In what he describes as his last book, John Shelby Spong
concludes his writing career with a cumulative work that echoes many of the
challenges he has suggested throughout his career in various forms. This particular work is a concise argument
with regard to the fact that many of the doctrines, creeds, and theological
ideas that the Church holds simply do not and, he would argue, cannot engage
the modern mind – even the minds of Christians any longer.
He opens the book with a short summary of his writing
career and then lays out some of the questions he seeks to address, “which
cover everything from God to Christ to prayer to life after death.”
His opening point is that the church is dying. Christianity is dying. His conclusion as to why this is is that the
church has become so inflexible that it holds to doctrine and dogma far more
than it dedicates itself to the experience
of God. He then sets out to examine some
basic tenants of the Christian faith and argue that they don’t have to be
dogmatic, they don’t have to be taken literally, and that if we can consider
some of the terms of the Christian faith
without the theological and traditional baggage attached to them, we might
find that there is still a living faith to be found inside and,
perhaps more importantly, through the
Christian faith.
To that end, Spong does what he does best: he shakes the
reader up with what might seem deliberately antagonistic, anti-religious
sounding chapter titles. Even some of
his writing sounds like well-rehearsed heated rhetoric, which is likely is,
drawing from his own journey in the faith as well as his past writings and
weekly column. His words are well
practiced and, though troubling for some to read, have a sense of genuineness
that is both charming and threatening.
He beings with a chapter titled Why Modern Men and Women Can No Longer Be Believers. It is of no surprise that Spong does not find
readers from the more fundamentalist wings of the Christian faith.
-
To begin his book, Spong makes reference to the question
of the authority of the Bible. “One
learns quickly in such an environment [church] that claims for the “authority
of the Bible” – filled, as that book is, with stories of an invasive,
supernatural deity performing miracles – are ignored, and all attempts to
define “the true faith,” or to pronounce anything that deviates from a
traditional understanding to be “heresy,” is more a conversation-stopper than
it is a way to dialogue.”
There is, he goes on to say, a desire for a real
experience of God on the part of the faithful, but that the church is often not
the place that provides that. There is
also, he argues, “a game being played in contemporary church life where truth
is suppressed in the name of unity.”
His point here is that there are points,
ideas, theologies, and historical understandings that are taught in seminary
that, for the sake of the unity of the congregation (one might surmise) are
not discussed with the general populace
of the church. Why not? Because the education of the pastor and the
faith of the congregation may be on two very, very different levels. Therefore the pastor, who might seek
dialogue, can only keep silent for the sake of those who claim the “authority
of the Bible” while not being completely aware of what that Bible does or does
not say.
Spong then moves to “Stating the Problem.” To do this, he offers a short history of the
reformation and explains that Luther, he believes, was seeking to enter into a
debate about the church and suggesting reforms.
However, these suggestions were not received as such and the debate
turned into something unexpected and completely different. The reaction to Luther was anger, violence,
and upheaval. Not the intention of
Luther, but, as Spong is seeking to point out, it is the reaction of those
entrenched in ideologies to react strongly against those who would state a
different claim or challenge the authority of the status quo.
Spong is seeking, in some way, to make this last book his
own 95 Thesis and challenge the rank and file Christians to seriously consider
a top to bottom revisioning of the faith.
This comes, Spong explains, from the fact that the amount of human
knowledge that has accumulated since the time of the writing of the Bible has
far outstripped some of the thinking that the Bible contains. From geology to astronomy, we know things
about our universe that the Biblical writers simply
could not. As such, we have
to come to recognize that many of the ideas in scripture “rise out of a world
that no longer exists.”
The question Spong asks is this: can the Christ
experience be separated from the dying explanations of the past?
To begin to answer that question, Spong
states that there has to be a jettisoning of a tremendous amount of theological
baggage. “People need to feel the dead
weight of traditional theological claims before they can open themselves and
their ancient words to new possibilities.”
Spong then lays out his 12 points of contention:
1.
God – what does this word even mean?
2.
Jesus the Christ – can we lose the idea of the incarnation?
3.
Original Sin – a pre-Darwinian mythology that is
post-Darwinian nonsense.
4.
The Virgin Birth – we have to stop thinking of
this as a literal possibility.
5.
Miracles – not magic.
6.
Atonement Theology – these (and there are more
than one) are theologies that present a barbaric God and Jesus as a victim as
well as turning us into guilt filled creatures.
7.
Easter – what does it mean that God raised Jesus?
8.
The Ascension – This assumes a three-tiered
universe. Is there any other way to
consider this idea?
9.
Ethics – ancient codes can no longer hold
weight. We must become situationalists.
10.
Prayer – we need to think of it in terms of
transcendence, not the means to get God to do something on our behalf.
11.
Life after Death – must be explored as
transcendence and love vs. the idea of a place.
12.
Universalism – “Sacred tradition” must never
provide a cover to justify discrimination.
Each “thesis” has its opening argument, followed,
usually, by a chapter or two of arguments.
The difficulty of the text is that some of these thesis questions are so
interwoven with each other that his ideas aren’t always fully developed until
later chapters, the best example being the section on “Original Sin” which
necessarily has ties to the later thesis on “Atonement Theology.” In his work, dealing with one deals with the
other.
In other chapters, his arguments are not as clearly
articulated nor do they seem to be as well thought out. Some of them seem to be more
filler than substance, though they are logical offshoots of his larger points.
Conclusions
John Shelby Spong is no stranger to controversy – either
in addressing it or, in many instances, creating it. His outspokenness on issues of human
sexuality and his willingness to radically redefine traditional elements of the
Christian faith is nothing new. His most
recent and, according to him, last book Unbelievable
is something of a conclusion to his larger body of writings. In some ways, though, it would make a good
introduction to his collected works.
Like the letter to Ephesians which scholars believe was written by a
disciple of Paul to introduce the collected epistles of the Apostle, Unbelievable is a concise work that
provides a quick articulation of Spong’s theology, rationales, and conclusions
to adapting the Christian faith for the modern world.
Spong has clearly come to believe in the conclusions he
presents. As I have said, it is a good
summation to his larger written works.
If it were not, I would suggest that this book should have been a
multi-volume tome in which he truly takes the ideas presented to task in a way
that is not as quick or as simplistic as they are presented here. What one does find is that in this work,
Spong takes for granted that the scientific arguments he puts forward are fact,
are inescapable, and that religiosity has nothing to offer.
Granted, there are clearly places in the Bible that
cannot be justified scientifically such as the sun being stilled in the sky in
Joshua, the three-tiered universe, or even some of the miracles. However, their truth is as true as any story in which one finds direction or
meaning. A person who pours over
Shakespeare and finds that all of life can be encapsulated in the words of
Hamlet or that the Tempest is a parable for living are not refuting the
realities of the world, merely defining the world via a particular lens. So too is the work of religion. When religion becomes absolute, however, it is dangerous.
What Spong is arguing for is a non-theistic (perhaps
a-theistic) religiosity. This is not
new. It is, perhaps, one of the more
succinct arguments for his point of view.
Combining such ideologies as expressed by Tillich, Hans Küng, and Joseph Fletcher
as well as some of the more radical views of Robert Price, though not going as
far as he would, Marcus Borg, and Franklin and Shaw (The Case for Christian
Humanism). Spong’s arguments are far
more centralized and quickly accessible, but not necessarily original.
Spong is something of a signpost to other authors, though
he does not always give them a name or point directly to them, which is a
weakness. This book is a primer for so
many other works and a digest of some heavy topics within the Christian
academy. Spong could have used this book as a launching pad for discussion by
offering bibliographies at the end of each chapter to point to books that have
already discussed his points in depth should the reader wish to explore
more. Instead, one gets the sense that
Spong is attempting to pass his conclusions off as something new. They are not.
They are, likely, summations of his larger and previous works. These works may have indeed provided the
bibliography or suggestions for further readings. Unbelievable
does not and is, therefore, a weaker work.
The writing style of this book has some flaws. There is a sense of delayed gratification
with the opening chapters as Spong lays out the issues he will set out to
tackle. He sets up more and more
questions like a History Channel docu-series before a commercial break: “Could
this be the proof of King David in Jerusalem?
Does this tomb hold the bones of Jesus?”
This may be, in part, because his Thesis 3-8 all, in some fashion, are
extrapolations of Thesis 2. Thesis 3 is
more fully answered in Thesis 6. This
could have reduced his thesis from the Biblical number 12 down to 6 or less if
he had pulled them all into tighter groupings.
What this leads to is a book that is unbalanced. Some of the works are strong and well thought
out, but others, especially Thesis 5, 7-8 are lackluster, quick, and seem
quickly thrown together. Some of these
passages have great passion, especially his thesis on ethics. His arguments about prayer, life after death,
and his conclusion therein are more personal (perhaps more pastoral) than
scholarly. This is not to denigrate
them, but to point out that there is passion here, but that doesn’t always make
for a good argument. It is more his own
personal conclusions than it is a reasoned-out articulation of an argument such
as he offered in the passages about God or ethics.
Likewise, his quick nods to textual critical approaches
to the Bible, Darwin, Freud, and the “irrationality” of some of the Christian
doctrines are, it seems, expected to be enough to convince the reader. What we find is that Spong is writing from
the point of view of someone who is already convinced of the merit of his
argument, but does not, apparently, wish to share all of his work in reaching
those conclusions. He couldn’t have done
so and hoped to have created a popular best-seller. To that end, a book like James the Brother of Jesus by Robert Eisenman which clocks in at a
massive 950+ pages is a profound work of scholarship with profound implications
but not a page turner or a tome written for the New York Times booklist. Spong throws out only enough to give credence
to his views, and hints that in some of his previous books, he took more time in
formulating the arguments than he has for this one.
As for his opening argument, Spong was
not attempting to provide a roadmap to a
new Church. “I am not ready to surrender
Christianity to a secular future. I am
not willing to abandon the Christ experience, which I still find real, simply
because the words traditionally used to describe that experience no longer
translate meaningfully into the language of our day.”
However, by the end of the book, one wonders
just what Spong
would consider a
modern Christianity. Like some early
critiques of Christianity during the time in which it was seeking to articulate
itself within the bounds of Judaism, if what you suggest is a radical
redefinition of the latter to explain the former, then you aren’t talking about
the same thing anymore. Likewise, to say
that you were a capitalist as defined by a communist reading, one has to
conclude that you really weren’t a traditional capitalist at all.
Spong seems to want to have his cake and eat it too. To remove all that he suggests within his
book is to so deplete the Church of traditions that there is little that
remains to connect what is left with the ancient church at all. In his suggesting to be rid of
supernaturalism, he throws out the ritual and liturgical uses of the Biblical
texts. One need not accept them as
literal – a claim Spong does make
repeatedly. But one doesn’t have to
excise them as Jefferson did to find meaning within them. Spong surely wouldn’t seek to remove the
fantastic from Aesop’s fables because to do so removes the point. However, given this example, Spong would say
that if we can read Aesop’s fables without
feeling the need to take them literally, we can find meaning. Likewise, Spong is arguing, we can engage the
Christian faith without the need for literalization or supernaturalism. Yet, as he tends to do, his recommendations
are more of a carpet bomb approach than that of a scalpel.
In review, there are other books and authors that
articulate similar ideas as that of Spong.
None, it would seem, offer the radical push that Spong seeks, otherwise
he would need not have written. Like the
opening verses of the Gospel of Luke, “it seemed good to me also, having
followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly
account for you.”
As such, it could be better.
Spong was intending to write a closing book to his
career. This is it, though it could have
been stronger. This feels more of an
extended epilogue than it does a self-sustaining work. If one were to read it as a series of
farewell sermons, on the other hand, then the book would be exceedingly
provocative. As it is, it seems more of
a pastoral musing on a series of theological arguments which are quickly
indexed and should point to a larger reading list as well as a deeper
appreciation of the fact that for many reading this, it will be something of a
first exposure to ideas that have long circulated. However, given the style of Spong’s writing,
it feels less like an introduction than a conclusion. “I decided that the time had come to put all
those theses together in a primer – this book – and to invite a vigorous
debate.”
Perhaps that is how he
intended it to be read.
Unbelievable
John Shelby Spong
2018
San Francisco: HarperOne
336 pages
