In reply to my liberal confession of Spongaphilia, Steve Berg of Grow Mercy wrote:
"I went to a Spong sermon (I don't believe he would call it that) two years ago and was rivited by his presentation and feisty grace.
I subsquently read "Here I Stand" a kind of biography, and his struggle to find an integral Christianity.
I discovered he was a neighbour of the Grahams and down the road were the Falwells, in other words he was in the Christian/bible hotbed.
But was it Graham or Falwell or ilk that pointed out the inherent racism that was still rife within the church. No, it was Spong.
Your post is right on." Steve
Thank you so much for your encouragement (and for your help in opening my eyes). One thing I should say though is that Billy Graham is not an intellectual but he is a man of integrity and I would even say a man of God. In a reported conversation he has pegged racial prejudice as the greatest sin of North American Evangelical Christianity. As I indicated in a post from Nov. 2006, racial prejudice is only part of the problem but Billy's thinking is certainly light years ahead of many evangelicals on this issue. (As for Jerry Falwell and his like or 'ilk', they certainly do have the smell of Brimestone about them).
R2E (aka 'The Road'): WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE CHURCH?
Thursday, May 10, 2007
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1 comment:
Hi Len!
I haven't been around for a while, but felt I wanted to comment on Spong. I agree that evangelicals are not the most compassionate people around, and there is plenty to be angered by and to reject in the evangelical arena. I don't think, however, that the best way to deal with bad Bible use is to throw out the Bible, but rather good Bible use.
I work closely with the most secularized denomination around - the Swedish Lutheran church. They frequently invite Spong as his inclusive reading is closely related to their theology. The problem is that they don't replace a bad use with a good use but with a non use. The gospel is exchanged for whatever is pc at the moment, and in the Swedish setting that would be social democratic politics mixed up with human rights. This is good, but it is not the gospel.
Evangelicals might need to hear the catchy phrase: Do like Jesus; become human. Often it is a spiritualized, other worldly over emphasis. I think Spong falls into the other ditch and makes it a humanist philosophy - a be good morality and little more.
A much more fruitful path to take would be to focus on the gospel of the kingdom, for instance read NT Wrights books. He finds the right balance I think. Also check out the "missional church" teaching, it is an ecclesiology formulated by a group of missiologists.
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