What do you think of the writings of Spong?

[Neo2]

I've recently read a few of his books, I'm curious to know what others think of his writings. What's your opinion?

 

[MKJ]

His scholarship is fairly questionable - he tends to make mistakes regarding history and Biblical knowledge, for example. And he makes some impressive leaps of logic.

I can never figure out why he didn't simply join the UU church. He doesn't seem to believe even the most basic Christian positions. This makes me doubt his honesty I'm afraid. How can one promise to uphold Christian truths and draw a salary for doing so under such conditions? Or stand and recite the Creed each Sunday?

I tend to think his way of thinking is going out of style among Anglicans, but that may well be wishful thinking on my part.

 

[AngCath]

He's very 19th-century and no one seems to have noticed. Everything he's written can be traced back to early liberal Protestantism after it "discovered" higher criticism. I'm not a fan, but neither am I in the "anti-Spong" camp.
I just don't understand the traction his books have gotten and I have found far more interesting things to read to keep me occupied.

 

[Polycarp1]

One point I try to re-emphasize whenever he comes up is that he came from a fundamentalist background, and his writings are heavily contral-fundamenalism in their stance. Another is that he learned theology at a seminary steeped in Tillichian thought, and many of the things he writes theologically presume the reader to know Tillich's usages. Notably his "rejection of theism" is not saying "I don't believe in a personal God" -- he does -- but "I don't believe in a superhuman Zeus-with-a-Jewish-accent God, but rather in the Necessary Being, on which all else is contingent, the ultimate ground of all reality, who is nonetheless more than a Person, not less than. I've seen half a dozen instances over the last decade where he's been called heretic for something expressed in Tillichian language that his name-callers probably also believe, but would say it in different words.

 

[ContraMundum]

He's a modernist in a post-modern world. Old fashioned with old information and old largely refuted and hackneyed views. What else can one say?

I found his work rather boring, but made it through one book (Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism...whatever it was called) and pretty much lost interest after that, but I kept tabs on his works as a casual observer to see which way he would go next. After discarding this kind of writing, I found the works of the former liberal theologian C. Thomas Oden a far more challenging and enlightening reading endeavor.

 

[brightmorningstar]

About the same as Richard Dawkins

 

[Polycarp1]

About the same as Richard Dawkins

Right, because there's clearly absolutely no difference between a bishop who has spent his career fighting discrimination and whose theology you disagree with, and a scientist who is outspoken for atheism.

 

[brightmorningstar]

To Polycarp1,

Right, because there's clearly absolutely no difference between a bishop who has spent his career fighting discrimination and whose theology you disagree with, and a scientist who is outspoken for atheism.

No. Because they are both full of unbelief.

 

[Neo2]

To Polycarp1,
No. Because they are both full of unbelief.

I have to say unbelief isn't something I took from Spong - quite the opposite, although his words aren't the ones I'd use myself he offers an invitation to God that I found moving and thought provoking.

I've returned to regular church attendance and have reconnected with God largely as a result of reading Spong and Philip Newell.

 

[brightmorningstar]

To Neo2,
If one has a wrong idea of who God is one can’t know God anymore than someone who rejects God.
The OP asked for an opinion so I have given one.

 

[MKJ]

Right, because there's clearly absolutely no difference between a bishop who has spent his career fighting discrimination and whose theology you disagree with, and a scientist who is outspoken for atheism.

That's an interesting summary of their differences. I suspect actually that Richard Dawkins would be very outspoken on many of the same kinds of social justice issues as Spong is. An interesting feature of the type of atheism Dawkins represents is that it seems quite moralistic. And in what seems like a rather bourgeoisie way, though I feel very retro using that word.

Their thought also seems to have a lot in common in it's basic assumptions and foundations i I think perhaps as Dunstan said, they are both rather 19th century. I wouldn't have thought to compare them, but there are some interesting commonalities.

 

[brightmorningstar]

If someone doesnt believe in something, such as the virgin birth or the bodily resurection of Jesus then they are in unbelief of it by definition. For many such unbelief of core issues, as outside the Nicene Creed as a traditional basic creed of faith, leaves Spong as a non-Christian. To many liberals this is offensive, yet to many Christians Spong's views place him outside.

It is this sort of division of two very different worldviews that exists in Christianity, not denominations and the like.

 

[Polycarp1]

""What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work today in the vineyard.'

29" 'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

30"Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go.

31"Which of the two did what his father wanted?"
"The first," they answered. (Matthew 21:28-31)

Faith in God consists in putting one's trust in Him and following His commands, not in affirming statements of doctrine about Him. IMO, at least.

 

[MKJ]

""What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work today in the vineyard.'

29" 'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

30"Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go.

31"Which of the two did what his father wanted?"
"The first," they answered. (Matthew 21:28-31)

Faith in God consists in putting one's trust in Him and following His commands, not in affirming statements of doctrine about Him. IMO, at least.

THis is fine so far as it goes.

Of course, the question would arise, what does God command?

And it isn't specifically Christian. Many other religions could make the same claim. So I don't think we can say someone who does this is necessarily a Christian, much less an Anglican.

 

[brightmorningstar]

To Polycarp1,
Doctrine just helps and tests whether it really is Jesus Christ one is putting ones faith in. One could for example put ones faith and trust in Jesus as merely a great prophet, which would of course be in line with doctrine from the Quran.
You arent for example suggesting it should have been the second daughter of the two that the mother wanted are you?

 

[ebia]

""What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work today in the vineyard.'

29" 'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

30"Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go.

31"Which of the two did what his father wanted?"
"The first," they answered. (Matthew 21:28-31)

Faith in God consists in putting one's trust in Him and following His commands, not in affirming statements of doctrine about Him. IMO, at least.

But are we trying to assess +John as a Christian, or as a bishop (teacher and leader), or as a Christian writer?

As a Christian he could have all sorts of mixed up ideas about doctrine but still be a good, faithful Christian. As a teacher - whether bishop or writer - that's less true.

 

[Polycarp1]

MKJ, BMS, and Ebia: There is definitely something to what you say. I posted that parable, with my comment, to disagree with BMS's equating Spong with Dawkins (as "full of unbelief", posts #6 and #8) and his concluding that Spong is a non-Christian (post #12). To be sure, his Dynamism (the heresy, that is) and the symbolic Resurrection are among the things setting him off from orthodoxy, but he nonetheless counts in my view as among those who work for Christ in this world. (Witness the testimony of Neo above.)

 

[brightmorningstar]

To ebia and Polycarp1,
As to some of his beliefs they fall outside core Christian basic beliefs according to the Nicene Creed... Once again I'll leave that to you to judge whether that makes him a Christian or not.

 

[ebia]

I've not read any of his writings (nor seen any reason to add them to my "must read list" nor had any interaction with the guy, so I have neither the need nor the information to judge whether he is Christian or not.

I am slightly more interested in sustantive comments on the quality of his writing.

 

[MKJ]

I've not read any of his writings (nor seen any reason to add them to my "must read list" nor had any interaction with the guy, so I have neither the need nor the information to judge whether he is Christian or not.

I am slightly more interested in sustantive comments on the quality of his writing.

In the sense of its content or its form?