[Dialogue] Bishop Spong replies to some letters

[KroegerD at aol.com]

August 16, 2006 
Questions and Answers  
A note to my readers:

Dear Friends:  
Your letters come in such numbers that if I responded to each one I would  
need a full time staff. I can assure you that every one of them is read and I  
try to pick the most interesting ones for publication. Using only one each 
week,  however, means that inevitably most of your questions do not get the 
response  that they deserve. For that reason, periodically, I devote a whole column 
to a  series of your letters and their questions. I am doing that this week. 
The range  of these questions is amazing. They go from trying to unload the 
hostility that  has been associated with a particular biblical text, to a 
question about Mary  Magdalene, to a quotation from the late Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, 
to a question on  sexuality. I thank all of you for your letters and hope that 
this column will  continue to elicit them from you. Enjoy the "dog days of 
summer."  
John Shelby Spong  
Garnet and Douglas Quimby, Unity Ministers from Little Rock, Arkansas,  
write:  
"We know that it is generally known that Mark 16:9 to the end of that final  
chapter was a much later addition to Mark's Gospel. Since the statement, 'Go 
in  to all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation' is in that 
added  segment and is USED as the excuse to 'go into all the world and push 
certain  religions on people.' I am interested to know if there are any clues as 
to 'who'  created this idea, when, and what was their real purpose?"  
Dear Garnet and Douglas,  
The quotation you cite is from one of two proposed endings that were attached 
 to Mark in the early years of the second century. In the King James Version 
of  the Bible they are still included in the text.  
In both the Revised Standard Version and in the New Revised Standard Version, 
 these additions are either separate from the text or footnoted to inform the 
 reader that they are not part of the earliest Marcan documents that we 
possess.  The verse you cite (Mark 16:15) is thus not regarded as authentic Marcan  
material. A close reading of these added verses makes it clear that a later  
editor was attempting to harmonize Mark with several of the later gospel  
accounts. The original "Go into all the world" text is found originally in the  
second resurrection story told by Matthew (Matthew 28: 16-20) so the person who  
wrote this new ending to Mark took it from there. Matthew's version has come 
to  be called "The Great Commission" or "The Divine Commission." Since Matthew 
is  the originator of this phrase, to answer your question we need to 
understand  what it meant to Matthew. There is no doubt that these texts have been 
used  throughout history to justify missionary and conversion activities that 
are less  than edifying, to say nothing about being out of touch with the spirit 
of Jesus.   
Matthew was the most Jewish of all the gospel writers. It is terribly  
important to him to show the Jewishness of Jesus. That is why he opens his  
narrative with a genealogy of Jesus that grounds Jesus' very DNA in the line  from 
Abraham to King David, to the Exile and finally through Joseph to Jesus.  That is 
also why Matthew wraps Jesus in the Scriptures of the Hebrew people.  "This 
was done that it might be fulfilled that was spoken by the prophet," is a  
regular refrain in Matthew's gospel. This is also why even the Wise Men in  
Matthew's gospel are forced to consult the Jewish Scriptures before they know  that 
the new King of the Jews is to be born in Bethlehem.  
However, this intensely Jewish Jesus is wrapped in an interpretive envelope  
that Matthew uses to show that although Jesus arose from the Jews and 
fulfilled  the expectations of the Jews, his ultimate purpose was to bind the human  
community into one community in which there were no barriers of tribe, race, or 
 national identity.  
The first part of that envelope is the story of the Star of Bethlehem.  
Matthew, following a long time Jewish practice, says that a star announced the  
birth of Jesus. The unique thing about the star is that it shines not just on  
the land of the Jews but is seen across the world. That star draws the world, in 
 the persons of the Magi, into the worship of this Jewish Jesus. Jesus called 
all  people to step beyond their boundaries into a universal humanity. This 
vision  also fulfilled the original call of the Jews. They were not the Chosen 
people as  a sign of privilege, they were chosen to be the people through whom 
all the  nations of the earth would be blessed.  
Matthew proceeds to tell the story of Jesus from his baptism to his  
crucifixion and resurrection. In this narrative, the barriers that divide human  
beings fall before Jesus. A new humanity bound together only by love is  portrayed. 
The Jesus invitation is, "Come unto me all ye," not, "some of ye." A  barrier 
separating anyone from the God met in Jesus would destroy all that Jesus  
stood for.  
So Matthew comes to the very end, the last five verses of his gospel in which 
 the first and only time he has the risen Christ speak. His message is 
simple,  "Go into all the world!" Go to those who are different, who you previously 
have  called gentiles, unclean, uncircumcised and proclaim to them the message 
of the  universal love of God. Tell them about God's love that transcends all 
human  barriers and all human limitations. That is still the purpose of the 
Christian  Church - to proclaim the love of God for all that God has made.  
Only when Christianity identified its message with particular beliefs about  
God and Jesus that needed to be imposed on others in order to be saved do we 
get  the kind of missionary imperative about which you speak in your question. 
That  attitude is about as far away from Jesus' original meaning as one can 
get.  
You cannot love a person when you say to them, "My religion is better than  
yours so I intend to impose my religion on you." You cannot proclaim the love 
of  God if you approach someone under the stance, "I'm OK, you're not OK. And 
you  will not be OK until you are just like me!" Unfortunately, that is what so 
much  of the missionary activity of the Church has tended to do.  
Thank you for your question and for your friendship that I treasure.  
Blessings on your ministry.  
Henrietta Maloney writes:  
"I am currently reading a book about Mary Magdalene written by Bruce Chilton  
that has a map in the beginning of the book that clearly shows a town of 
Magdala  that is in Galilee. He states that Mary Magdala is from that village of 
about  3000 people. It is an extremely interesting book. Can you please explain 
your  reason for not believing in a village of Magdala? (you might find a lot 
of food  for thought in this book as well.) Thank you."  
Dear Henrietta,  
Bruce Chilton is a good friend and admired colleague. He has accepted common  
wisdom and common maps on the subject of Magdala. There is no evidence that  
there was ever such a place but because Magdalene was interpreted to be 
Magdala,  efforts have been made to find a town that might have been called by a 
different  name. Dalmanutha is the favorite candidate. Truth was not served in 
that  enterprise but the tourist industry was.  
I wonder why people would not have said Mary of Magdala in the New Testament  
if 'Magdalene' meant her place of origin. They knew how to say Jesus of  
Nazareth, Paul of Tarsus, and Peter of Bethsaida. Why not say, Mary of Magdala?  
They did not, I am convinced, because that was not what Magdalene meant.  
Only two names have words attached to them in the New Testament that are  
written as if those words are part of their names. They are Judas Iscariot and  
Mary Magdalene. Once people argued that "Iscariot" meant that Judas came from  
the village of Kerioth and that Magdalene meant Mary came from the village of  
Magdala. I do not believe that either claim can be substantiated.  
So I think Bruce is wrong - so are most of the sources I looked at on the  
Internet that struggle to identify the location of the mythical Magdala. To  
pretend that Magdalene means she hails from Magdala hides something of the true  
meaning of Mary Magdalene that I think comes from the Hebrew word, Migdal, 
which  originally meant a large tower which shepherds climbed to keep watch over 
their  sheep. In time the word came to mean large in the sense of being great. 
I think  the attaching of Magdalene to Mary was an affectionate way the early 
disciples  referred to her and it meant 'Mary the great' or the great Mary. 
Her place in  the early Christian movement was far higher than that assigned to 
her by the  later church that invented the idea that she was a prostitute. 
Thankfully we are  just now beginning to recover something of her original 
stature.  
Bill Miller from Norfolk, VA, asks:  
"Would you please comment on the late Roman Catholic Bishop Fulton J. Sheen's 
 comment that, 'Since God is just, I believe there is a hell; since God is  
merciful, I believe there is no one in it'."  
Dear Bill,  
Fulton Sheen was expressing his hope in such a way so as not to contradict  
the teaching authority of his Church. It was a good compromise.  
Yet the idea that either hell or heaven is a place to which people go is a  pa
rt of the human experience of limited language. We are beings, God is Being  
itself but in human language we conceptualize God as a Being, for that is all 
we  understand.  
We are creatures bound by time and place and so we describe life beyond this  
life in terms of linear, spatial concepts. We have no other language. The  
problem arises when we assume our language is literally true. It isn't. If God  
is life then heaven is life in God, Hell is life apart from God. It is about  
relationships not about space.  
Is anyone apart from God? That is not for me to say. Do we have the capacity  
to say a final and ultimate "No" to God? I suppose that is theoretically  
possible.  
The Church has always used both heaven and hell as promise and threat in the  
task of behavior control. Bishop Sheen's answer comes out of that mindset. I  
find those categories meaningless.  
If we would stop worrying about other people and concentrate on our own  
relationship with God and others, we would have a better world.  
S. M. Cornwall of Exeter, England, writes:  
"In your recent talk in Exeter, the implication seemed to be that  
homosexuality is either a chosen path (and thus undesirable/reprehensible) or  unchosen 
(and thus not reprehensible). Is it not possible that, for some  individuals, 
homosexuality is chosen but not thereby inherently reprehensible?  To say 
otherwise risks the implication that homosexuals are only homosexual  because they 
have no choice and that if they had a choice, they would probably  choose 
heterosexuality. 'Nature' as a category is highly problematic but there  do 
appear other 'unchosen' human impulses (e.g. exploitative sexual activity),  which 
are still not viewed as 'desirable.'  
Dear S. M. Cornwall,  
It seems to me that your letter misunderstands two things. First, if sexual  
orientation is a given then it cannot be something judged as evil simply 
because  it is a minority expression of our humanity. Homosexuality/heterosexuality 
is  like skin color, racial characteristics and 
lefthandedness/righthandedness. It  is a given in life, something to be accepted as that which is. It is 
true that  the boundary between the genders in all of nature is not near as 
severe as we  once thought it was but none of that is now seen as unnatural or 
abnormal.  
When you then move on to exploitative sexual behavior or, as some have argued 
 to an innate propensity for alcoholism that they suggest is also "unchosen," 
you  have introduced a whole new element and confused the discussion. 
Exploitative  sexual behavior and alcoholism both have a victim. Someone's humanity 
is  diminished by this behavior including certainly the humanity of the sexual  
exploiter or the alcoholic. Homosexuality surely can be acted out in such a 
way  as to produce a victim but it may also be acted out in such a way as to 
enhance  life for both partners. What we forget in our prejudice is that the 
same thing  can be said for heterosexuality. Both sexual orientations are morally 
neutral.  Both can be expressed in moral and in immoral ways. It is harder to 
do that when  society condemns one that is the minority orientation and says 
that no  expression of that orientation is ever good. No exploitative behavior 
is ever  desirable. No self-destructive behavior is ever desirable. Sexual 
orientation is  not, per se, exploitative. That is a difference not to be 
confused.  
John Shelby Spong 
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