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Unbelievable - Part I
Bishop John Shelby Spong
The book has elements about it that have bordered on the miraculous. I was not sure I would ever be able to complete it. I had written about ninety per cent of this volume before I had a stroke in September of 2016. The stroke immobilized my right side. It was not clear that I would recover. I could not lift my right hand, nor walk without a walker, dragging my right leg. These symptoms, however, began to fade in about six weeks and all my limbs have returned to functioning, a bit weaker, but functioning nonetheless. My tread mill was a valuable aid. I had used it daily for many years, but now it became important in my rehabilitation. My rule was to use the track for one hour a day. Once I did twelve minute miles or five miles an hour. Today in that hour I do three and one quarter miles, not a jogger’s pace, but steady as strength has flowed back into my body. One symptom, however, has remained resistant to my efforts at recovery. I cannot make my right hand write legibly enough that I can read it. I could use the computer, but that is not natural to me. I never learned to type and hunting and pecking takes so much time. People suggested that I get a program where I talk into my computer and it converts the words to print. I tried that, but perhaps I was undone by my southern accent. Every time I spoke the word “career” the computer would write “Korea!”
There was still the final ten per cent of the book to be done: a chapter on why I believe in life after death, the final chapter of the book on universalism as the mark of a non-tribal Christianity, and the Epilogue on my “mantra” – the “what I do believe!” chapter. Each of these was frankly significant to the book’s argument. They had to be right. I finally dictated them to my wife and she typed them. Then I could proceed to the editing.
I wanted this final book to be more than a mediocre work. It had to be clear and understandable. I tried to develop a crucial distinction between the Christ experience and the Christ explanation. The experience is real and timeless; the explanation is in the language of its day and is thereby time-warped and time-bound. The explanation must be surrendered, but the experience does not have to go with it. The Incarnation, the virgin birth, resuscitation as the meaning of resurrection and the concept of the Holy Trinity – all are explanations that will never last. People hear the experience of Christ being challenged when it is only the explanation that is at stake. I wanted to make sure that people could understand that explanations have to die, but the experience remains eternal. Human religion is always bound by time.
Most people do not recognize what makes a book excellent and memorable. So let me tell you what occurs. There are four primary steps of editing, which we have developed. First my own turn and Christine’s – it is a joint task. I would read the manuscript and produce the editing cuts and send them to Christine. She would go over them, incorporating the changes with which she agreed and doing a thorough punctuation check. Her rule is that if you have to read a sentence twice, it needs to be changed. She was raised on English grammar and is a minimalist on commas. We always make a request not to be bound by the style sheet provided by Harper. They agreed.
Then in round two the book goes to two professionals – the manuscript manager, Lisa Zuniga, and the copy editor, Kathy Reigstad. I have never met these two ladies, but they have worked on my last four books and I admire them greatly. They live in different parts of the Pacific Northwest. They both always come back with suggestions of what it would take to make the work better. Sometimes a word I have chosen is just not right and a new one has to be found. Sometimes dates need to be added to produce the correct context of my subject. Sometimes I depend on my memory and have been proved dead wrong. One quote that I was sure was from Mahatma Gandhi turned out to be from G. K. Chesterton. In any event after this second editorial phase the manuscript comes back to me. I am invited to accept or reject each of their changes. This is hard work, but I am well served by the team of Zuniga and Reigstad.
The third editing then takes place. Overwhelmingly I accept the work of these two geniuses. Occasionally I will rewrite a passage to make my point clear. Finally they have noted passages that are somewhat repetitious. I read the marked places in the manuscript. I pull these repetitions out of the text, place them side by side and choose where it is best to make this point. This task completed, I return the book to Lisa and she incorporates all of the changes into the manuscript. The book begins to shine.
The last editorial opportunity comes when the manuscript comes back from Lisa to me for a final read. All the changes that have been made are incorporated. The book is supposed to be almost complete. Changes are costly at this point, but one reads it again. We find little things. One row of type was not perfectly lined up. One repetition still glared forth on the final read and had to be struck with my editor’s pen. We argue over arcane uses of punctuation. Then comes the moment when the book is put into a UPS envelope and sent on its final journey never to be seen again until it arrives finished at my door about six weeks later. I recognize sadly that this will be the last book of my career. When it went out on its final journey, there was a personal sense of completion and just a little bit of depression. I will not know this experience ever again. Christine and I celebrated by going out to lunch. Life has been a grand adventure.
The book title is always a critical issue for the author. I want the title to reflect the content of the book. HarperCollins, however, has a different agenda. They want the title to leap off the shelves at the bookstores and challenge the potential readers. My working title was Charting a New Reformation. That was descriptive, if not exciting. The book went to the publisher under that name. It did not appeal to my editor, Michael (Mickey) Maudlin. Few of my other titles have passed his test in the past. Over the years, however, I have come to trust him. He communicated back with another idea – a one word title, Unbelievable. My daughters thought it was fantastic. If Christianity in its present form has become unbelievable, it is better to be honest and say so. This title would work for me if we could add a subtitle that would give a hint of the book’s content. My final proposal was to add the words Why Neither Ancient Creeds nor the Reformation Can Produce a Living Faith Today. That satisfied everyone and the title was set in early June of 2017.
In late August while I was reading the New York Sunday Times I spotted a feature story on Katy Tur, a reporter for NBC News. She had been given the unique assignment to follow Donald Trump in his pursuit of the presidency. At the time that the assignment was made it was of minor importance. Donald Trump was not at that time considered a strong candidate, but time has a way of changing perceptions and Trump won the election. Katy’s career was clearly “struck by lightning.” The article then stated that Katy was writing a book on the Trump campaign that would be released in September. Her title was Unbelievable and it was being published under the imprint of William Morris, which just happens to be a HarperCollins label. I was floored.
I wrote to my editor and asked what that title would do to my title. I found it hard to believe the two parts of HarperCollins could have two books published within five months of each other, using the same title and not know about it. I learned that one part of Harper located in San Francisco did not communicate with the part of Harper located in New York. We went immediately into a search for a new title. Why Christianity Has Become Unbelievable was offered. That did not satisfy me. I do not believe that Christianity itself has become unbelievable, but that the form in which Christianity has been communicated has become so. That title was, therefore, misleading. We ruled out other titles like Not Believable. That sounded negative. Mickey then urged us to wait. We did not have to rush to a decision. We had lots of time.
Katy’s book came out in September with a large media campaign. It was reviewed by the New York Times Book Review. It was third on the Times non-fiction best seller list that week and remained in that position for a second week. Then it fell to sixth for two more weeks before it disappeared from that list. The interest of the country had moved toward the Trump administration and away from the campaign. Mickey then decided not to change the title of my book at all. He argued that between September and January is an eternity in the book business and felt that the two books are about very different subjects so that there is little chance of them being confused. So the decision was made to stick with the original title. I do not know Katy Tur, but I do admire her. I wish her well and I was honored to have this footnote of similarity connect her book with mine for just a moment.
It is now the time to introduce my book to the reading public. I will talk about its content next week. I see it as the crowning achievement of my writing career.
~ John Shelby Spong
An Endorsement From The United Kingdom
If you choose just one book of John Shelby Spong’s then choose Unbelievable. This final book is not only a summation of his life’s teaching, but a contemporary catechism that addresses the real questions and profound hesitations that contemporary women and men really do have about Christianity. Put another way, it provides in one volume the basis for a new reformation for all those who have left the church in despair or who will never darken its doors because of the intellectual non-sense and constricted life that are perceived to be required by its followers. Here is something different that asks us not to check our brains at the door, but to think deeply, “to live fully, to love wastefully and to be all that we can be.”
Peter Francis, Warden
The Gladstone Library
The United Kingdom
Read the essay online here.
Question & Answer
Ginny from Reno, Nevada asks:
Question:
Why is it so important to you to view the Gospels as "midrash" rather than as history?
Answer: Rev. Mark Sandlin
Dear Ginny,
It's not so much that it is important to anyone personally to view the Gospels as midrash as much as it is that careful scholarship rather strongly suggests that viewing the synoptic Gospels as such puts us much closer not only to their original intent, but also closer to how they would have been received by Jewish ears of the day.
The reality is that it is very difficult to read the Gospels as history through modern eyes. Having just passed through the Christmas season, let's take the stories of the first Christmas as an example.
The first thing to notice is that I said the “stories,” plural. We have two very different stories of the first Christmas. If it were history you'd expect them to match more closely. Not necessarily perfectly match, but you'd expect them to have more in common. Also, for such remarkable stories it is even more remarkable that the earliest writing in the New Testament either found the birth of Jesus to be somewhat unremarkable (Paul) or didn't even bother to mention it at all (Mark). Add to all of that the reality that historical documents do not support several of the events mentioned in the stories (such as the census and King Herod killing the male babies in the area), it becomes increasingly difficult to see the events recorded as actual history.
That can seem somewhat devastating to those of us who grew up being told that the stories were real and shouldn't be questioned, but if we read it as midrash, we are very likely to find it packed with meaning every bit as important as it would be were it meant to be recorded history. Much like letting go of the story of Santa being real does not make the lesson of the joy of giving to others any less important.
For example, the virgin birth tells us that Jesus had a very special connection to the Divine. Let's face it, biologically it really does take two to tango and in that day and age they believed the entirety of a human being was held in the man's seed and women nourished and grew those seeds. A birth without a man involved? Both then and now, it would have been seen and should be seen as an impossibility. So, you dig for the deeper understanding and meaning.
Ultimately, midrash is a way of making a truth more timeless. It takes the present (in this case the historic Jesus) and houses it in the concepts and symbols of yesterday (the OT) in order to preserve the mean of the faith story for future generations. As Spong suggests in “Resurrection: Myth or Reality,” using midrash to relate Jesus to Hebrew traditions speaks to him being on a timeless, holy journey. The idea here is not simply to record the history of Jesus, but as Spong says, to “canonize” him on a more mythic level.
Ultimately, the Gospel writers were Jewish and, not surprisingly, used Jewish techniques to communicate their stories. The Gospels they wrote were mostly written for Jewish people who were very familiar with midrash and could recognize it and understand its purpose. As the Christian movement grew and included more and more folks outside of the Jewish tradition, it began to lose its connection and understanding of those Jewish techniques.
For some people, re-embracing midrash as a way to understand the Gospels can seem like it undercuts their importance, but quite the opposite is actually true. Midrash elevates the stories and places them in the realms of the holy. It packages them in stories that are so magical and unbelievable that it invites the reader to explore more deeply the hiding meaning, all the while, recognizing that they are stories of the extraordinary.
In the end, reading the Gospels this way should bring us closer to the way they were originally understood and in doing so should bring us closer to the way Jesus was understood in those days. For me, that is a remarkable gift that excites me, challenges me, and inspires me.
~ Rev. Mark Sandlin
Read and share online here
About the Author
Mark Sandlin is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) from the South. He currently serves at Presbyterian Church of the Covenant. He is a co-founder of The Christian Left. His blog, has been named as one of the “Top Ten Christian Blogs.” Mark received The Associated Church Press' Award of Excellence in 2012. His work has been published on "The Huffington Post," "Sojourners," "Time," "Church World Services," and even the "Richard Dawkins Foundation." He's been featured on PBS's "Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly" and NPR's "The Story with Dick Gordon.” Follow Mark on Facebook and Twitter @marksandlin
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited
Weeping Over the Grave of God
Part II of a series about the Tsunami
In a 20th century drama entitled, "Conversation at Midnight," playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay had her character Ricardo speak these words: "Man has never been the same since God died. He has taken it very hard...He gets along pretty well, as long as it's daylight...but it's no use. The moment it begins to get dark, as soon as it is night, he goes out and howls over the grave of God."
Those words have been very poignant for me through the years, rising every time I experience the tragic dimensions of life that in the past were cushioned by the traditional understanding of God. The earthquake in the Indian Ocean, which spawned the Tsunami waves killing more than 150,000 people, was the latest occasion for calling to mind these words.
Had such a tragedy struck our world 500-600 years ago, two things would have been quite different. First, the probability is that most of the people of the Western world would never have known about it. The world was so vast in that period of history. Oceans and language were great barriers. Communication systems were quite primitive. This Tsunami would have made its way only into the remembered history of the affected areas, entering the folklore of the people and producing perhaps another story like the one about Noah.
In the 21st century, however, the press covered this enormous disaster relentlessly. Pictures of its horror invaded our homes via television. The story journeyed with us through our car radios. It dominated the front pages of newspapers across this planet. There was no escape from the searing reality of the carnage, the cries of the victims or those newly bereaved. No one could avoid staring at the mass graves or trying to embrace what it means to lose so many lives so suddenly. People's emotions were numbed. This was not an attack by a foreign enemy to which people could release the frenzy of their pent up anger. It was the work of an impersonal force tearing up the earth miles beneath the ocean floor and unleashing waves of such height, power and fury that they destroyed everything in their path. Elderly people died. Babies died, sick and crippled people died, mothers died, fathers died. Rich vacationers died, poor peasants died. It had no rhyme, no reason and it lent itself to no rational process of thinking.
The second thing that was different was that in the past this tragedy would have been understood in the context of a religious worldview. Theories would abound as to what its meaning was and why God was so displeased that this divine punishment was hurled at the world. That was the way that Europe understood the Bubonic Plague in the 14th century and the way the storm that sank the Spanish armada in 1588 was interpreted. In the Tsunami coverage this religious dimension was totally missing at first, a clear indication that the religious worldview of the past no longer exists. Instead we were given geological lessons about the collision of tectonic plates. No one assumed that the victims were being punished. No one offered a rational explanation implying any purpose. Only after the passage of several days did the religious spokespersons begin to present their explanations on television and radio talk shows, but these voices were singularly lacking in both profundity and credibility. Larry King, interviewing not clergy but former Presidents Bush and Clinton, kept pressing both of them to say what this tragedy had done to their faith. President George W. H. Bush in response referred to the time he had lost a daughter and it "did cause me to wonder why...an innocent child." President Clinton referred to the unfairness of life at all times and urged Larry King to have on his program representative theologians from the religions practiced by most of the victims, Hindu, Moslem, Buddhist and Christian, to have them discuss how their faith helped them to understand this disaster. This tragedy simply did not lend itself to their pious but threadbare explanations. This was simply nature acting with the fury for which nature is well known.
Perhaps the last gasp of that traditional, pre-modern religious thinking occurred after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, when Jerry Falwell, appearing on Pat Robertson's 700 Club, offered the opinion that God had removed the shield of divine protection from America because its leaders had begun to tolerate "feminists, abortionists, homosexuals and the American Civil Liberties Union." The nation gasped at this level of religious arrogance and the current Bush administration distanced itself from these remarks, saying it did not want to be associated with that kind of response. Yet, years ago that was the typical and almost universal explanation. It is the common explanation that one encounters in the writing of the biblical prophets.
What has happened in the intervening years to change public perceptions? I think it is fair to say that God, understood as an external, supernatural, miracle-working deity has died. The death of this God was not sudden. The realization of this divine demise has slowly trickled down over the centuries from the intellectuals to the masses. The death of this God has spawned two seemingly opposite responses in our day. One is the development of a radically secular society. The other is in the hysterical rise of fundamentalist, evangelical religion that represents a denial that the death of God has occurred.
How did this death of God occur? It began in the 16th century with Copernicus and his later disciples Kepler and Galileo, who forced us to see that the earth was not the center of the universe and that God did not live just beyond the sky, engaged in the tasks of watching, planning, intervening, keeping record books, punishing and rewarding. This insight posed a mighty challenge to the God we met in the pages of scripture. This God was quite capable of splitting the Red Sea to liberate the Chosen People and of dictating the Ten Commandments to Moses. As the understanding of the universe expanded, we no longer knew where God was and more importantly who God was. The universe seemed very large and we began to feel very lonely. Then Isaac Newton explained how the laws of nature operated in this universe, leaving little room for miracle and magic. Next Charles Darwin challenged our assumption that human life was just a little lower than the angels, suggesting instead that it was just a little higher than the apes. Finally, Albert Einstein took away all certainty, replacing it with relativity. With each new insight, the traditional concept of God faded into the shadows.
The next step in the desacralization of our world came when we could no longer explain evil with our appeals to this supernatural deity. Life seemed more and more governed by chance and less and less by purpose. Analyzing who survived the attack on the World Trade Center, we discovered that it was the chance factor of whether they worked on the upper floors or the lower floors, not whether they were deserving or not. Passengers on the doomed 9/11 airliners prayed fervently but no divine hand reached down to give them aid. They were the chance victims who booked passage on the wrong plane. Then came the earthquake and the Tsunami. It erupted beneath the sea. It killed religious people and non-religious people. It killed Christians, Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists. No God stopped it. When people thought about it they concluded that no God could stop it, which posed a provocative theological issue in such a way that it was inescapable. If God has the power to intervene and does not, then surely God is malevolent. If God does not have the power then God is impotent. Either way the traditional God explanation fails. What we had long suspected intellectually we began to embrace emotionally. There is no supernatural divine power that stands at our side to be our protector. Thus the traditional religious worldview died and people began to cope with what it means to be citizens of a lonely and seemingly empty universe. As the days pass and the world begins to return to its normal routines, voices will surely try to respirate artificially the old world view in order to make sense of this disaster, in an effort to preserve the remaining shreds of divinity to which we cling so tenaciously. Their words, however, will inevitably sound empty and hollow because they will be spoken out of a religious context that is no longer believable and is no longer ours.
Does this mean that there is no God? That is a common conclusion of those who today inhabit the 'secular city,' but I don't think so. I am convinced, however, that it does mean that the primary way we have thought about God for almost 10,000 years is dying or is dead. Since most people do not or cannot separate God from our traditional definition of God, it feels to many like there is no God or that God has died. God and the human definition of God are, however, not identical.
Perhaps God can be met and experienced in ways beyond the theistic definitions of the past. Perhaps it is still possible to encounter transcendence, otherness, holiness or timelessness without locating these realities in an external supernatural, miracle-working, invasive deity? That is where their inner quest has led many people in the modern world today. I stand with them. This means, I believe, that we stand on the edge of the most profound spiritual revolution in human history. It is dawning with rending power in the human psyche. We will, however, never be able to encounter this reality until we allow the traditional God concept from the days of our childlike humanity to die. For many that is a fearful transition to be avoided by all means including denial, but for me and for others it represents a new chapter in human history for which we yearn with deep anticipation. I will seek to open a door into that scary place next week.
~ John Shelby Spong
Originally published January 12, 2005
Announcements
Why Christianity Is No Longer Believable –
And How We Can Change That
Pre-order John Shelby Spong’s final book, "Unbelievable"
Five hundred years after Martin Luther and his Ninety-Five Theses ushered in the Reformation, bestselling author and controversial bishop and teacher John Shelby Spong delivers twelve forward-thinking theses to spark a new reformation to reinvigorate Christianity and ensure its future.
(Book goes on sale February 13, 2018)
