Subject: Worried About Spong?
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 14:33:40 -0400
From: Delite <>
Newsgroups: alt.religion.christian.episcopal,alt.christnet,aus.religion.christian

Dear Folk,

Over the last two – three years I’ve read a great deal of garbage in response to
Bishop Spong’s criticism re fatal clinging to a literal readings of certain
sections of the Bible. Examples of these sections include creation myths, the
Virgin Birth, Ascension and a physically resurrected Jesus. Of course, those the
clingon Christians are bound to be upset and run around like some folk did a
while back in Australia and damn the good bishop for calling the writer of the
gospels liars. Of course, this takes one of God’s greatest gifts to the world,
sacred story/myth, as lie/untruth (which, of course, is the way the general
populace does take the word myth. Unfortuneately).

Thus, if nothing else Bishop Spong’s work is a call for the Christian Church to
define its terms with attendant reasons.

Bishop Spong is a self-proclaimed man of CONTROVERSY. We remember if there ever
was a boat rocker in the prophetic tradition of Israel, it was Jesus Christ.
But, with earthly success and inheriting the Roman Empire in the fourth century,
his Church switched roles – to the maintainer of the powers-that-be. And
betrayed the original charter of its founder.

So rock and rollers of the good ship Church are not appreciated by many. Thus,
Spong has 2 or more detractors on the Net for each supporter.

Too often the detractors rush onto the Web/net to attack the Bishop simply
because he calls for significant changes in Christian belief. Wild statements are
issued. The Bishop does believe in a divine Jesus. The Bishop denies the
Resurrection. The Bishop tells us Mark lied about Jesus. One sentence into these
posts and know these foaming at mouth fundies haven’t even read his material. At
least talk as they have no understanding of his clearly stated position on
scripture.

So, its a pleasant surprise to read a Web page written by someone who ‘knows his
theology’ and has carefully read Bishop’s Spong material. And knows what really
involved in Spong’s call for a Rethought Christian Church. And says things that
Bishop Spong, and Delite, would profit from reading. Let’s hope his detractors
read this too. Amen!

BISHOP SPONG by Paul Richardson

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/francis_gardom/jy98spng.htm

BISHOP SPONG’S REFORMATION

Paul Richardson concludes that the Bishop of Newark’s opinions will not
shake the earth

IT IS TEMPTING to dismiss John S. Spong as yet another bishop offering way-out
views in order to attract publicity. He first turned to radical theology in
reaction against his Southern Baptist background and has since found that it pays
high dividends in the form of media attention. Each day at Lambeth’ 88 a notice
would go up announcing the names of bishops the press wanted to interview. It was
always a matter of some interest to see whether the name of Spong or Jenkins came
first with a number besides it indicating how many interviews had been requested.

Bishop Spong is no great thinker but his frequent outbursts do help to shed some
light on the crisis facing Anglicanism and on the role of bishops. When Bishop
Spong speaks of Christian doctrine, he gives no sign of believing that
Christianity is a revealed faith and that the scriptures and tradition have
authority because they witness to this revelation. Instead he plays theological
lego, constructing creeds and dogmas from whatever takes his fancy. In his ‘Call
for a New Reformation’ he is certain that the Book of Genesis gets it all wrong
but takes Freudian mythology seriously. I wonder how many psychiatrists today
would agree with that? Darwin is praised without any recognition of the evil
consequences that have flowed from a rigid adherence to some of his views. His
theory of the survival of the fittest led him to dismiss what the called the
‘barbarous races’ of the world and provided justification for racist policies in
Nazi Germany and South Africa.

But when he appeals to Freud and Darwin or pours scorn on traditional beliefs,
Spong is making use of a methodology that is also followed by many Anglican
theologians who somehow usually manage to arrive at slightly more orthodox
conclusions. Most Anglican theology is rationalist. Although ritual genuflections
are made in the direction of scripture, reason and tradition ( with experience
often added to the list) it is rarely made clear how they are meant to function
in shaping theological reflection. Catholic Anglicans usually stress tradition,
charismatics emphasise experience, evangelicals appeal to scripture and liberals
give the last word to reason. With the virtual disappearance of the 39 Articles
as a standard of belief, there are few texts other than the Nicene and Apostles’
creeds that are seen as authoritative in shaping our understanding of scripture.
As Stephen Sykes has pointed out, Anglicans have a theory of how to think about
doctrine but little to tell them what to believe or how to behave. They have a
theological method but few conclusions.

Clearly such flexibility brings great advantage but it also causes many problems.
The danger of fragmentation for Anglicans is often acknowledged: a church does
need a common core of belief if it is to stay united. What is less often realised
is that this approach makes it hard for us to make sense of the concept that God
has given human beings a revelation of the truth and that the Holy Spirit is at
work in the church today to enable us both to understand and believe in this
revelation and to live by its teaching.

In some ways this is ironic because in other parts of the church a view of
revelation has been gaining strength that should be welcome to Anglicans,
especially those of us on the Catholic side of the church. Briefly this view
stresses that God guides the whole church and keeps her in the truth enabling a
common mind to emerge among the faithful. So we find an evangelical like Gabriel
Fackre in his recent book ‘The Doctrine of Revelation’ recognising the need for
an authoritative interpretation of the scriptures, an ‘ecclesial illumination’,
and finding much of value in modern Roman Catholic teaching on the ‘sensus
fidelium’.

Roman Catholic theologians, on the other hand, realise that the magisterium
cannot function in isolation and that the Pope and the bishops have a duty to
listen to the whole people of God. Vatican II put it like this: ‘The whole body
of the faithful have an anointing that comes from the holy one that cannot err in
matters of belief. This characteristic is shown in the supernatural appreciation
of the faith of the whole people, when from the bishops to the last of the
faithful, they manifest universal consent in matters of faith and morals’. The
infallibility of the teaching office is grounded in the infallibility of the
whole people of God.

This is why it is important that decisions relating to doctrine taken by synods
and other official bodies need to be received by the whole church. It is also why
it is vital to look not just at creeds and doctrines but how Christians worship
and seek to live out their faith. Doctrinal statements are extremely significant.
We can surely believe that no doctrinal statement that has been received by the
church can lead us away from the path of salvation. However Christian truth does
need to be re-expressed in different periods of history, taking past statements
as authoritative but asking how the faith to which they witnessed can be
re-stated under the Spirit’s guidance in the present.

Bishops have a crucial teaching role in the church. Vatican II referred to them
as ‘authentic teachers’ who ‘draw out of the treasury of revelation things old
and new. In exercising their teaching ministry they should be particularly
mindful of what the Spirit teaches through scripture and the riches of tradition
and also through the experience of Christians today dispersed around the world in
many different cultures. Bishops also need to be aware of the ‘signs of the
times’, of what the Spirit is saying to us in movements in the secular world. But
this does not mean jumping on fashionable band-wagons or embracing the latest
trend. It should not lead us to give Sigmund Freud or Richard Dawkins more
authority than the scriptures and Christian tradition, Freud may, ‘just
conceivably have said things that can help us to come to a new insights into the
Christian faith; but we need to make sure that any dialogue is a genuinely
two-way process and the gospel is allowed to challenge aspects of psychotherapy.

Bishops are not meant to be theological lone-rangers, seizing every opportunity
to go public with some new fad or crazy theory. The media is always on hand to
tempt them to behave like this but they must learn to resist the temptation. They
are public teachers of the faith, responsible for both for guiding and
instructing the faithful and also for listening to what the Spirit is saying
through the whole people of God. Theologians have more scope for exploring new
ideas or advancing fresh interpretations of doctrines and bishops need to pay
attention to what they say and remain in dialogue with them. But the great
strength of the bishops should be that they are more in touch with clergy and
people in the church at every level than the theologians.

How seriously do bishops take their teaching ministry? Perhaps it would be more
relevant to ask whether the church encourages them to give importance to this
aspect of their role. In the Church of England today the emphasis is on
management technique and efficiency. Ideas advanced by Alasdair Maclntyte in
‘After Virtue’ are relevant here. He argued that the rise of management reflects
the weakening of moral consensus in modern societies. We turn to technique and
efficiency when we are no longer held together by shared beliefs about the good
life. Management offers us the prospect of success without the messy business of
considering our goals and ideals. New Labour is a good example of what MacIntyre
is talking about. The party is run by control freaks who keep their MPs on
message and take great care of PR, but the core beliefs of New Labour, the
so-called ‘Third Way’, are hard to pin down. The worry is that the Church of
England is going down the same path and we will give more emphasis to management
and spin-doctoring than to the effective proclamation of the gospel.

Bishop Spong calls for a New Reformation. Archbishop David Hope is much nearer to
the mark in advocating renewal in the church. Such renewal will have to be
spiritual, liturgical and theological. Theological renewal will mean recovering
the riches of tradition, using the resources of the past to uncover the relevance
of the gospel for today. We have plenty of people to help us in this endeavour.
Names like Karl Barth, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Karl Rahner or Henri de Lubac
spring to mind from the recent past. Today there are theologians like Donald
Bloesch, Frans Joseph von Beeck, Richard Swinburne or John Milbank. They do not
agree on every issue. There is a good deal of diversity between them. Some are
evangelical, some are Catholic; some reject the claims of reason and natural
theology, others accept them. But all these theologians (and there are others
like them) are concerned to wrestle with the gospel and to remain faithful to the
great Christian tradition rather than to sell out to secular pressures. I suspect
that in future the great names will come from outside Europe or North America.
One thing I can say is that John Shelby Spong is not among them.

Paul Richardson is Assistant Bishop in the diocese of Newcastle.

Delite niether endorses or denies political comment re New Labor.
Mainly because he is not familiar with British politics. Besides,
the political comment can be applied to almost any political
party.

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