[Oe List ...] 75 years of theology
John Cock
jpc2025 at triad.rr.com
Mon Dec 14 11:20:17 CST 2009
Thank you, John. I am thankful for these 75 years of theological wisdom.
Somewhere in that journey we were all probably addressed many times over and
deeply changed. The overemphasis on the human and little emphasis on the
total Earth community as neighbor are two major blind spots of most of that
theology, and of course not enough dialouge with other religions.
Keep up your fine blog.
John
_____
From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
Of John C. Montgomery
Sent: Monday, December 14, 2009 7:36 AM
To: Order Ecumenical Community
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] 12/10/09, Spong: The Origins of the New
Testament, Part VIII: The Corinthian Letters
Dear Friends,
I find this exchange very interesting although I don't think it can probably
be resolved easily in a forum like this. Let me say first say that I am
grateful that these posts by Spong are shared. Maybe I am too lazy to do the
research to regularly dig them off the web. I am certainly too cheap to pay
Spong to send them to me.
About two months ago, I had the occasion to meet Spong again after several
years. He is in the process of doing the rounds of bookstores for his newest
publication, Eternal Life, A New Vision - beyond theism, beyond heaven and
hell, beyond religion. A number of us are working through his book in an
online study context. Spong writes that this book, perhaps his last "last
book" is a kind of "inward" autobiographical piece that complements his
previous more "outward" narrative of his fascinating journey in the church.
The book is certainly a provocative read.
It seems to me that Spong is a better Bible student than he is a theologian
and as Bill S. notes, most of his Biblical commentaries represent generally
accepted scholarship. Is he a heretic? He certainly is provocative,
deliberatively so. Throwing out the "Against Celsus" accusation that Mary
was raped by a Roman soldier without very much contesxt doesn't make him
popular with the evangelical community.
Spong speaks of his role as Bishop as one who can raise issues and ask
questions that people in the pews are deeply concerned about, but who feel
cowed into silence. The rather large group gathered the other night
certainly speaks to this observation.
Theologically, Spong places himself in line with two other provocative
Anglican/Episcopal Bishops, John AT Robinson and James Pike. Like Pike,
Spong stands is a position of advocating social justice and if you have not
read Spong's latest manifesto on GLBTQ issues in the church, I would
recommend it, especially in light of the rather scary Manhattan Declaration
that draws a line in the sand by Colson and others.
Many of us remember Robinson from the 60s. Robinson was a Bible scholar by
trade, who later was elevated to Bishop, but was eventually forced to always
remain in the second tier of the church hierarchy. As a Bible scholar,
Robinson represents one of the few modern voices who argued against
consensus that suggersting that Mark was not written first, but represented
a condensation of Matthew and Luke in the synoptic tradition.
Theologically, most of us remember Robinson's book, Honest To God. I first
encountered this brief set of essays as a junior in high school and in so
many ways it changed my life, although theologically I probably did not
understand much of it except his general call to honesty.
Robinson pointed to the work of three contemporary figures who for him were
pioneers in post-modern religious understandings. We would have talked about
this in CS-1 as the shift from religion in a religious contest to religion
in a secular context. Robinson highlighted Bultmann and his call to
demythologizing and discerment of a central sdecular core to the Christian
message. Robinson tauted Bonnhoeffer especially his call for a theology from
the botton up and finally Robinsom highlighted Paul Tillich and his call for
imagining the divine as the "Ground of Being," Being itself rather than a
separate Being.
Much, not all, of these perspectives were found in that 44 hour weekend that
changed so many of our lives. Having said this, I would remind us that
theology did not stop with RS-1. Many of us have moved beyond some of the
limitations of RS-1 (oops, am I a heretic?) and continue the journey. So
particularly beyond Bultmann, metaphorical theology has challenged us to
discern that demythologized "takes" takes on religions experience remain
only a step in the journey and that a process of re-myologizing (what Ricour
talked about as a "second naivete" is finnaly required.
Liberation theology and feminist and womanist thought has forced us to
radically look at the central metaphors of our faith and has pulled us
beyond an overly individualistic existentialism.
But it is Tillich that Spong has taken as his mentor and Spong's reading of
Tillich is obviously found in his model of an understanding of the divine
"beyond theism." For me, the question remains as to whether Spong has taken
Tillich futher than Tillich should be taken, or whether his thought
represents the necessary consequences of Tillich's model. Tillich would I
think have suggest that his thugh was perhaps less a matter of going beyond
theism to toward a context that was mopre than theism. Whether thius is a
distinction that makes any difference is for me an open question.
I was recently at a session led by Spong's colleague Marcus Borg who has
written that his own journey has taken him to a panentheistic standing point
and Borg noted that he wishes the Spong might have gone that way as well.
This is essentially to say that some of us wish that Spong would have read
the metaphysics of Whitehead and Hartshorne and the theology of Johnb B.
Cobb Jr and his student Majorie Suchocki. "Process Thought" does indeed go
beyone theism, but not all theism. Procees thought, at the normative level,
gives persons permission to still affirm a God that acts, not one who
intervenes, but one who we can dance with as we constantly recreate
ourselves moving into the future and it's genuine novelty, a truly new
creation.
Of course. Spong is a whole lot easier to understand that most process
theologians which rightly accounts for his popularity.
I'll stop here, but it seems to me that in the context of the symposium
celebrating the pioneering work of Jim and Joe, they would challenge us to
stay on the cutting edge of history, which may even mean moving beyond their
important contributions. In that context Spong, but also others, need to be
on lur bookshelf.
John C. Montgomery
(c) 678-468-4913
----- Original Message -----
From: "W. J." <synergi at yahoo.com>
To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe at wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Monday, December 14, 2009 1:04:18 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] 12/10/09, Spong: The Origins of the New
Testament, Part VIII: The Corinthian Letters
I guess you'd have to say 'heresy' is in the mind of the reader, pointing to
a certain style of authoritarian rigidity and judgmentalism that can't
accept an Other interpretation that is perceived as dangerous/destabilizing
because it is so deeply contrary to one's own most personal belief system.
Something like having your basic life assumptions and fundamental life
narrative called into question by another's understanding of the Word about
life.
Marshall
_____
From: Bill Schlesinger <bschlesinger.pv at tachc.org>
To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Sun, December 13, 2009 5:37:02 PM
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] 12/10/09, Spong: The Origins of the New
Testament, Part VIII: The Corinthian Letters
Curious. I looked at Spong's Corinthian letters piece - where did you see
what you call 'heresy?' Seemed pretty middle of the road to me.
Bill Schlesinger
Project Vida
3607 Rivera Ave
El Paso , TX 79905
(915) 533-7057 x 207
(915) 490-6148 mobile
(915) 533-7158 fax
pvida at whc.net
www.projectvidaelpaso.org
_____
From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
Of Susan Fertig
Sent: Sunday, December 13, 2009 5:38 PM
To: 'Order Ecumenical Community'
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] 12/10/09, Spong: The Origins of the New
Testament,Part VIII: The Corinthian Letters
I just googled Spong and got right into his website and his papers. I guess
you're talking about paying to have his stuff sent via email. Anyway, I
think he's a heretic, but, as I said, I'm happy to just hit the delete
button.
Susan
_____
From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
Of Beret Griffith
Sent: Saturday, December 12, 2009 9:45 PM
To: Order Ecumenical Community
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] 12/10/09, Spong: The Origins of the New
Testament, Part VIII: The Corinthian Letters
Perhaps the cost of $39.80 per person, per year, to get Spong's material
directly from his website is a factor. We get it free on the listserv. I
looked into getting the mailings directly from Spong's site when the
forwards first started coming to the listervs. I didn't subscribe to Spong's
online community and chose to continue to read the material for free as it
comes via the listserv. Subscriptions to Spong's site may raise a good sum
for the promotion of his brand of progressive Christianity.
Beret Griffith
At 03:51 PM 12/12/2009, you wrote:
Why do these things go out to the whole OE community listserv? Is there
some way for me to continue on the listserv without getting these messages
which are easily available on the Spong website?
Susan
_____
From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [ mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net
<mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net> ] On Behalf Of elliestock at aol.com
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Subject: [Oe List ...] 12/10/09, Spong: The Origins of the New Testament,
Part VIII: The Corinthian Letters
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Thursday December 10, 2009
The Origins of the New Testament
Part VIII: The Corinthian Letters
Paul was a complicated mixture of many things. He was a missionary who
traveled hundreds of miles by foot and by boat to tell his story. He was, as
we noted last week when examining the letter to the Galatians, an intense
zealot who would fight vigorously to defend his understanding of the gospel.
He was a theologian who sought to put his experience of God into rational
thought forms so that they could be passed on. Perhaps above all things,
however, Paul was a pastor who sought to smooth out disputes, confront evil
and ease hurt feelings in the congregations that he founded and served. When
we examine his correspondence with the church in Corinth , it is this
pastoral side that dominates. Even when he discusses issues like the
resurrection, his discussion is pastorally oriented as he seeks to ease in
the people of the Corinthian church their anxiety connected with mortality.
The first thing to note about the two Corinthian letters is that they appear
to be composites of a more extensive correspondence that perhaps reached a
total of four or even five Pauline letters. By a careful analysis of our two
remaining epistles to the Corinthians, scholars have come to the conclusion
that these "lost letters," to which Paul actually refers in the epistles
that we do have, have been included, at least in part, in what we call II
Corinthians. These scholars point to such passages as II Cor.6:1-7:1, II
Cor.10-13 and even in the extraneous verses in Cor.11:32-33 that appear to
be inserts into the texts that actually break the flow of Paul's argument.
Despite this strange construction, however, scholars find no evidence to
suggest that all of II Corinthians is the authentic work of Paul.
We need to remember that preserving letters in the first century was an
inexact and costly procedure of hand copying, and that no one had yet
assigned the status of "Holy Scripture" to the writings of Paul. Maybe that
is why they preserved only what they believed was most important.
When we turn to the content of these two Corinthian epistles themselves, we
find Paul, the pastor, dealing with human beings who are acting like human
beings. Paul knows what every pastor knows, namely, that congregations are
not made up of angels. At the same time congregations learn very quickly
that ordination does not bestow perfection on their ordained leader.
Pastoral care is the sensitive attempt to bring wholeness out of an exchange
between human passion and human insecurity. It is a delicately nuanced
balancing act, the job of which is to enhance the humanity of all who are
involved. If we need a text to describe the goal of all pastoral activity,
it would be the Fourth Gospel's definition of Jesus' purpose: "I have come,"
John's Jesus says, "that they might have life and have it abundantly." That
is finally both the mission of the Christian Church and the hoped-for
outcome in every pastoral situation. Abundant life, please note, does not
always mean happiness or even the easing of pain. Many people seek wholeness
in quite destructive ways, with addiction to drugs, alcohol, sex and even
success being just a few of them. Sometimes abundant life becomes possible
only in confrontation and brokenness. Real pastoral care is not about making
it feel good; it is about helping wholeness to be created. Paul understood
that and every pastor must learn it sooner or later. Wholeness is seen in
the freedom to be, in the ability to escape the survival mentality that
inevitably locks us into self-centeredness. Wholeness is found in the
maturity of being able to live for another by giving our love away. It will
be through the lens of that understanding of pastoral care that I will seek
to explore the issues found in the epistles to the Corinthians.
The Corinthian congregation appears to have had more than its share of
pastoral needs and even to have exasperated Paul on more than one occasion.
Some of the issues to which he refers are party lines and divisions among
the people. Some claimed loyalty to Paul, some to Apollos and still others
to Peter. Beyond that their rowdy behavior had begun to distort the worship
of the people. In that early part of Christian history the Eucharist was
begun with a community meal called "The Agape Feast." The Corinthians,
however, had turned this common meal into a gluttonous orgy that left some
of the poor hungry. Then they had turned the Eucharistic wine into an
occasion of public drunkenness. Paul obviously needed to speak to this
behavior..
There was also a dispute in the congregation about the meat served at this
"Agape Feast." It had been bought at a local butcher shop where, in this
pagan society, it had been slaughtered in ceremonial offerings to the idols
of the people. Could Christians eat meat that had been offered to idols?
Some Corinthian followers of Jesus were offended by this idea.. Still others
had become enamored with Paul's message of salvation as the ultimate
expression of God's grace and the conviction that this grace, so abundantly
and freely given, was not dependent on their personal behavior. This meant
that they had now become what the church came to call "anti-nomianism," that
is, some were suggesting that the more they sinned, the more God's grace
abounded. This stance appeared to render any sense of personal ethical
responsibility completely meaningless. Still others seemed to have a
hierarchy of value associated with certain activities of the synagogue.
Prophets who shared their prophetic words with the congregation were deemed
to be of less value than those who claimed the gift of "glossolalia" or
"speaking in tongues," that is, the ability to utter words that only God
could understand. This was, they seemed to think, the highest gift of all
and thus the most to be honored.
If this were not enough for one pastor to deal with, there was also a gender
dispute going on. Some Corinthian women seemed to take seriously Paul's
words, in his earlier letter to the Galatians, that "in Christ there is
neither male nor female, but all are one." This new freedom and equality for
women obviously challenged the patriarchal value system of that ancient
world. Some women, quite clearly, pushed these boundaries well beyond even
Paul's comfort level. No one, not even Paul, escapes his or her cultural
prejudices completely. The extent of this boundary pushing becomes obvious
when Paul asserts his threatened male authority by saying, "I forbid a woman
to have authority over a man!" Since no one forbids what has never happened,
these women were overtly claiming authority over men in the life of the
church.
While Paul's prejudiced humanity is in full display in this last conflict,
on most of the others he rises to the pastoral challenge. Paul begins by
telling them that Christ alone is their foundation and that any division of
loyalties among the followers of various leaders was based on the inability
to understand that these leaders were simply "servants through which you
believed - I planted, Apollos watered, but only God gave the increase." In
regard to the Eucharist, Paul upbraids the members of this congregation for
eating and drinking in such a way that some are hungry and some are drunk.
He urges them to eat and drink in their own homes and to recognize that the
act of breaking bread and drinking wine in the Eucharistic feast is "a
participation in the body of Christ" and what his life of love and sacrifice
was all about. The Eucharist, he proclaims, is a liturgical way in which
they participate in Christ's wholeness.
Paul takes anti-nomianism on directly, reminding them of their mutual
responsibility to one another. He suggests that immorality, at its heart,
was to treat another human being as a thing to be used rather than as a
person to be loved. He defuses the debate about meat offered to idols by
saying that since idols are nothing, meat offered to idols is meat offered
to nothing, so there is no prohibition as to its use. He continues, however,
by stating that this stance misses the point of this dispute. "All things
are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful but not
all things build up." It was a subtle, but powerful, distinction. The evil
in this debate, he continues, is the lack of sensitivity on the part of some
to the feelings of others. Candy is not evil, but to offer candy to one
battling with obesity is not loving. It does not build up the person or
fulfill the goal of Christ.
Finally, Paul gets to the debate on spiritual gifts. There is no hierarchy
of gifts, he argues, for all gifts are in the service of the same spirit and
are expressions of the same God who inspires us all. The gifts of the people
offered in worship are necessary to the building up of all, he suggests.
Every gift is for the benefit of the whole community that he calls the body
of Christ.. Following that analogy of the body, he moves on to suggest that
their bickering as to whose gift is the most important makes as much sense
as a debate between the eye, the ear, the hand and the foot as to which part
of the body has the higher value.
This sets the stage for Paul's writing of what is surely the most beautiful,
the most memorable and the most quoted passage in the entire Pauline corpus.
After describing the body in which the various organ and parts work together
for the good of the whole, Paul says, "I will show you a more excellent
way." Then he begins his famous ode to love. "Though I speak with the
tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a
clanging cymbal." He continues by defining love as patient, kind, not
boastful or jealous and never ending. He recognized that all human knowledge
is partial. No one sees God face to face. We all see "through a glass
darkly." He urges the Corinthians to put away childish things and to grow
up. Finally, he concludes "that faith, hope and love abide, these three, but
the greatest of these is love." It is Paul at his insightful best.
- John Shelby Spong
_____
Question and Answer
With John Shelby Spong
John Ford, via the Internet, writes:
I had to smile when reading your recent newsletter in which you suggest that
you might be becoming a mystic. I have always read you as a mystic.
God's peace be with you.
Dear John,
I appreciate your words and even your insight. I don't believe one can
volunteer to be a mystic, a prophet, a seer, an intellectual or a genius.
Those are qualities attributed to you by others sometime well after your
earthly pilgrimage is complete. It is meaningful, however, when another
attributes one of those titles to you - so thank you.
Mysticism is to me primarily coming to terms with the limitations of words.
That seems to be harder to do in religious circles than anywhere else. Words
are always symbols or pointers. They are not the truth or the essence they
seek to describe. They are always human, always time bound and always time
warped. When any human experience is reduced to words, it is always
distorted by time, place, one's level of knowledge, one's time in history
and one's culturally conditioned language Nowhere is that more clear than
when we try to frame who or what God is in the vehicle of human words. A
horse cannot communicate to another horse what it means to be a human being,
for a horse cannot escape its horse nature. A human being can never tell
another human being what it means to be God, because human beings can never
escape the limits of our human nature. Perhaps that is why all human images
of God look very much like a great big human being.
The deeper I experience the reality and presence of God, the less my words
seem like adequate vehicles to express that truth. Then words cease and one
enters the experience of wordless wonder. Perhaps that is the realization of
the mystic.
- John Shelby Spong
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