[Oe List ...] 12/10/09, Spong: The Origins of the New Testament, Part VIII: The Corinthian Letters

[John C. Montgomery]

It is interesting that both Borg and Crossan, who are controverial in their own right, do n ot argue that the notion of a virgin birth is an apologetic response to the rumor of a rape, but tha t the ru mo r of a rape is a response to the gospel report of a virgin birth. N ow certainly Mary got pregnant some way, but there is probbly not much  more to be said except that this story is theology not gynocology.     

John C. Montgomery 
(c) 678-468-4913 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Janice Ulangca" <aulangca at stny.rr.com> 
To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe at wedgeblade.net> 
Sent: Monday, December 14, 2009 12:16:24 PM 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 

 
Thoughtful and very interesting essay, John.  I especially appreciate your contention that theological thinking needs to be a continuous process, and your take on relating Borg and Spong to process theologians and to EI "pillars" - Bultmann, Bonnhoeffer, and particularly Tillich.  Also your caveats on some of Spong's more provacative speculations. One speculation that struck me is Spong's hypothesis that Joseph, father of Jesus, was an invention of the gospel writers. Thanks for sharing your thinking! 
Janice Ulangca 


----- Original Message ----- 
From: John C. Montgomery 
To: Order Ecumenical Community 
Sent: Monday, December 14, 2009 7:36 AM 
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 


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