Meeting the Challenge

 
As President of the PC.org Board, and until recently, acting Executive Director, I somehow found myself with the job that requires I read all of the comments and complaints from our readers. After I read them, I either respond to them or try and find someone else to do it from our organization. Most of the time I find this part of my job informative and rewarding. The number of readers who write to thank us, or make a positive comment runs about four to one.  I enjoy reading how someone felt an article we published changed their life or their perspective. I also like reading how someone who had been struggling with an evangelist friend, found strength to begin to unpack his/her view of religion or their faith journey.  I even enjoy reading an email from someone who disagrees with one of our writers or frankly something I wrote in a particular column, but is supportive of our efforts to provide wide a spectrum of positions.

However, recently I have heard from a couple of people who wondered why we cannot find anyone like Bishop Spong to write the column. A couple of them let me know they were going to cancel their subscription and one said they would continue taking the articles but put me on notice that we needed to make some changes.

For example, one writer took us to task because our author had used a common swear word, even though it was a word the President of the United States had used. That was the point of the article by the way. Another writer complained about the way our writer “trashed the great history” of the Methodist tradition, when in fact the author was a proud, Methodist pastor and had been for over 20 years. His remarks were really about how the Methodists leadership had forgotten their own long term traditions and values.

Now please do not think for one moment that we did not expect some blow back when we had to announce that Bishop Spong could no longer write his column. We were not naïve. First of all, Bishop Spong is a brilliant scholar. Not only does he have the depth of someone who studied and wrote his whole professional life, but he was and continues to be a voracious reader. Many other authors wanted Bishop Spong to write reviews of their new books which he often did, but he had to read them. He kept up with what was going on in the world.

Secondarily, unlike most scholars, he did not get into a rut. He did his research and if something new came along, or if he had second thoughts on something, he was willing to change. He also has a wonderful way of taking the most complex issues and explaining them in a way that most of us could understand. That is a talent that few people have.

Thirdly, Bishop Spong is a man in his eighties who has been writing this column for over twenty years. He had developed personal relationships with most of his regular readers, the vast majority of whom had been receiving his column for at least ten years, many of them longer than that. I wish I could show you some of the emails and notes we were asked to forward to him during his time of recovery. Many of the folks who wrote him during this time period were personal, warm and familiar. They were like someone writing their dear “Uncle John.”  Others were not quite so familiar but shared fond memories of a time they heard him speak and how much it had meant to them. And we have no idea how many of them wrote directly to his home. He had six thousand subscribers at one point and it was a loyal group of people, not to mention the over 25,000 Facebook fans.

And finally, Bishop Spong could write about someone he knew, or knew about in politics. He would gently, or not so gently, critique his/her actions based on his/her supposed religious claims. Some would call that political. However, Bishop Spong would wrap him/her in a long story and with interesting details and few, if any, accused him of getting political. It was another gift that he brought to the table.

Please know that I sincerely appreciate all of these traits in the Bishop, and frankly several more I have not mentioned. He is a dear friend and I appreciate his gifts. However, when we began to think about whom we might want as authors to take up the reigns, we knew it was not going to be easy.  I talked with Bishop Spong on several occasions and our organization created a list of potential candidates. You may be surprised to learn that over half of the people on our lists were suggestions or even recommendations by Bishop Spong.

Now here is the important point. Our goal was not to replace him. We knew that was impossible. Our goal, rather, was to find younger people when possible, who were already immersed in some type of a religious profession and were “doing” some of the things that Bishop Spong has been suggesting over the years. Our goal was to find people who were no longer struggling with the old time religion and were moving in a new direction.  In other words we were looking for practitioners of the way that Spong has been outlining, particularly in his last book, Unbelievable. (I am aware that most of you are still waiting to get your copy…soon I hope.)

For most of his career, Bishop Spong was first and foremost a “deconstructionist.” He unpacked the Bible, chapter by chapter, verse by verse to show us just what the writers or story tellers were thinking and the history behind the writings. Some of the time he surprised us and other times he said things that many of us were thinking but never knew just how to explain it. But he used his incredible knowledge of the Bible to show us how far off we had taken the Jesus story.

For example in 1990 he wrote a book, Living in Sin. In this book he took on the silliness of our approach to human sexuality based on a false understanding of our Bible. He covered everything from marriage to learning to love the LGBT community, especially in our churches.  Then in 1992 he wrote a book called Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism. In this book he demonstrated a lack of knowledge of the Bible was our real problem. Spong challenges the science of many of the fundamentalists’ understanding of the Bible.  Then in 1994 he published a book, Born of a Woman. In this book he dealt with the folly of a virgin birth and the church’s poor treatment of women, as a result.  In 1996 he wrote Liberating the Gospels. This was a powerful book that helps us see the Bible through the eyes of a Jewish scholar. It frees us to read the Bible with a different perspective, the perspective for which it was intended. In 1999 he wrote, Why Christianity Must Change or Die.  I believe this is where he first used the term, “Believers in Exile.” And in this book he demonstrates the limits of the traditional Christian faith and the impact this has had on our failing churches. In 2011 he wrote, Re-claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World and 2013 he wrote book called The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic. In this book he explains that there were at least two people who wrote the gospel during a tumultuous time for these early Jewish/Christians and they were forced to adjust their thinking.

This is certainly not a complete list of books Bishop Spong has written over his amazing career, but clearly demystifying the Bible was one of his major focuses. No one can do it better than him. Quite honestly, we have not yet found an author who can match Bishop Spong’s gifts, work ethic, his devotion who was willing to write an article every week, and whom also has a personal relationship with our readers. But we invite you to be open to the journey with us as his endorsed authors begin to create this relationship with you and share their visions and incredible unique gifts.

Now before you pick up your pen to write me an angry letter citing different places in one or even several of his books where Bishop Spong was making some suggestions on how we might rebuild Christianity, I know he did that. Someone might even point out his book, A New Christianity for a New World published in 2001. And yes he did begin to make some important recommendations in that book that could be considered reconstruction or rebuilding.

However, in his newest book, Unbelievable Spong calls for a whole new way of approaching the Christian faith. It is not totally a new thought for him, but in this book he is being very specific about how he sees a future of Christianity. In this book he spells out twelve theses, starting with the need to recreate our understanding of the word God. He then walks us through the balance of the eleven other theses and an epilogue. At the end of the book he simply asks, “Can Christian theology once again be enabled to interact with contemporary knowledge? Can Christian liturgies be made to reflect reality rather than nostalgia? Can Christianity affirm human oneness while still embracing its radical diversity? Can this faith create a new institutional form that fosters a truth-seeking, universal community?”

Bishop Spong calls for change. He challenges us to begin to rebuild a new Christianity and frankly, that is what we are trying to do here. These are the issues we have asked our authors to deal with. We do not need to do any more deconstruction. It has been done, and done well. There are still organizations that are devoted to this endeavor but we no longer see the need for that.  We are trying to build something that we can proudly call a New Christianity. This is what we are trying to birth even though we do not yet know what form it will eventually take, what it will look like, or how it will feel. We do know that most of us will not be around to see the end results. That is the challenge we have been given, however, and we accepted it.

Over the next several months, we will be asking our esteemed authors to share their perspective on the above questions. I look forward to hearing what they share. I hope you do as well. I am honored and excited to be on this transformative journey with you all. It will take all of us. It will take the wisdom from our elders and the innovation of our younger generations. It will take bravery, creativity and radical trust.

I recently came across a quote and I apologize for not knowing the source. I have Googled it and flipped through several books to no avail. But it went something like:

This is something I shared with our Board two weeks ago, and this is something I am sharing with our authors.  And this is something today, I am sharing with you. Thank you for your continued support.

And please feel free to let me know how we are doing.

~ Fred C. Plumer

Read the essay online here.

About the Author

In 1986 Rev. Plumer was called to the Irvine United Congregational Church in Irvine, CA to lead a UCC new start church, where he remained until he retired in 2004. The church became known throughout the denomination as one of the more exciting and progressive mid-size congregations in the nation.  He served on the Board of Directors of the Southern California Conference of the United Church of Christ (UCC) for five years, and chaired the Commission for Church Development and Evangelism for three of those years.
 
In 2006 Fred was elected President of ProgressiveChristianity.org (originally called The Center for Progressive Christianity - TCPC) when it’s founder Jim Adams retired. As a member of the Executive Council for TCPC he wrote The Study Guide for The 8 Points by which we define: Progressive Christianity.  He has had several articles published on church development, building faith communities and redefining the purpose of the enlightened Christian Church. His book Drink from the Well is an anthology from speeches, articles in eBulletins, and numerous publications that define the progressive Christianity movement as it evolves to meet new challenges in a rapidly changing world.

Dr. Wallace from the Internet, asks:
 

 

Dear Dr. Wallace,

Great question. If I had the answer to it, I'd currently have a bestselling book. But, I don't.

It seems to me that we are talking about the difference between two kinds of belief. The first is a belief that is not backed by action. It is basically an opinion. The believer hasn't integrated the belief into who they are. They are merely holding onto it as an intellectual plaything (and I'm not saying that's an entirely bad thing). Given the opportunity to put that opinion into action is typically a positive experience. For most, however, it is only that – a positive experience that reinforces their belief/opinion. It doesn't cause the belief to become more integrated into who they understand themselves to be as a person.

That brings me to the second kind of belief. This is belief backed by action. As a matter of fact, it's a belief that's held so deeply, you almost literally have no choice but to act upon it. We'll call it, conviction. For some people, putting a belief/opinion into action can connect with them on a deeper level and move to a point of belief/conviction.

This seldom, if ever, happens if people only donate money or specific items. While those are very necessary things, they are charity. Charity is needed and it helps those giving feel like they are doing something good, but it doesn't tend to deeply impact the emotional and theological outlook of a person.

If, however, they are hand delivering those items to those in need, we begin to take baby steps toward making charity a thing of justice. Unlike being involved with charity, justice does have a tendency to connect more deeply with people. As you are making contact with those in need, hearing their stories, understanding their struggles, and then possibly taking a stand with them against the systems that oppress them, it becomes personal – you become convicted.

I guess what I'm saying is, not surprisingly, if you want to be convicted in your love of neighbor (maybe particularly your marginalized neighbor), a good place to start is in actually getting getting to know them. Just like Jesus did.

~ Rev. Mark Sandlin

Read and Share Online Here

About the Author

Rev. 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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In this series of essays, I have tried to push our analysis of the Passover story that anchors the gospel accounts of Jesus, beyond that primitive literalism that so often captures religious systems, so that its real truth can be perceived. This attempt is focused on the goal of discerning what it was that constituted the original and powerful Jesus experience. Something caused those first disciples to come to the conclusion that somehow, in some way, through some means, God had been met in this Christ, and that in Jesus a doorway into God had been opened. In that process, I suggested that the coupling of the story of the crucifixion of Jesus with the Passover story of the killing of the paschal lamb resulted not from history or memory, but from an interpretive, liturgical process. That is, the passion narratives of the gospels were written not in a reporter's language but in the language of worship.

The first step was to demonstrate the fact that so many parts of the crucifixion story include symbols that suggest that it occurred in the fall of the year rather than in the early spring. Among those symbols were the leafy branches of the first Palm Sunday, the fig tree that Jesus was said to have cursed because it bore no figs months before its fruit might have been expected, and the Jewish fall festival of Sukkoth that seems to have provided significant content to the Christian narrative. Next I examined the substance and the form of that first passion narrative recorded in Mark, demonstrating that its content came not from eyewitnesses but from the ancient sources of Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. Its form suggested that it was written to observe a twenty-four hour vigil. It was neatly divided into eight three-hour segments that would carry the worshippers from 6:00 p.m. on what we now call Maundy Thursday to 6:00 p.m. on what we now call Good Friday. Since according to the earliest Christian sources there were no eyewitnesses to the crucifixion, its original purpose was surely not to relate what actually happened on that hill called Calvary. Jesus died alone. We must not forget that authentic note in Mark's gospel that tells us that when Jesus was arrested, all of his disciples, ALL OF THEM, forsook him and fled. When the death of Jesus began to be seen as similar to the death of the paschal lamb of Passover, it was natural that the crucifixion story and the Passover would be blended and the one superimposed on the other.

Paul made that connection quite overtly when he wrote in his epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 5:7), that Christ 'our new paschal lamb,' or 'our Passover' as the King James translators have it, 'has been sacrificed for us.' He then urged the Corinthians to 'celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.' The Book of Exodus suggests only unleavened bread was to be eaten at the time of the Passover (Exodus 12:1-14). Paul makes this reference with no explanation because it clearly had become an accepted part of the Christian understanding of the death of Jesus by the mid-fifties when this epistle was written. Our question thus becomes: What did it mean to the early Jewish Christians to see the death of Jesus as linked to the slaughter of the Paschal Lamb?

First, let me relate the biblical story of Passover from the book of Exodus, for I discover that Christians are typically ignorant of the sacred traditions of the Jews. The biblical setting for the first Passover is ancient Egypt. Moses armed, we are told, with the power of God has gone in answer to a call heard in the burning bush to negotiate the release of the slave people from Egypt. The Pharaoh was unmoved by Moses' plea and so God begins a divine reign of terror against the Egyptians that we have come to call 'The Plagues.' First, the Nile was turned to blood and the fish in it died. Next came the plague of frogs, then gnats, then flies, then the cattle became sick and the Egyptians broke out with boils. This was followed by the plagues of hailstones, locusts and darkness. Periodically during the plagues, the biblical story tells us that Pharaoh relented and promised to let the people go whereupon God removed that particular plague. But the narrative says both that 'Pharaoh's heart was hardened' (Exodus 9:34), and that 'God hardened' his heart (Exodus 10:20), thus allowing the plagues to continue their devastation.

Finally, in some desperation, the story reaches its climax in the 11th and 12th chapters of Exodus. There God informs Moses of the divine plan for the final and most devastating plague of all. God will send the angel of death throughout the land of Egypt to slay the first-born male in every household. However, a problem arose as to how the angel of death would know the difference between a Jewish home and an Egyptian home lest this angel kill Jews by mistake. Clearly God hated only Egyptians! To solve this problem, God tells Moses to instruct the people of Israel to protect themselves in this manner.

Each family is to choose a lamb from its flocks on the 10th day of the month called Nisan. If a family is too small to consume a whole lamb, it is to join its neighbors or to gather single people into extended family groups so that no one is excluded from the feast or put at risk from the avenging God. The lamb to be sacrificed shall be male, one year old and without blemish, says the text. On the 14th day of that month, this lamb is to be slaughtered and the blood from the lamb shall be sprinkled on the Jewish doorposts of those homes in which the paschal feast is to be eaten. This blood would be a sign to the angel of death that this was a Jewish home so that no one within it would be killed. Presumably the angel of death did not have supernatural power, or the ability to discern a Jewish home from an Egyptian home so the angel had to be guided by the sign of blood on the doorpost. Wherever a bloody doorpost appeared, the angel of death would "pass over" that house and thus slay only Egyptians. This is where the term 'Passover' emerges. It was a strange tribal story, in many ways an evil story that portrayed God as hating all those whom the chosen people hate. When this angel struck, death was experienced from the palace of the Pharaoh to the humblest Egyptian household, including even the first-born male animals in the Egyptian flocks. While all of Egypt was in mourning the Jews would ceremonially eat the roasted body of the lamb of God before beginning their escape to the freedom of the wilderness. That is the Passover story in all of its gory details.

Now try to imagine a synagogue celebrating Passover in those years following the crucifixion of Jesus at which some of the disciples of Jesus, "The Followers of the Way" they were called, were present as worshipers. As the drama of Passover was reenacted, these early disciples used the liturgical setting to help them understand the meaning of Jesus' death. His death, they had come to believe, had also hurled back the power of death. With his own blood Jesus had pushed the specter of death away from his people. I suspect this connection was first made in a primitive Christian sermon and it went something like this: "Our ancestors once lived in bondage in the land of Egypt. When they made good their escape it was because God had used the blood of the paschal lamb to break the power of death. Now in a similar fashion, we who lived in the bondage of sin have experienced a new deliverance. The blood of Jesus, our new paschal lamb, has been placed upon the cross that was symbolically the doorpost of the world. That blood has broken the power of death that is always the result of sin and is its ultimate punishment, according to the story about the Garden of Eden. So the blood of the new paschal lamb has freed those of us who through this Christ now come out of our bondage into the glorious liberty of the children of God. We will thus be spared the permanence and pain of mortality, for in this Jesus death itself has been swallowed up in victory." The cross thus came to be viewed the moment of deliverance for the followers of Jesus, just as the slaying of the paschal lamb had become the moment of Jewish deliverance. The Christian observance of its founding was celebrated in the liturgy of the Eucharist in every age, just like the Passover was celebrated every year as an observance of the founding of Judaism. Liturgy serves to remind us of who we are, where we have come from and what it is that we have come to believe is our ultimate destiny. In this manner, crucifixion was tied into Passover and by the time the gospels were written decades later, the liturgical interpretation of the cross had been historicized and the crucifixion of Jesus was said to have literally occurred at the time of the Passover. Then quite naturally the liturgy recalling the final hours in Jesus' life became for Christians an expanded version of what the liturgy of the Passover had been for Jews.

After the Christian Church became substantially Gentile by the turn of the century, this Jewish background was first ignored and then forgotten. That meant that the description of the founding moment in the Jesus story began to be understood as the account of eyewitnesses. So it was that the story of the cross became literalized as if it were an objective historical account of the founding moment of the Christian faith.

To deliteralize this experience is not to destroy it, as traditionalists believe, it is rather to open the experience so that it becomes timeless, and people in every age might enter it. Once the deliteralization process begins, however, it goes on and on. If the story of the cross is not remembered history, if the connection of the Passover with the crucifixion is not literal then is any part of the time frame of the passion story to be literalized? Was the symbol of the three days that was said to separate crucifixion from Resurrection a literal measure of 72 hours? Or is there some new and deeper meaning even there? To that question I will turn next wee

~ John Shelby Spong
Originally published February 23, 2005

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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.

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