Section A New Christianity
Preface - The Origins and Background

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Section Internet Links Wayne's Notes Jock's Notes Discussion Notes
Wayne's Introduction: Personal Perspectives

This book attempts to explain why a traditional way of understanding and describing God is no long workable today. In his preface Spong begins by saying that he wishes to forward the work of J. A. T. Robinson, former Anglican bishop of Woolwich (UK) as described in his book Honest to God (1963) etc. Spong also wants to continue his own work as a church reformer as described in his book Why Christianity Must Change or Die (1998).

It is time to go beyond both books and continue the battle against literalism of the faith, he says.

Spong adds: I am amazed at the defensiveness of many clergy when confronted with questions or challenges implying the words to describe their faith story and faith teachings, no longer communicate with many church members.

Many have told Spong he has helped them to continue as part of a faith community in spite of their doubts or negative experiences.

With Tillich he says: I will follow where the truth will lead me... (rather than where defenders of traditional faith say they must remain in order to be orthodox Christians).
I was raised in an orthodox and caring Christian environment in a long-established German-Canadian community in Southern Ontario. My theological studies for the Lutheran ministry and my 25 years in that capacity helped me understand the challenges in the development of Christian teaching and how some people need the comfort of faith, while others seek its challenges. I have learned that we need both.

I took graduate studies, after my seminary degree in Canada, at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. At Bossey, the World Council of Churches Graduate School of Ecumenical Studies (1967-8) I was early-exposed to a global Christianity just ready to burst forth into all the glorious nuances that we now see today. After earning my doctorate in ministry (University of Alberta, St. Stephens College, 1989) I taught religion and culture studies (with a focus on First Nations primal spiritualities) for almost a decade at the University of Calgary. I am very grateful for the community of faith that I experience at St. Davids United Church. Now, I wish to share whatever I may have learned over the years in church, university and life as an expression of my appreciation for this place and the people here.

I believe that by coming to understand the nature of the development of doctrine, it is possible to see Spong in context and to view such things as doctrines and other creedal statements of faith as not closed, but open ended ways of expressing what we believe over time. I also believe that the Tradition of the church (reflected in the development of doctrine) must be combined with contemporary use of Reason and Experience in order to make sense of faith at any given point in time. More on this as the course unfolds.

For me, Spong is one in a long line of Christian apologists or defenders and advocates of the faith. In that, he is right about some things and wrong in others. In other words, he is human, and not God. The main thing is that we take him seriously and attempt to understand what he is trying to do even if we cannot always agree with him. These studies help us to come to realize anew that the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Jock's Introduction: - Personal Perspectives - or how did I end up here? 22 September 2003

I was very lucky to grow up in a nurturing family and nurturing church. And even when as a young man in college and doubts began to assail the "faith of the saints" I had been given, It was the character and the kindness of those people that represented the church to me though the words were becoming increasingly troublesome.

It was a time of confusion The university was a place of open thinking. And religion was held in some disrespect but more disregard. I enrolled in reserve officer training in the Canadian Navy and that was another side to life. As part of my journey, I attended the Baptist Leadership Training School here in Calgary for the one year course in lay theological training. I had excellent teachers. Back at university I encountered the philosophers - and their discussion of god that had virtually nothing in common with the God I thought I was familiar with.

The confusion began to dispel when I discovered the Student Christian Movement Bookstore in Toronto. It was amazing how many discount books I bought by mail, but these books provided my new teachers. As Spong found in the '60's, I also found Robinson, Bonhoeffer, Bultmann, Tillich, Barth, and many other mentors. And if there were not answers, there were well framed questions, and the hope of answers. Change and renewal was everywhere.

So it has been for my whole life. We live amidst change. and must continuously re-find our hope and direction. I was grounded again in church community when in the Yukon in the '70's I joined the United Church. Bishop Spong has commented how our United Church of Canada is very proactive and progressive in the sense he sees for this new reformation. We are most fortunate.

Link to United Church of Canada Page. Link to a graphic with the present United Church Creed.

Now Bishop Spong speaks of the "church alumni association" and of a "church in exile". This may be very topical now for he has the gift of clear expression and the attention of the media, but these are not new ideas really. He gives much credit to Bishop John Robinson's very parallel work in the UK in the '60s. I'd like to share some of the key ideas from some of the key players of that time, for it was the time that I realized the church was indeed in a time of reformation and change.

One of the seminal works was "The Noise of Solemn Assemblies - Christian commitment and the religious establishment in America" by Peter Berger in 1961 whose reference to the prophet Amos was most appropos. He spoke of a

"… Christian malaise, not unlike the feelings one sometimes harbors for a beloved but hopelessly impossible relative. It expresses itself again and again in the embarrassment of intelligent Christians as they speak about their churches."

Here are a few key points from "Honest to God" by John Robinson. 1963.

1. The observation that we shifted in the last century from a God "up there" to a God "out there". (and this was before Gagarin, the first cosmonaut failed to see god in orbit). And that this was not enough.
"I should like to think that it were possible to use this mythological language of the God 'out there' and make the same utterly natural and unself-conscious transposition as I have suggested we already do with the language of the God 'up there'. Indeed, unless we become used to doing this and are able to take this theological notation, as it were, in our stride, we shall cut ourselves off from the classics of the Christian faith, just as we should be unable to read the Bible were we to stumble at its way of describing God." p.15
2. His recounting as with many others how Paul Tillich the theologian filled this void with his notion of God as "depth and ground of all being".
The name of this infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of all being is God. That depth is what the word God means. And if that word has not much meaning for you, translate it, and speak of the depths of your life, of the source of your being of your ultimate concern, of what you take seriously without any reservation. Perhaps, in order to do so, you must forget everything traditional that you have learned about God, perhaps even that word itself. For if you know that God means depth, you know much about him. You cannot then call yourself an atheist or unbeliever. For you cannot think or say: "Life has no depth! Life is shallow. Being itself is surface only." If you could say this in complete seriousness, you would be an atheist; but otherwise you are not. He who knows about depth knows about God. "p22
3. Sartre said that in our time people have a "god shaped hole". And while Tillich may well have filled it, the more outrageous notion that Robinson introduced to the public was from Dietrick Bonhoeffer, a martyr of the nazis in '45 and who we studied last winter. Because Bonhoeffer was the first to ponder a "religionless christianity" in a post war world. The insight of Robinson was both theological and practical. So he laid much of the foundation for others in how to practically have a "church" in modern times and influenced many many others.
"The God who makes us live in this world without using him as a working hypothesis is the God before whom we are ever standing. Before God and with him we live without God. God allows himself to be edged out of the world, and that is exactly the way, the only way, in which he can be with us and help us. ... This is the decisive difference between Christianity and all religions. Man's religiosity makes him look in his distress to the power of God in the world; he uses God as a Deus ex machina. The Bible however directs him to the powerlessness and suffering of God; only a suffering God can help. To this extent we may say that the process we have described by which the world came of age was an abandonment of a false conception of God, and a clearing of the decks for the God of the Bible, who conquers power and `space in the world by his weakness. This must be the starting point for our 'worldly' interpretation." p 39

Another of the exciting debates that influenced me a great deal was when the theologian Harvey Cox wrote "Secular City" in '65. Here he essentially took the ideas we have just considered and showed how the place of the church was in the streets of the city. There was developing a seige mentality in church circles because they perceived secular forces as being the opposite pole of their own interest. Cox turned that on its head rather like Jesus did in his day, finding "Father God" in the midst of human concerns.

1. He starts by noticing that the religious plays "no role whatever."
"The forces of secularization have no serious interest in persecuting religion. Secularization simply bypasses and undercuts religion and goes on the other things. It has relativized religious world-views and thus rendered them innocuous. Religion has been privatized. It has been acepted as the peculiar prerogative and point of view of a particular person or group. Secularization has accomplished what fire and chain could not: It has convinced the believer that he could be wrong, and persuaded the devotee that there are more important things than dying for the faith. The gods of traditional religions live on a private fetishes or the patrons of congenial groups, but they play no role whatever in the public life of the secular metropolis." p3
2. And yet concludes in an astonishing way that suggests the common theme of all of these modern Luthers. He solves the present difficulty by suggesting not a return to the old traditions, but rather that in regarding the mind-set of those who faced similar challenge before, we might find some light on our own situation.
"If the naming we must do in the secular city requires our dispensing with the word God in order not to confuse the One who reveals Himself in Jesus with the gods of mythology or the deity of philosophy, it will not be the first time this has happened in the history of biblical faith. It is common knowledge that the people of Israel went through several stages in naming Him, and they may not be through yet. At various times they used the terms El Elyon, Elohim, El Shaddai and of course Yaweh. They freely borrowed these designations from neighboring peoples and discarded them with what now seems to us an amazing freedom ..." p269
We often speak and think far too critically about things as they are, forgetting how many steps of change it takes in the journey. We need spiritual language and ritual in our lives, and that too depends on many factors of culture and experience. We are as Elliot observed rather likely to return to the place from where we started, and find that it is ourselves that have changed.

Paul Tillich concludes in his "The Shaking of the Foundations" with a selection from Isaiah and these words. As we start into a study that challenges much of what is familiar, we can take some comfort that from time immemorial there has always been the coming of a "new thing".

"Thus says the Lord who made a way throught the sea, a path through the mighty waters. Remember not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing, even now it is springing to light, do you not perceive it? A way will I make in the wilderness and rivers in the desert!""... Isaiah 43:16, 18-19
Then Tillich says:
"Love is the power of the new in every man and in all history. It cannot age; it removes guilt and curse. It is working even today toward new creation. It is hidden in the darkness of our souls and of our history. But it is not completely hidden to those who are grasped by its reality. "Do you not perceive it?" asks the prophet. Do we not perceive it?"

I'd like to close with a poem I wrote 3 years ago after hearing Spong speak in Calgary. OLD DRUM.

Discussion Lead Questions - Why am I at this study and what do I hope to take from this class

Two groups of about 20 shared who they were, why they were here and what they expected of the course. It was apparent that the people present represented a cross section of liberal and conservative perspective and this is a good portent for a valuable course. Those that had bought their books over the summer and had a chance to read were of two views. Some were surprised and concerned with the views expressed. Others were surprised and welcomed the views expressed. Many found Bishop Spong very opionionated and even arrogant. Those with theological training of course knew that Spong was reporting on old themes, and welcomed his populist views, if at the same time thinking it an oversimplification that he seems to consider a crisis is upon us.

Common themes:

1. To embark on a voyage of explanation, discovery and challenge.
2. Always looking for ultimate answers in a pen-ultimate world.
3. Desire to build up the body of Christ and St. David's faith community.

Some words shared:

faith grows by stretching so here i am
back to church later in life to see whats happening
have heard of this group and wanted to participate in the discussions and in the learning
Spong is not the sort of thing one can study alone - it needs other people to talk things over with.
hard knocks bring us back to a faith that is the same but different than what we thought we had believed.
Spong seems destructive - he tears down and shakes up.
without religious background. perhaps this study might help a journey of faith.
Spong puts forward an alternative to fundamentalism that is new and worth study.
years of being a liberal have been years of being unable to speak for fear of upsetting others. a need for a vocabulary.
have felt an exile as Spong describes. hopeful of this reformation theme.
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September 27, 2003 - Update Oct 4