was not disappointed.