Doing the Homework: The Book That Started My Journey Out of Bible Literalism

Anonymous 3:24 PM said...

 “My personal observation is that those who worked long and hard in school, do well in their Christian walk. Those who didn't study and do their homework, continue the pattern for the rest of their lives. ..... or they will become spiritual failures. Then they will come to Banned, posting that there is no God and that the bible is not His inspired word.”

Spong was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and educated in public schools there. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1952. He received his Master of Divinity degree from the Virginia Theological Seminary in 1955. He has had honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees conferred on him by Virginia Theological Seminary and Saint Paul's College, Virginia, as well as an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters conferred by Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania.

In 2005, he wrote: "[I have] immerse[d] myself in contemporary Biblical scholarship at such places as Union Theological Seminary in New York City, Yale Divinity School, Harvard Divinity School and the storied universities in Edinburgh, Oxford and Cambridge."^[2]

Spong served as rector of St. Joseph's Church in Durham, North Carolina, from 1955 to 1957; rector of Calvary Parish, Tarboro, North Carolina, from 1957 to 1965; rector of St. John's Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, from 1965 to 1969; and rector of St. Paul's Church in Richmond, Virginia, from 1969 to 1976. He has held visiting positions and given lectures at major American theological institutions, most prominently at Harvard Divinity School. He retired in 2000. As a retired bishop, he is a member of the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops.^[3] During his tenure as Bishop of Newark, confirmed communicants in the diocese virtually halved, from 44,423 in 1978, to 23,073 in 1996.

Spong describes his own life as a journey from the literalism and conservative theology of his childhood to an expansive view of Christianity.

Book Overview

A global and pioneering leader of progressive Christianity and the bestselling author of Why Christianity Must Change or Die and Eternal Life explains why a literal reading of the Gospels is actually heretical, and how this mistaken notion only entered the church once Gentiles had pushed out all the Jewish followers of Jesus. A man who has consciously and deliberately walked the path of Christ, John Shelby Spong has lived his entire life inside the Christian Church. In this profound and considered work, he offers a radical new way to look at the gospels today as he shows just how deeply Jewish the Christian Gospels are and how much they reflect the Jewish scriptures, history, and patterns of worship. Pulling back the layers of a long-standing Gentile ignorance, he reveals how the church's literal reading of the Bible is so far removed from these original Jewish authors' intent that it is an act of heresy. Using the Gospel of Matthew as a guide, Spong explores the Bible's literary and liturgical rootsits grounding in Jewish culture, symbols, icons, and storytelling traditionto explain how the events of Jesus' life, including the virgin birth, the miracles, the details of the passion story, and the resurrection and ascension, would have been understood by both the Jewish authors of the various gospels and by the Jewish audiences for which they were originally written. Spong makes clear that it was only after the church became fully Gentile that readers of the Gospels took these stories to be factual, distorting their original meaning. In Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy, Spong illuminates the gospels as never before and provides a better blueprint for the future than where the church's leaden and heretical reading of the story of Jesus has led usone that allows the faithful to live inside the Christian story in the modern world.

"As far as the evolutionary debate is concerned, it is really over, and if the religious community does not know that Darwin has already won, they are simply not abreast of the times. Only in the South do I still hear people debating for Creationism."

"I wish you well. However, survival rate in that context, please know, is not high"

Church of the Eternal God and Bwana Thiel: People Who Fall Away Immediately Start Eating Pork

The self-appointed apostle and Elijah of the improperly named "continuing" Church of God Bob is lashing out at other Church of God members who went with other splinter groups.

The doubly-blessed one quotes a letter from the Church of the Eternal God about "why" when people "fall away" they start eating pork and doing other fun things.

Over the years, when members disassociated themselves from the Church, they immediately began to eat pork, celebrate Christmas and Easter, and reject the observance of the weekly and annual Sabbaths. We ask again, how could it happen? 

The apostle Paul wondered about the same phenomenon. He phrases his puzzling observations in these terms in Galatians 1:6-7: “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.” 

Christ warned in the parable of the sower that some would hear and immediately receive the word with joy, but because they have no root in themselves, they only endure for a while and when problems come, they immediately stumble and leave (Matthew 13:20-21). Others may hear the word but don’t really understand it (even though they may think that they do), and so Satan comes and immediately snatches away what was sown in their hearts (Matthew 13:19; Mark 4:15). In all these cases, their departure from the Truth comes quickly and suddenly. 

When someone detaches himself and cuts himself off from Christ as the vine, he will wither away (John 15:1-6). This process occurs quickly. Christ showed us how quickly this can happen when He cursed the unfruitful fig tree. We read that “immediately the fig tree withered away” (Matthew 21:19), so that the disciples asked, “How did the fig tree wither away so soon?” (verse 20).  CEG 

Then the holistic dreamy Chief Overseer, Bob the Elijah writes:

Yes, many quickly fell away from the truth... 

But sadly, most who did not fall away completely from the truth, chose to ignore certain biblical principles and priorities and settled with becoming independent or otherwise affiliating with Laodicean leaders.

What does Elijah Bob think he is? Is he not independent?  Did he not set up his own group? Did he not lead people to ignore biblical principles when they started to follow him? Is he not a "Laodicean" leader? I do not doubt that his African followers are sincere seekers of God who thought they were doing the right thing when they hitched their wagons to his doomed train, but due to their desire to follow a human leader, they joined up with a wayward Laodicean leader that will ultimately lead them to their doom.

Bwana Bob really needs to eat some bacon, it would calm his hysterics down some.

The Unspoken Splinter: It's Hard to Become an Atheist

There’s something many Christians don’t realize, and many atheists don’t talk about: it is very hard, scary, and time-consuming to leave your faith and become an atheist. Becoming an atheist (or agnostic, polytheist, etc.) tears at the fabric of your personal identity, rips out all the mental, emotional, and (il)logical safeguards you previously placed your faith in, and decimates your support networks and communities. As a former Christian, I know this firsthand. And it frustrates me that this isn’t talked about more, among Christians and among atheists. So here I am, talking about it on the internet.

https://authorofconfusion.com/2018/03/24/its-hard-to-become-an-atheist-what-christians-dont-realize-and-atheists-dont-talk-about/

Christianese and The “Lazy Atheist”

The Christian community has an extensive lexicon of terms and phrases, something I like to affectionately call “Christianese.” Christianese does some pretty silly things with the English language. It puts prepositions in strange places — only in youth group do you “love on” someone, a term that is both puzzling and slightly pornographic. Christianese also peppers sentences with unnecessary proper nouns and adverbs — “Lord, just…” is a common way to start every sentence in a group prayer.

Christianese also has a selection of phrases for people who leave the faith, including: “backslidden,” (primarily Old Testament) “fallen away” (primarily New Testament) or “lapsed” (primarily institutional). These words all suggest that to leave the faith is an act of laziness, weakness, or lack of trying. If you no longer climb up, you slide back. If you no longer hold on, you fall away. If you no longer adhere to a set of rules or responsibilities, you have lapsed. With this kind of language ingrained in the Christian community, it’s no wonder that they view people who walk away as being weak (either mentally, emotionally, or spiritually). This couldn’t be further from the truth, but the subtle negging of this particular mind game is admittedly brilliant.

Becoming An Atheist Is A Struggle

Listen, leaving a faith you grew up in is not an easy thing. It’s a painful, introspective, self-aware process wherein you strip yourself down to your elements and reassemble yourself piece by piece. It will inevitably include feelings of panic, loss, guilt, anger, frustration, and betrayal, none of which are pleasant and all of which need to be worked through sufficiently before finally coming to terms with your atheism. You will be forced to wade through conversation after frustrating conversation with other Christians — in small group, in church, over lunch with friends, in lecture halls — where the questions eating away at your mind are dismissed with the same Bible verses or institutional catchphrases. Even at my college, surrounded by some of the most intelligent minds in Christian academia, I walked away with either insubstantial fluff or mind-bending interpretive theories, both of which left me wanting to pull my hair out.

Becoming an atheist doesn’t happen overnight, either (although terms like “backsliding” and “falling away” make it sound like a quick, split-second kind of thing). The process of leaving the faith can take years. I started having those first deep, world-shaking questions about my faith four years ago. I’m still adjusting to this new life, weeding out old biases, teaching myself that cosmic guilt is unnecessary. I’ve listened to the many debates, read dozens of books, watched hundreds of videos, inspected multiple holy texts, exposed myself to innumerable worldviews, and exhausted most of my close friends (both religious and otherwise) with persistent conversations on the subject. It’s time-consuming and intentional. It’s not a slip-up, not a mistake, not a lack of attention or concentration, and certainly not weakness.

Choosing To Stay An Atheist Is A Struggle, Too

Once you become an atheist, choosing to stay one presents its own challenges, which require strength and mental clarity. If you come from a background of faith, you will find that the people who used to be your greatest support system either vanish, become hostile, or look at you differently. Sure, the lucky atheists among us might have family or friends that accept them and love them regardless of their lack of faith, but the point remains: you now embody everything they think is wrong with the world. You are now, more or less, the “enemy,” the thing their God said to watch out for. If you are not hated, you are pitied. And you are always, always to be disproved, by word, deed, or prayer.

There are also very personal reasons staying an atheist is hard. If you’re going through a difficult time in your life, it’s really hard to no longer be able to feel like a higher power is watching out for you. If something bad happens to someone you care about and you can’t be there, you feel at a loss to help because you no longer believe prayer works. If someone asks you “Why do I face this challenge?” or “What happens after death?” the answers get a lot more tricky. (On the other hand, questions like “Why do bad things happen to good people?” get a lot easier to answer.) These are trying experiences, especially when you used to feel connected, safe, like you had the answers.

Atheism Is Worth The Struggle

So, why become and stay an atheist? It’s different for different people, and I can only speak for myself. I went to a Christian college where we were encouraged to ask hard questions about faith and the Bible. (PERSONAL NOTE: We weren't) I asked the questions that didn’t have acceptable answers. Believe me, I looked for those answers. If you could have seen 20-year-old Vi staggering out of the library with a dozen thick tomes on the subject of God, you would have laughed. I decided I couldn’t logically come to the conclusion that God existed (at least in the form that Christians claimed He did). It wasn’t even a choice at that point. My brain literally wouldn’t allow me to reenter that warm, fuzzy world of faith, even if I’d wanted to. It was like waking up from a dream and not being able to fall back to sleep.

Once that happened and I came to terms with that loss, I realized that other things I had been living with — a pervasive sense of inherent dirtiness or unworthiness, fear of the corrupt outside world, the ghostly promise of societal persecution, the mental gymnastics required to morally justify Hell, the concept of sin itself — had been lifted from me. The freedom and lightness of being that I’ve felt since then is rivaled only by my newfound ease of mind and spirit. But the point is that this did not happen all at once, it did not happen without sacrifice, and certainly did not happen without years of critical thought and work that continues to this day.

A Call To All Christians With Atheists In Their Lives (AKA All Of Them)

Dear Christians, atheists know you will never agree with them about their lack of belief. Reasonable atheists don’t expect you to. We are grateful when we can have civil conversations about our differences without fear or anger. But the one thing you can do for the atheists in your life (and no matter how insulated in the community you are, I guarantee you have atheists in your life) is respect the intentionality of walking away. We are not weak. We’ve done a very difficult thing, something many people wouldn’t even dare to do. At least give us the courtesy of acknowledging that.