[Dialogue] 11/08/18, Progressing Spirit : A Conversation with Bishop John Shelby Spong (2018): Part 1 “On Small Minds and Big Ideas”

Thu Nov 8 15:25:27 PST 2018

This surely gets me thinking, Lynda, of the possible significance of an Archive collection on Church renewal or the contemporary theological revolution . . .
Jim Wiegel  

“That which consumes me is not man, nor the earth, nor the heavens, but the flame which consumes man, earth, and sky."  Nikos Kazantzakis

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623-363-3277

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    On Thursday, November 8, 2018, 12:35:55 PM MST, Lynda C via Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:  

A good one to share with younger family members who are struggling with church.  I like Spong’s approach.   Lynda

From: Dialogue <dialogue-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net> on behalf of ICA Dialogue List <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Reply-To: ICA Dialogue List <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Date: Thursday, November 8, 2018 at 10:52 AM
To: ICA Dialogue List <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>, OE List <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Cc: Carl & Ellie Stock <elliestock at aol.com>
Subject: [Dialogue] 11/08/18, Progressing Spirit : A Conversation with Bishop John Shelby Spong (2018): Part 1 “On Small Minds and Big Ideas”

An interview with Bishop John Shelby Spong on September 18th, 2018. 

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A Conversation with Bishop John Shelby Spong: Part 1 - “On Small Minds and Big Ideas”

Column by Rev. David M. Felten
November 8, 2018

The following is taken from an interview with Bishop John Shelby Spong on September 18th, 2018. Recorded at his home in Richmond, Virginia, it has been edited for length and thematic focus.

David Felten: For years you’ve been sounding the alarm that the church is in trouble. What would you say the state of the church is today – and where do you see us needing to go?

Jack Spong: Well, we’re almost in a Dark Age.

In the Roman Catholic Church, the sexual abuse crisis has gotten to be so big, and they finally are facing the fact that it’s real. It’s been in every country of the world. It has to be a systemic problem. So, what is there about the Roman Catholic Church that includes this thing?

In the Evangelical Protestant Churches, they’re anti-intellectual – they’re always behind the curve. They’re insecure more than anything else – and that’s demonstrated by their abandoning all of their principles and supporting Donald Trump (who is not an Evangelical at all). He practically spits on their values, but they support him, which indicates to me it’s not a religious movement at all. It’s a security movement.

So when somebody looks for a church, they have a hard time. I’ve been able to find one. But, there aren’t very many. I know a lot of churches, and to have a church that engages you, inspires you, and you want to be a part of, is a really difficult thing to do today.

David Felten: So, on the whole, the Roman Catholics are morally compromised over their failure to respond to the sexual abuse crisis. The Evangelicals are morally compromised out of their fear and obsession with security. And in the face of all this, the Mainline church is just impotent.

Jack Spong: That’s right. The Mainline knows too much to be Evangelical, but they don’t know who they are. And they’re not gonna buy into the Roman Catholic thing – and the thing I’ve spent my life doing still has a very difficult time finding expression in the institution today. But I still think it’s worthwhile.

David Felten: Give me an example of that life’s work that still needs to find expression today.

Jack Spong: Well, let’s just start with the basic concept of God. I don’t think God’s a being, and yet that is a sort of assumed thing in all the churches. I think God is the “Ground of Being.” That’s a Tillichian phrase. It doesn’t mean a lot to people, but it just gives me a different way to say it. I think God permeates the world. It just may be that God is the ground of all that is. And you try to say that in church and it’s not – not “comfortable.” It doesn’t give you security.

One of the things that I think about the church today is that if it’s being true to itself, it doesn’t give you security. It gives you the ability to live with insecurity. And that’s not as popular. People like to be deluded. And they’re not going to be deluded by a church that has integrity.

David Felten: Ouch!

Jack Spong: That’s right. I don’t know what to say. I’ve spent my life in the church. I’ve been executive in charge of lots of churches, and I can’t think of many of them that I would want to go to as a lay person sitting in a pew. There are enough – there are a few of them – enough that gives me some hope that there’s such a thing as integrity in the church, but it’s not a lot.

I look around at people that have responded to my ministry over the years, and they keep trying to go to church and it doesn’t work for them. Some of my closest friends are “believers in exile.” They want to believe, but they don’t find anything in the church that gives them enough to hang their hat on — so they’re sort of in exile somewhere.

David Felten: Say something about that inexpressible kind of belief that is not being met in the church, but people still have a hunch about.

Jack Spong: I don’t know how to talk about that. I’m convinced that there is a God. I’m convinced that there’s a spiritual dimension to life that I want to be in touch with. I’m convinced that it can be experienced in all of life, but I have a hard time saying what it is.

David Felten: But you’re not giving up.

Jack Spong: That’s right. I’m one of those people who refuses to let go. I’m like Jacob wrestling with the angel. I’m not gonna let it go until it blesses me. And it’s just terribly important to me. And I can’t always communicate that to other people.

If I’ve got the full panoply of church activities, I can find a way to make those activities speak loudly about something. But I think churches have either turned themselves into religious institutions (which is surefire away to die) or they change themselves into social activity churches (which is also a surefire way to die). And we don’t ever bring the two together. We don’t ever show Christianity as the expression of my being into the world.

David Felten: You’ve made a career out of trying to express some of these thoughts and clearly, people are hungry for what you’ve offered.

Jack Spong: I think that’s true – and what that is, I don’t know. But in all my life, everywhere I went, I had people coming who were hungry, who came with an expectation that they could be fed, and an expectation that I was in touch with something that they weren’t in touch with.

And that’s been a powerful thing for me. But I have a hard time articulating what that is. But I think you can see it. It’s like the pornography definition in the Supreme Court. You don’t know what it is, but you’d recognize it when you see it.

And I think that’s the way it goes right now. I’m not despairing. I’m not thinking about leaving the church. I will die in the church. It’s been my home, it’s been a place I’ve loved. But it also is my exasperation. It just, it takes all I’ve got to stay in the church.

David Felten: What do you find most exasperating?

Jack Spong: Well, the small minds. And I don’t know how else to say that, but people come to church hoping to be made to feel secure and they don’t. If they are made to feel secure, they’ve missed the point of the Christian church. The job of the Christian church is to help us live in the insecurity of our life. We’re not going to “get over” the insecurity of life. We’re all going to die. We better get prepared for that. We’re all in aspects of life that don’t last forever. And if you let that get hold of you, you just sort of sink into despair because you don’t have an answer.

But there’s something beyond what I can see and know and touch and feel that I’m in touch with. And I don’t know how to talk about it. But I will never let it go. And it’s a sustaining thing for me.

David Felten: It seems that one of the ways you’ve processed that “something beyond” has been through your writing. Out of all your books, is there one you can say you’re most proud of, that kind of speaks for you and your outlook?

Jack Spong: Yeah. I’d say the book I enjoyed most was called Liberating the Gospel, Reading The Bible With Jewish Eyes.

David Felten: You discovered a lot of fresh material there.

Jack Spong: Yeah, I did. But I didn’t discover it out of nowhere. I was led into it by a great teacher named Michael Goulder. Michael was not a great communicator, but he was a great scholar and I was able to articulate his point of view. I’ve really appreciated him. He’s no longer alive.

What I came to see in that book is that Christianity is Jewish at its core. It was born in the Jewish world. Jesus was a Jewish man. His mother and his father were Jewish people. His disciples were Jewish people. They lived and moved in their environment as Jewish people.

The first Gospel didn’t get written until Jesus had been dead for 40 years. It had changed a lot since then. The Second Gospel didn’t get written until Jesus was dead about 50 years, the third Gospel, about 60 years. And the fourth Gospel, about 70 years. By the time those Gospels were written, they changed the Christian faith because it was moving in a different world. And people began to try to relate Jesus to another form of life that wasn’t his own. Now you don’t deny that, because it’s important to see that. But you need to look and see how those things go together.

I don’t believe that Jesus ever thought of himself as the second person of the Holy Trinity. I don’t believe he ever thought of himself as a divine God-man. But I think he taught and so lived his life that you could see in him and through him how all of us – the God-men and God-women that we are – can’t be human alone. I think that’s  the answer to the deepest yearnings in people’s minds. But it’s a long way from what Christianity is in the world today.

David Felten: What would you say is one of your books that you’d just as well have back – and why?

Jack Spong: I think the worst book that I wrote was called, Living The Commandments. It’s basically about The Ten Commandments. The reason that I’d want it back as it was poorly edited. I wrote it in the interim between being Rector of St Paul’s in Richmond and Bishop of Newark. In Richmond, I had some outstanding people who worked with me and who edited. In Newark, I hadn’t found those people yet, and so I edited it myself. And it’s poorly done.

David Felten: So, note to aspiring authors: don’t edit your own books.

Jack Spong: I later married my favorite editor. And Chris could take my books and make them shine just beautifully. A good editor is to a Bishop like a Chief of Staff is to a President of the United States. I say if you have a good Chief of Staff, you’re going to be a good President. If you have a good editor, you’re going to be a good writer – and writing became a passion for me. It’s hard work, but it was a creative passion, and I produced a book about every two years, every two and a half years (which is a pretty good rate). But I had a good editor working with me all the time.

David Felten: So, content-wise, you’re satisfied with it, it just wasn’t as readable as your other books.

Jack Spong: Yeah. I’m still satisfied. But I wouldn’t buy it if I were the average person looking at a bookstore!

David Felten: Well let’s say you are wandering through a bookstore today. What authors excite you and get you thinking? Who’d you like to have a conversation with?

Jack Spong: Well, somebody asked me who I’d like to have dinner with and that’s the same kind of question. And I said I’d like to have dinner with the late physicist, Stephen Hawking. I’d like to have dinner with him ’cause I think he was a fascinating man.

I’d also like to have dinner with Richard Dawkins, the anti-God philosopher and biologist. And I’d like to have dinner with Albert Einstein. Now, I don’t think any one of the three of them would be Christians by the normal definition, but I think they’d be expansive people.

I actually did have dinner with Richard Dawkins in Oxford when I was studying over there. I’d been in the Bodleian Library that day and I’d read The Selfish Gene, which is one of his earlier books. As I was speaking at New College that night, I had dinner at the high table. We lined up and walked into the high table and I sat down beside this man and I stuck out my hand and said, “I’m Jack Spong, who are you?” And he said, “I’m Richard Dawkins.” And I said “Well, I just finished reading your book today.” We had a delightful conversation. He was a very attractive and funny guy. He said in one of his books there weren’t but two bishops in the English church that knew what he was talking about and I was one of them! Richard Holloway, of Scotland, was the other. And I always appreciated that. I think I could make Richard a Christian if I had enough time. I thought of all those people who wrote anti-God books, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, and the others…

David Felten: Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett.

Jack Spong: Yeah. I thought Richard Dawkins was the best of them. I disagree with only some of his conclusions. He was raising the same questions that I raise – I don’t believe that God’s a supernatural manipulative person, either. He doesn’t see the church saying anything else and I say the church must say something else.

David Felten: What does he say to a comeback like that, where you agree that God isn’t a supernatural manipulative person? Does he see you as an anomaly or does he deal with you as one who represents a legitimate point of view within the church?

Jack Spong: He thinks Richard Holloway and I don’t believe in God, either, so we’re “on his side.” I can only say, “We don’t believe in the God he doesn’t believe in.” I don’t know how you say it any differently: “Tell me about the God you don’t believe in. I don’t believe in that God, either.” He doesn’t understand that. People have been trained for so long to think in terms of supernaturalism and theism. And atheism doesn’t mean you don’t believe in God. If you want to be literal about it, it means you don’t believe in the theistic concept of God.

David Felten: It’s a hard concept for people to get.

Jack Spong: It’s really impossible. I say that all the time and they say, “What?” Someone asked me one time if you had to be a theist to be a Christian. I wrote a column on that. It’s one of fourteen years of columns in the archives. And I said, “No, you don’t have to be a theist to be a Christian.” Theism is one way of thinking about God. It’s not the ultimate, only way to think about God. Most of the people I know who are in the church are going to regard that as beyond the pale. But I think that they are simply beyond the pale on the other side!

David Felten: I think it’s just those kinds of clear statements that stand as a tribute to what you’ve expressed for so many years in your columns and your books – and lays out a clear direction in which we still need to move.

Jack Spong: Yeah. Well, it’s as clear as I can make it in my last book – and Unbelievable is my last book. I wrote the last part of it after I had a stroke and I can’t write anymore – I can’t write another book. And that’s okay.

I knew one professor who wrote 105 books in his life. You can’t have an unpublished thought if you write 100 books. And we used to say to an old Quaker scholar that I knew well who wrote a book a year, I said, “Well, what did you call your book this year?” And he would give me the title. But it’s the same book.

David Felten: New title every year, but same book. It’s like my sermons every week.

Jack Spong: That’s right. People don’t have that many fresh ideas. My books are clearly repetitive, but they are repetitive in the “sparrow sense.” I go back and touch the ground and then go on to new things and then go back and touch the ground and go on to new things.

David Felten: …so people can get a broad sense of where you’re coming from.

Jack Spong: I think it’s important for your audience that you do that. You carry them with you so you can come to where you are and then make another leap.

David Felten: Bring them along.

Jack Spong:  Yeah. I loved writing.

David Felten: Well, besides your books and columns, my favorite Jack Spong moments have usually come when I’m listening to you field Q&A sessions after a talk. What are a couple of the best questions you’ve ever been asked?

Jack Spong: There were two questions that always came up. If they understood what I was saying, they thought Christianity was shaking. And the two things they would ask were, “Do you pray?” and “Do you believe in life after death?” Those two were a constant, usually within the first two or three questions I’d get asked in every gathering. So I wrestled with those questions in particular.

I was talking with Gretta Vosper one day about those two questions and she asked, “Why don’t we work on those? I’ll take prayer and you take life after death and write a book on it.” Well, I did and she did. Her book is called Amen, and my book is called Eternal Life: A New Vision: Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell. I happen to believe in life after death and that surprises my friends in the Jesus Seminar. But I don’t believe in heaven and hell. People say, “If you don’t believe in heaven and hell, you can’t believe in life after death.” But I believe there’s something deeply spiritual about human life, there’s something about our consciousness that gets beyond my limits and leads me into relationship with God. I trust it. That’s all I can say. I think that was one of the great books of my life but I don’t know that it’s gonna be an answer for people. It was an answer for me.

People apply the same criteria to life after death that they apply to religion, so it doesn’t make sense. It either makes you feel secure and keeps you not-afraid-when-you-die, or it’s nothing but idolatry. So where many are today is, “There is no life after death.”

What I’m trying to say is there’s a different way to look at this – to force us to think differently. But it’s hard to talk about. I remember several letters I got after that book came out that said, “I was right with you until you got to the end. And then you don’t believe anything!” I think that was a common perception, but it’s not accurate to say I don’t believe anything. I don’t believe I can say anything about what I believe. I have absolute trust that I am part of something that is bigger than I am and I can’t tell you why or how. It doesn’t necessarily make me feel more secure when I die but death is an interesting thing.

What I worry about with death is leaving Christine and leaving my daughters. It’s not whether I live or die. Those things are far more important to me. I know Christine could get along fine, she could run the UN! She doesn’t need me to run her life. We’ve had such a marvelous relationship. She’s shared in my life and I’ve shared in hers and we’re lucky people to have the kind of relationship we have. That’s where the anxiety is for me, it’s not anywhere else.

I’ll be 88 my next birthday. I think that’s right remarkable! I don’t know that I’ve got any regrets, David. I think I’d probably live my life pretty much the same way I’ve lived it, if I had a chance to do it all over again. I don’t think there’re many people that can say that. But I’ve really had a wonderful time and I’ve loved my work. I’ve loved being a symbol. I’ve loved opening this church. I look back on our history and we don’t have many people like me. We can’t stand many like me.

David Felten: I’ve heard that said.

Jack Spong:  You know, I think one to two bishops like me is about all a church can tolerate at one moment. I think that’s enough. But without those one to two, I think the next generation is … I don’t know who the new person is, but they will emerge. Somebody has gotta be doing it and I think we’ve got them somewhere.

In the next installment of “A Conversation with Bishop John Shelby Spong,” Felten will ask Bishop Spong about his legacy and what he sees as the next revolution.

~ Rev. David M. Felten

Click here to read online and to share your thoughts

About the Author
Rev. David M. Felten is a full-time pastor at The Fountains, a United Methodist Church in Fountain Hills, Arizona. David and fellow United Methodist Pastor, Jeff Procter-Murphy, are the creators of the DVD-based discussion series for Progressive Christians, “Living the Questions”.

A co-founder of the Arizona Foundation for Contemporary Theology and also a founding member of No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice, David is an outspoken voice for LGBTQ rights both in the church and in the community at large. David is active in the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church and tries to stay connected to his roots as a musician. You’ll find him playing saxophones in a variety of settings, including appearances with the Fountain Hills Saxophone Quartet. David and his wife Laura, an administrator for a large Arizona public school district, live in Phoenix with their three often adorable children.
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Question & Answer

Q: By Gary

We always hear that Christianity is shrinking, but is progressive Christianity growing or shrinking?

A: By Eric Alexander

That is a great question Gary.

While I don’t have any firm statistics to back up anything I am about to say, I would offer a suggestion that the tangential and experiential evidence would say it depends on what we mean by progressive Christianity.

For example. Over the past 5 years I have moderated some large progressive Christian groups on Facebook. What I have found is that progressive Christianity is definitely growing, but at the same time the original charter has seemed to become more amorphous. But that is not necessarily a bad thing, depending on what one is looking for.

When I first started gravitating toward the label, progressive Christianity stood for serious academic theological exploration, which naturally led most to have very unorthodox views of scriptural and spiritual norms. It was mostly led by older white men, and it was mostly intellectual. Naturally I fit right in (chuckle). But as it has evolved, its gate has become much wider, and the tent much larger. Which in many ways has made it more prolific.

These days, a progressive Christian may still come across quite evangelical in nature, but trend toward the progressive spectrum because they have become less literal about the Bible and hell – while also becoming affirming of folks in the LGBT community. That is a great thing by all accounts, however when some of the newer folks hear some of the veterans in the camp talk about theology, it can start some hearty debates.

So the tradeoff is a growing diversity, especially with more women, people of color, and folks in the LGBT community; as well as a growing focus on the social good that can come as society evolves. The evolution has also sparked a growing renaissance of community Church-like expressions. Therefore the answer to whether progressive Christianity is growing probably just comes down to how strictly one defines what it means to be a progressive Christian, and how open one is to change.

Thanks for the great question.

Peace and Blessings - Eric

Click here to read and share online

About the Author
Eric Alexander is an author, speaker, and entrepreneur. He is a board member at ProgressiveChristianity.org, and is the founder of Jesism, Christian Evolution, and the Progressive Christianity and Politics group on Facebook. Eric holds a Master of Theology from Saint Leo University and studied negotiations at Harvard Law School, and and is author of Teaching Kids Life IS Good.
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Announcements

..Patience Builders – 2018
Online November 12th - December 2nd

As a nod to the patience we all need in order to hold steady during turbulent times (as well as during the holiday season!),Spirituality & Practice decided to create this special 2018 editionwith an online Practice Circle. You will find many kindred spirits there with whom to share your experiences and reflections.

Click here for more information/registration ...
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