The Fragility of our Mortal Life

I’m back at college now for my last term as a Student Minister.  Over the next two weeks we’re all studying a module called Death & Dying.  The dreadful puns have already begun and I’m too much of a Christian to repeat them; but actually, along with the jokes, they serve as a defence mechanism to what are some very strong emotions and reactions to our study, or at least they do so for me.

Yesterday we had a field trip to a local cemetery.  We were encouraged to walk around and read what was written on the gravestones and to think about any reactions we had.  One thing that struck me was that there were many stones for former University Professors with line after line about their academic achievement; and then right at the bottom something along the lines of ‘and his beloved wife…’  It was almost as if his wife was a mere footnote in his life rather than an integral part of it.  Another thing that struck a friend was that a former Bishop was buried there, and nearby there was a grave for a young child and another for a baby.  In the eyes of the world one was of great significance and one not; yet in the eyes of God both are equally loved and equally valued.  The same is true of the Professors and their wives.

Another thing that struck me in the cemetery was the impermanence of things.  Names from long ago that once evoked memories of living, loving, vital people are now just words.  Stones that once had a clear message about the deceased are now crumbling and overgrown.  Beneath the ground lie the remains of bodies that once walked and talked and lived and loved and maybe could not imagine a word they were not in.

Today we went on a field trip to the local crematorium.  We were given a great talk about how the place works and then shown behind the scenes and saw the furnaces where the deceased are cremated.  Last year I had a similar visit to a crematorium in another part of the country and was encouraged by the minister I was with to look through the spyhole at the remains of a body being cremated.  It was a sobering experience and the memory of it flooded back in force this afternoon.

Our lives are so precious and so terribly fragile.  We are mortal creatures who will not go on forever as we are.  If we are lucky we will wither and age and die after a long life.  If we are less fortunate our lives may be taken by accident of by disease.  Yesterday and today I was reminded with renewed force of my own personal mortality; of the fact that one day mourners will attend my funeral and it will be my dead body that will lie six feet beneath the earth or be reduced to ashes in a furnace.

And yet I am not downhearted or depressed.  It is sobering to be reminded of my own mortality, of course, but it is also liberating because I truly believe as a Christian that death is not the end but a glorious beginning.  I will physically die; but I will also be raised to glorious new life in Christ.

St Paul knew this truth and he wrote it down in his First letter to the Corinthians:

‘For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed.’ - 1 Cor 15:52 (NRSV), but read that whole chapter.

I will one day die and I am not looking forward to that day; yet I know that I will also be raised to new life, to the eternal life that was given me through the grace of God when I accepted Jesus as my Saviour and Lord!

Who do YOU say that I am? Where I Think Spong is Wrong 3

This reflection is the third in a series of responses to John Shelby Spong’s book ‘Why Christianity Must Change or Die.’    I have read the book on several occasions and, together with other books by Spong and other more liberal Christian theologians, it was responsible for shifting me away from hard line evangelicalism towards my current self- identification as thinking evangelical.  This does not mean that I agree with Spong about everything.

Chapter 8 of Why Christianity Must Change or Die is entitled ‘What Think Ye of Christ?’  In this chapter Spong gives his view of who Jesus Christ is for him and who Christ must be for the changed Christianity he is proposing.  In this chapter Spong is answering the question Jesus asked his disciples, ‘Who do you say that I am?’  Spong is telling us who he says Jesus is.

There is much that I agree with in this particular chapter of Why Christianity Must Change or Die.  Spong writes near the beginning of the chapter ‘I still find the power of Christ compelling.’  I would have no argument with that statement as the power of Christ compels me day by day. 

Spong writes ‘I am moved by the generations of believers whose lives have been enriched, even transformed by this Jesus.’  I too love hearing the stories of those who have met with Jesus and be irrevocably changed by him.  Spong further writes that ‘time after time my relationship with Jesus has propelled me beyond limiting barrier after limiting barrier.’  That too has been my own experience of the Jesus I call Lord.

Spong gives a good summary of the four different but complimentary gospel portraits of Jesus, pointing to him as a person who embodied the God who is love and who broke through barrier after barrier because of that love; always being authentically himself.  Again I can find nothing to disagree with here.  Spong, in this sense, has a view of Jesus that very few Christians would dispute.

Where I profoundly disagree with Spong is in his interpretation of the nature of Jesus.  Spong feels that in our time the traditional language used to describe Jesus will not do.  He feels that we cannot use the language of incarnation; we cannot say that Jesus was the Son of God and that he was both fully human and fully divine.  As we saw in my first reflection on Spong’s book, he doesn’t believe in a theistic God at all, but a God who is ‘a presence discovered in the very depths of my life, in the capacity to live, in the ability to love and in the courage to be.’  If, as Spong believes, God has no independent existence as a being and personality, then God cannot have a Son as Christians have traditionally understood the term.  Spong believes that Jesus is ‘a revelation of the Ground of Being.’  He sees Jesus as ‘the life where God has been seen and can still be seen in a human form under the limitations of our finitude.’

I find Spong’s view of Christ too limiting.  He cannot accept the idea of a theistic God at all; yet that is the God I believe in.  Spong cannot accept the first century understanding of Jesus and yet offers an alternative that many would find equally unacceptable.  Yes, the early Christian explanations of who Jesus truly is are inadequate because the incarnation of God in the world is ultimately a mystery.  Spong is trying to take what is inexplicable and explain it in terms that he perceives will be acceptable to 21st century people.  As I wrote a couple of day­s ago, if we could understand God then God wouldn’t be God.

Furthermore, a Jesus who isn’t fully human and fully divine could not have secure our salvation on the cross.  For Spong this isn’t a problem, as we will see in tomorrow’s reflection; but for me this would rip the heart out of my Christian faith.

Who Was Jesus Really? Where I Think Spong is Wrong 2

This reflection is the second in a series of responses to John Shelby Spong’s book ‘Why Christianity Must Change or Die.’    I have read the book on several occasions and, together with other books by Spong and other more liberal Christian theologians, it was responsible for shifting me away from hard line evangelicalism towards my current self- identification as thinking evangelical.  This does not mean that I agree with Spong about everything.

Chapter 4 of Why Christianity Must Change or Die is entitled ‘Discovering Anew the Jesus of the New Testament’.  In this chapter John Shelby Spong speculates on how Jesus became the Son of God.  I use the word speculates very deliberately because Spong takes what is speculation on his part and treats is as solid fact.  In fact an absence of solid fact characterises this chapter of Spong’s book.

To start with, Spong is very cavalier in his statements about the dating of the gospels.  He treats as established fact the notion that they were written between 40 and 70 years after the death of Jesus.  This is far from established fact!   The suggested dates for the writing of the different gospels vary widely and it is possible that Mark’s gospel was written as early as 63AD, about 30 years after Jesus death.  John’s gospel is thought to be the last to be written and most agree a date of 85AD, within about 50 years of Jesus’ death and one or two scholars have even suggested a much earlier date of around 50AD (within about 15 years of Jesus’ death) and certainly no later than 70AD (within about 35 years of Jesus’ death) so Spong’s confident assertion that the gospels were written 40 to 70 years after Jesus’ death is at best questionable.  This is an important point because he bases much of his argument on the dating of the gospels; postulating a developing early Christology that doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny.

Spong begins his analysis of Jesus identity by trying to cast doubt on the Gospel records of his life.  He implies, without actually coming out and saying so, that he believes the Gospels do not stem from eyewitness accounts but were the products of communities of faith; he won’t even allow single authorship of each gospel.  Many Biblical scholars do recognise eyewitness evidence in both Marks’ and John’s gospels and so Spong is dismissing a section of scholarly opinion, presumably because it does not fit in with what he wants to say.  He also states his own opinion as if it is commonly accepted fact, which it is not.

The main message of this chapter of Spong’s work is that Jesus was not seen as being co-equal with God by the very early Christians and that the development of Jesus as being identified as fully human and fully divine happened over a period of about 70 years; a period of time that might not exist if Spong’s opinion of the dates of the Gospels is wrong.

Spong identifies in Paul’s epistles a developing Christology.  He quotes from Romans 1:4; ‘God had designated Jesus Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead.’(I think, ESB Bible)  Spong suggests that by this Paul means that Jesus only became the Son of God when he was raised from the dead.  The NIV has ‘declared with power to be the Son of God.’  The English-Greek interlinear New Testament also translates the word as ‘declared’ ;as does the King James Version.  Good News Bible uses the word ‘shown’ as does the New Living Translation.   Now the word designated could imply that Paul did not think Jesus became God’s Son until the resurrection, but declared and shown imply that the resurrection was a recognition of that which was already the case.  Spong’s argument that ‘Presumably Jesus was not thought of as God’s son prior to that moment’ is based on one word that can be legitimately translated and interpreted in more than one way.

Spong then traces what he sees as a development of Jesus becoming Christ earlier and earlier, at his baptism by John in Mark’s gospel, at his conception in Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels and as always having pre-existed as the word of God in John’s gospel.  It is possible to see such a pattern, but it depends on late dates for the gospels, with John having been written 70 years after Jesus’ death, something that is far from established fact.  It is also possible to interpret this progression in another equally plausible way: that what is reflected is a growing understanding of the truth of who Jesus actually was and is rather than a developing concept with no basis in truth.

Spong has also failed to mention a very early piece of Christian writing that does indeed identify Jesus with God and that may predate all of Paul’s epistles.  Most scholars think that in his letter to the Philippians, dated around AD62, Paul is quoting in chapter two a very early Christian hymn.  The style is different from Paul’s writing and it is obvious he is quoting to make an appeal to the Philippians.  Some scholars have suggested the hymn bears signs of having been composed in Aramaic, making it very early indeed.  If Spong wants to argue that the very earliest Christians did not see Jesus as God he has to explain away Philippians 2:5-11.

I’ll finish by quoting this hymn in full from the New International Version, a hymn that makes it clear who Jesus was and still is.

Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God
something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very form of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow,
in heaven and earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

Is Your God Too Small? Where I Think Spong is Wrong 1

This reflection is the first in a series of responses to John Shelby Spong’s book ‘Why Christianity Must Change or Die.’    I have read the book on several occasions and, together with other books by Spong and other more liberal Christian theologians, it was responsible for shifting me away from hard line evangelicalism towards my current self- identification as thinking evangelical.  This does not mean that I agree with Spong about everything.

Chapter 3 of Why Christianity Must Change or Die is entitled ‘In Search of God’ and chapter 4, ‘Beyond Theism to New God Images’.  In these chapters Spong argues in part that we must cast out of the church primitive understandings of God that have no place in our modern world.  Spong suggests we must get rid of any notion of God as an old man sitting on a throne or as some kind of middle-Eastern potentate writ large.  He suggests that we should no longer see God as ‘a supernatural person who invades life periodically to accomplish the divine will…. An intensely human figure who does grandiose, and expanded, but nonetheless, human things.’  In this I am in agreement with Spong, such a view is too limiting when it comes to attempting to even try to conceive just who God is.

Human language and concepts are simply inadequate when it comes to understanding God.  In a very real sense God is a mystery; the ultimate mystery.  If we could understand God then God wouldn’t be God.  When we talk of a Trinitarian God, for example, we are doing our best to describe the indescribable; that is not to say that Trinitarian doctrine does not say something profoundly true and significant, just that it cannot and would not claim to be the whole truth about God.

If your concept of God is as the ultimate superhuman then you have a very small conception of God indeed!  God is much, much more than that.  As Spong quite rightly comments, ‘no creature can finally conceptualise beyond its own limits or its own being.’

Where I would part company with Spong is his conception that God is not an external being separate from Creation, especially when he says that God exists within reality, not prior to it.  Spong supports Paul Tillich’s statement that God is not a person but ‘rather the power  that called being forth in all creatures,’  Spong sees God as ‘the Ground of All Being’, as something within people rather than external to them.  He writes, ‘There is no God external to life.  God, rather, is the inescapable depth and centre of all that is.  God is not a being superior to all other beings.  God is the Ground of Being itself.’

Here is where I part company with Spong because I believe that his conception of God is too small as well.

Spong writes as if it is impossible to know anything of God other than that which we discover by looking within ourselves (where we may certainly find a God who appeals to us). 

I believe that it is possible to know something of the truth of God because God himself has revealed something of the truth of God to us.  God reveals it in creation, that vast mind boggling universe God created.  God reveals God’s self through the pages of the Bible, written by fallible humans over many centuries but still containing consistent truths about the divine.  God reveals God’s self through the very person of Jesus Christ (and I will tackle Spong’s thoughts about Jesus in the next two reflections).  The God revealed in the Bible and through Jesus is a God who loves, a God who is interested in each and every human being, a God who does intervene in human history and a God who sometimes does things that break the apparent laws of science.  Most of all he is a God who has personality and being; albeit of a far higher concept than we can possibly imagine. 

God has revealed to us as much as we are capable of understanding; but he is much, much, much more than that!