Bishop Spong, Episcopal Bishop of Newark, USA, is
perhaps today’s most widely-read liberal ‘theologian’. (Why the
quotes? Many would not use this term for him). He’s earned the
nickname ‘the re-thinking bishop’, from the subtitles of his better-known
books, Living in Sin? (A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality) and
Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (A Bishop Rethinks the
Meaning of Scripture).

Before his 1991 trip Downunder, he wasn’t really
known here. Journos love him, offering prime TV and radio time.
(Not only journos: he packed St. John’s Anglican Cathedral in
Brisbane for a Wednesday lunchtime address on Scripture and sexual
morality…)

Jack Spong, as he’s known to friends, is a ‘liberal
zealot’ (usually an oxymoron). He’s passionate, articulate and
prophetic – and desperately wants to reform the church. His wide
appeal is due to his combining provocation, creativity, pastoral
care and scholarship.

I’m not aware that he’s saying anything much that
is new. The book about Jesus rests heavily on the demythologizing
notions of Bultmann and J.A.T.Robinson (some of you may be old
enough to remember the fuss over Honest to God). James Barr has
written a similar (and better) book about Fundamentalism. And
some church reports on Sexuality have said similar things about
blessing gay and lesbian unions, and allowing sexual relationships
for the divorced, widowed, or the betrothed-but-not-yet-married.
Indeed, he feels the church should lead the way in recognizing
and celebrating (liturgically) responsible extra-marital sexual
unions.

So why the fuss? Well, he’s certainly readable. He’s
honest. He wants women in the episcopate, so feminists generally
love him. He’s prolific (point Alta Vista to his diocesan homepage)
– ‘never an unpublished thought’ (as some said of sociologist/priest
Andrew Greeley). And he’s telegenic. But more than all this: he’s
a catalytic front for the mostly-pagan media who are delighted
when prominent Christians attack each other’s ideas publicly.

Spong prefers midrash (‘traditions always changing’
as he puts it in his book about the Resurrection) to ‘hysterical
literalism’. He wants to ‘free [Scripture] from its literalistic
imprisonment’ (Living in Sin?). As I understand him, he believes
Scripture is authoritative only as the Christian community gives
it authority. (It’s not that the old orthodoxies or traditions
were wrong: they’re now simply irrelevant). When any part of Scripture
is inappropriate to a community’s reasoning (my word), it has
the power to render those bits inoperative: our quest is to understand
Jesus as a Jew, then be free to comprehend him within the thought-forms
of our day.

So where is the Word of God? In Christ, Spong says.
(Ah, but whose/which Christ? I want to ask). The incongruity of
all this, for me, lies in Spong’s avowed love for Scripture and
his cavalier attitude towards it.

For example: I counted 16 times in This Hebrew Lord
where Spong disagrees with the Gospel writers, or accuses them
of making legends seem like history, because they were imprisoned
within the thought-forms of their day. Just one: ‘No space-age
man or woman can possibly believe [in a literal Ascension]. Literally,
it did not happen! It could not happen! If a literal cosmic ascension
is an important part of the Christian story… such an anti-intellectual
religion will not long survive in this technical, scientific age’
(p.90).

The first 74 pages of This Hebrew Lord are about
Spong, the rest (to p. 186) about Jesus, or rather Spong’s Jesus.
Spong is an avowed Hebrewphile. So Jesus was a ‘Hebrew Lord’.
We will never understand Jesus until/unless we put him into a
Hebrew frame of reference. Spong’s Jesus was a good guy, so there’s
hope for you too! ‘So look at him!’ he urges. ‘Look not at his
divinity; but look, rather, at his freedom. Look not at the exaggerated
tales of his power; but look, rather, at his infinite capacity
to give himself away’ (p.159). ‘In Jesus of Nazareth we see in
a human life the secret of the universe, the life-giving power
of perfect love. To know this love is to know the deepest ground
of being. It is to know God’ (pp. 180-181).

The best chapter, in my view, is 9: ‘I Give Rest
– I Give Peace’. Sample: ‘Jesus was a life at rest, a life lived
in peace, a life that was secure, affirmed, free, whole’ (p.127).
The next best: chapters about Jesus’ loneliness and freedom (10
& 11).

Spong inhabits – with most liberal Christian thinkers
– complexity the other side of simplicity. He is scornful of those
(including biblical people) who live in simplicity this side of
complexity. (In a debate with John Stott he didn’t seem to know
the difference between Fundamentalists, and, say, Progressive
Evangelicals. They’re all literalists).

Although there were ‘4000 changes’ from the first
edition, Spong doesn’t connect much, if at all, with the Jesus
Seminar people in this book (how can a 1993 revision not include
John Dominic Crossan?).

So should you read him? Not if you’re a new Christian.
Yes, if you are further along the track and want your faith challenged.

Shalom! Rowland Croucher