Spong tour 2007
Bishop Spong recently toured down under and although he is not everybody’s cup of tea, he is able to communicate with an audience that would rather see churches disappear off the face of the earth.
Like it or not, there are many scholars picking over the ancient texts of the Bible with a critical eye to try and understand them better and to fill in the gaps. Not all of these scholars are Christians: some may even be ex-Christians with a chip on their shoulder. Nevertheless, Spong is able to show that there is a perfectly acceptable Christian framework that draws on these texts without offending the reductionist and rationalist modern mind.
I sometimes drop in on Vridar’s blog of atheist Biblical analysis and was pleased to see that he has found Spong of some interest which proves both mine and Spong’s point that he is reaching people who Peter Jensen can’t.
This week I listened to two talks given by Bishop Spong at St Matthew’s in Aukland. St Matthews is one of the few liberal Anglican churches running a podcast (actually it’s the only one I know of on this side of the equator).
There are quite a few Spong talks on that podcast but I’ve only listened to a couple so far. I have to say that I find Bishop Spong really easy to listen to and interesting as well. His knowledge of the Bible and Bible scholarship is to be revered but he sticks to the juicy stuff and keeps you drawn into the story he is telling.
Apart from the death threats he gets (from Christians of course) there are less extreme criticisms of him and I suppose I fall slightly into the camp that isn’t really interested so much in unraveling the scriptures and demystifying Christ. I don’t mind the Bible so much how it comes to me today as long as I’m in a community that allows the application of common sense to it. I think that whether the author was lying or bending or exaggerating or addressing some unknown concern or whatever, at the end of the day, we all have to make our own meanings of our religion internally and if we are bent on using it to harm people then that’s what we’ll do. if on the other hand, we are practicing religion for the enrichment of our lives, then we’ll gravitate towards the passages of text that are enriching and internalise those.
Listening to Spong speak, I realise that we still share an appreciation of the Bible for it’s rich imagery, emotive poetry and potential to transform the reader. The last couple of times he toured, I switched him off before he’d gotten to the last part of his talk where he flips his argument and starts to share the really valuable parts of the Bible. It’s worth listening to him talking about the Bible in this way and you realise that he isn’t all doom and gloom when it comes to the church and the Bible.
Posted: October 9th, 2007 under Bible Bashing, Inspirational People.
Comments: 2
Comments
Comment from djfoobarmatt
Time: 12/10/2007, 10:45 am
“ours is just to make sure that they have every opportunity to do that, and to care for them as fellow humans as best we can, with God’s help.” – that’s what I meant by “reaching”...
Comment from Sheena Walsh
Time: 11/10/2007, 12:31 pm
Interesting, because I have a different reaction to Spong. When I first saw him speaking, on Compass a few years ago, I was grateful that the Anglican church had someone so eloquent and engaging, who spoke directly about the problems of the church. However, I read one of his books a couple of years ago, and was appalled. I thought his reason was specious and his conclusions harmful. It took me a couple of days to recover and realise that his picture of God simply wasn’t my experience, and I could disregard him. But a lot of people listen to Spong and that worries me. He isn’t completely negative about the church, it’s true, but what he seems to think it is good for is something which I think is completely off the mark. A question I have when people argue that he wants to bring people back to the church and is one of our best chances of doing so – why do we need more people in the church? What are our reasons? Sure, Matthew tells us that Jesus laid on us The Great Commission, but it wasn’t to populate the churches, just to tell others of the good news. We should do that everyday by the living of our lives. If the church we find is helping us do that, why are we obsessed with filling it, or “rescuing” it, as Spong wants to do? What people decide to do when they encounter God is pretty much their own business, it seems to me: ours is just to make sure that they have every opportunity to do that, and to care for them as fellow humans as best we can, with God’s help.