the +John Shelby Spong discussion thread

[plaid_pixie]

this thread is for me and polycarp (and others can ask questions) to discuss Bishop John Shelby Spong.

mods, if it gets out of control, go ahead and close it.

polycarp, can you explain his view of the virgin birth? i have heard that he does not believe it.

[longhair75]

friend plaid pixie,

i will read this thread with great interest.

[AngCath]

I'm interested to see how this will go as well.

[Polycarp1]

This can get touchy. First let me quote one point from his A New Christianity for a New World (p. 84), to set context:
...I enter this field of inquiry specifically as a Christisan, as one who believes that I have met the holy God in Jesus of Nazareth.

In dealing with doctrinal matters that Spong denies, it's important to keep in context that in his own mind, he firmly holds himself to be a Christian, one who believes in God and specifically in God through Jesus Christ, through Whom God is made manifest to the world.

That said, it's my impression that Spong sees Jesus as a human being, born of the love of Joseph and Mary's marriage sexually expressed. Upon this historical figure were superimposed myth and legend, according to him, the very human Jesus of Paul's preaching and Mark's Gospel being transformed into a supernatural figure as time went on. The nativity stories of Matthew and Luke were a part of that "mythologizing" process, according to Spong, being grafted onto the accounts as the two Gospels were edited into their present forms late in the First Century. Again from A New Christianity

The Jesus depicted in Matthew's narrative is no longer quite human. His father is the Hoy Spirit and his mother is a virgin... This narrative was a giant step forward into that portrait of Jesus which indicated that he was at his birth not really human but the incarnation of a theistic deity. (p.98)

Nevertheless Luke... thinks nothing of making Jesus apear as a divine figure in human clothing. (p. 104)

John, he suggests, rejects the whole virgin birth story in favor of the understanding of Jesus as the eternal Logos, the Word of God preexisting through all time.

In all this, Spong is carrying on Bultmann's theology that sees the historical Jesus obscured by a mythology of Jesus-the-God-Man, which must be penetrated to get at the truth about Christ.

I need to emphasize that I'm being repertorial rather than expressing personal opinion here. But I see the virgin birth question as for Spong a non-issue, just one piece of the "coat of many mythological colors" that has been draped over the real Jesus, and of no theological point. He is passionate about the ministry of Jesus and the power of the Spirit to invest us with the call to follow in His footsteps, loving as He loved and giving of ourselves as He gave of Himself. If Spong is vehement about getting rid of dogmas about Jesus, it is because he finds those dogmas getting in the way of people being able to connect with Him and follow Him.

As with many another figure, a great deal of what makes Jack Spong tick can be learned by his early life, his education, and his early career. I can go into that in some depth if desired. But I distinctly see him as feeling himself called to strip away from our picture of Jesus Christ the pre-Raphaelite imagery that (supposedly) makes him difficult for modern 21st Century people to connect with Him, and instead show Him as the one through whom God's love and power shone forth in a way that illuminates the world 20 centuries later.

[gtsecc]

Unanchored in the traditional teachings - you can get lost in extreme Protestantism, or Spong’s direction. Neither are helpful to me personally, but I do find them oddly similar.

[CSMR]

Pixie, don't fret over this one person. There are many people in the world, and Mr. Spong already has many people to fret over him.