Touched by history

[altivo]

Today I got a shiver of the sort that used to make people say "Someone just walked over your grave." It was a rather odd thing inspired by a quote passed around on Twitter:

Fundamentalist churches traffic in certainty, which is a narcotic, a drug that insecure people crave but no one can provide.

I recognized the words of Bishop John Spong, former Episcopal Bishop of Newark. I was also reminded of something else he is credited (or accused) for saying:

Why is it that those churches that claim to have all the answers don't allow any questions?

Bishop Spong, now retired but still writing and stirring up flames, is probably the most controversial Episcopal clergyman since at least the days of Bishop James A. Pike, who was accused of heresy for "denying" the virgin birth. He never really did that literally, but he certainly did waffle around the edges of it, which was enough. Eventually he demanded a full fledged heresy trial so that he could confront his attackers. The attackers lost, and made very sore losers too. Pike was Bishop of California during the 1960s, and in that time even before the Stonewall riot in New York, he supported equal rights and treatment of gays and lesbians, the ordination of women to the priesthood, and racial desegregation. I always figured that his attackers really objected to those liberal social policies rather than to his theology, but they felt they were on more secure footing in attacking him for heresy.

So also with John Spong, who has written multiple books in support of liberal social policies and redefining basic religious concepts such as sin, prayer, and forgiveness. Spong's liberal theology is firmly grounded (pun intended) in the writings of German theologian Paul Tillich, whose radical ideas redescribed god as the "Ground of Being," the essence of scientific and physical order in the universe, rather than as an anthopomorphic being exercising anger and judgement over the failings of mere humans.

Bishop Spong was saying as early as 1998 that the gay campaign for acceptance and equal treatment was already won and that the problem was only that the losers hadn't yet realized that they were dead. I'm inclined to agree. Sure, there have been setbacks like DOMA and California (of all possible states, who'd have thought...) but as Spong pointed out, some ten years ago after the Lambeth Council affirmed arch-conservative anti-gay attitudes in the Anglican churches largely at the behest of its numerous and most conservative bishops from Africa and Asia, that seeing the Episcopal Bishops from Alabama and Mississippi fighting to mitigate the language of the Council and moderate brick wall anti-gay wording was proof that change was inevitably on the march. Alabama? Mississippi? He's right. When I was in graduate school, those southern bishops were making statements blaming events like tornadoes and earthquakes on the fact that gays had been allowed to live unmolested in big cities like Atlanta or New Orleans.

Times do change, and faster than we think. Who'd have thought when California passed its ignominious Prop 8 back just last November, that conservative states like Iowa and Maine would rebuke liberal California for its intolerance and do so by example?

I am again reminded of why I believe Bishop Spong is essentially correct. When he wrote his much-maligned book Why Christianity Must Change or Die he was seeing reality without the rose colored glasses of fundamentalist certainty to obscure his clarity of vision.

[Disclaimer: I am not a Christian. I have studied theology and church history, and have a degree in the subject. I did once aspire to the clergy, but was forced to see the error in that goal long before it could be fulfilled. Unlike Bishop Spong, I don't believe that the Christian church can save itself. It is plunging full speed down the mountainside with an avalanche of bad absolutism behind it, and a bottomless lake of denial dead in front. Even so, I admire John Spong for his willingness to declare that "the emperor has no clothes."]

Comments

[atomicat.livejournal.com]

"Why is it that those churches that claim to have all the answers don't allow any questions?"

Now THAT is one for the quotes file.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

He's a very rational and highly quotable writer.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

Ah, churches, the crude and primitive forebears of political parties: Their natural opportunism is rendered sluggish by the inordinate pointiness of their leaders' hats.

(With apologies to theologians everywhere.)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Of course you know those pointy hats were made that way for a reason: any other style of headware wouldn't fit their pointy heads.

Digging in the dirt

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

You mentioned an "error"- what was that and how were you "forced" to see it?

Re: Digging in the dirt

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That's all described in some detail in the earliest entries in this LJ.

Re: Seriously?

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

And just how far back does that go? Are you trying to spare the others repetition, or just avoiding it? If you give me a link, I'll ferret it out, but I'd rather hear it from the horse's mouth.

Re: Seriously?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I don't have time to tell it all again. I wrote about it back in 2004, sometime in the spring.

Re: If words hit, it's because the reader believes they do.

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

-_- Then I shall first deal with that which is directly before me...

Times do change, and faster than we think. Who'd have thought when California passed its ignominious Prop 8 back just last November, that conservative states like Iowa and Maine would rebuke liberal California for its intolerance and do so by example?

Because people have accepted the idea that California is liberal, they have NOT looked into the "truth" of the matter- since they do not look into their own motivations behind their personalities, it only follows they couldn't possibly go into anything outside of themselves on any deep level. California is NOT very liberal at all... in fact, this entire nation is, on the whole, fairly conservative.

Many countries have accepted homosexuality openly and are comfortable with it- the United States isn't. Some countries have heath care for anyone who wants to get it- the United states doesn't. Some countries have been throught wars, occupation by foreigners on their native soil, catastrophic natural disasters that wipe out thousands- comparatively, our nation is young, naive & rather self-conscious... worried far more with appearances than functionality as a nation.

I'll conclude with one thing: A friend of mine was showing me just yesterday a picture in a Christian magazine on an article about John the Baptist. The illustration was of a man being baptized with his head back, mouth open while John held onto his... arm. In the background, a man stood with his arms folded as he watched. How can religion accept what culture does not when those in it aren't even willing to examine what motivates their actions?

Are you, dear reader, aware of your motivations?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

California at least WAS a liberal state in the context of the US as a whole. When I was a law librarian, researchers looking for liberal examples or decisions in case law always looked to California, New York, Massachusetts, or Michigan first.

California managed to defeat the Briggs amendment (which would have denied teaching jobs to gays) in much less liberal times than these. California was one of the first states in which gay marriages were permitted for a while, then nullified. It was one of the first where the courts declared existing marriage law to be discriminatory.

Is California as liberal as Sweden or Denmark? Of course not. But compared to Utah or Alabama, California is liberal.

Sometimes life is good to me...

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

i was making a statement to provoke a response, it seems it worked :P

*snickers* I'm inclined to think even Florida is a tad bit more liberal than Alabama :P

California managed to defeat the Briggs amendment (which would have denied teaching jobs to gays) in much less liberal times than these.

Correction: People in California managed to defeat that amendmant. California as a state did nothing, the people in it managed to gain enough support for overturning it.

Oh, and when you have the tme, I'd like to hear about your "error"...

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Your entirely wrong.

With the end of the cold war it was only a matter of time that
the forces unleashed by the west to destroy the Soviets, namely
fundementilst relgion, would take over the world.

American cosmopolitans, homosexuals, the amoral rich, etc, are
frantically trying to backfill and assure each other that
"its okay, those yokels don't have a chance."

Never more wrong.

I also do not claim to be a Christian, or a Muslim or anything
else but maybe a Jeffersonian Deist. But I can see the signs
of the time.

You may not live under a Fallwellian Theocracy...but you
may live under the Mullahs.

America, and the West, as libral secular powers, are finished.

Get a prayer rug and learn to fake it now, before its too late.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I think you've listened to an excessive amount of conservative talk radio, sir. So it would appear at least.

Evangelical fundamentalism in the US is doomed. The reason is that they continue to be more and more restrictive until they cut off their own life blood and breath. We can see it happening now. They will be marginalized just as the extreme Mormons have been, cast out of their own home churches.

Ultimately, the same is true of Islamic fundamentalism, though I'm not sure how long the process will take there.

I will never live under any theocracy. They will have to burn me at the stake instead. But I really don't find that sort of future vision believable, no matter how many right wing pundits try to fling it out to terrify people.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

I will, in genuine western liberal fashion, defend you
to the death while I disagree with you.

*gets Gary to help him pound in the firing stakes*

The process is happining in reverse, we are not
going towards a secular future, we are rapidly
heading towards a world where some sort of
Jim Jones is going to tell us when to come and
meet Jesus.

The world you grew up in, with rational people in
government and media, is quickly slipping away.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The world you grew up in, with rational people in
government and media, is quickly slipping away.

It certainly looked that way four years ago. The results of this last election seem to show that people are taking notice again and saying "enough is enough."

Even if the US did become a totalitarian theocracy, as some would clearly like to make it, European states and Canada are not heading that way at all.

[heavens-steed.livejournal.com]

No, this last election shows how reactionary the American people are and the dangers of media and educational brainwashing. The results of the last election is record level spending, bigger government, rising unemployment, and incompetence.

[heavens-steed.livejournal.com]

Spong's liberal theology is firmly grounded (pun intended) in the writings of German theologian Paul Tillich, whose radical ideas redescribed god as the "Ground of Being," the essence of scientific and physical order in the universe, rather than as an anthopomorphic being exercising anger and judgement over the failings of mere humans.

That is a completely loaded statement and contrast, as if the idea of God being the essence of physical order in the universe and also the great judge and keeper of divine law are mutually exclusive concepts. The Bible, in fact, says God is both. It certainly is not a radical idea. God does not exercise judgment over "the failings of mere humans." He upholds the standards of His law which necessarily follows from His inherently just and holy nature. God does not judge "failings", He judges willful law breakers.

The Christian God is only "anthropomorphic" in that He is a person or a mind. That is to say he has a will, emotions, and reason. Beyond that there is really nothing human at all about God's behavior. (This is excluding and prior to God taking on a human form in Christ) The being described in scripture is actually quite alien when compared to human psychology, unlike all the pagan deities which acted completely human, engaging in power struggles among each other, acting out with petty, selfish motives, relatively indifferent to human affairs, who saw humans as the slaves of the divine and even having sex with each other or human beings in order to accomplish some twisted goal. Those are clearly anthropomorphic creations. No, I don't believe the God of the Bible is a being that could have been a mere product of human imagination. God is too alien for that.

I have studied theology and church history, and have a degree in the subject.

I know you have which is the reason why I am more likely to respect your opinion on such matters than other non-Christians. However, it seems that even with your time in seminary you have failed to grasp some very basic elements of Christian theology.

I am again reminded of why I believe Bishop Spong is essentially correct. When he wrote his much-maligned book Why Christianity Must Change or Die he was seeing reality without the rose colored glasses of fundamentalist certainty to obscure his clarity of vision.

I would agree that the Church could use some improvement, but if Christianity is in such a need of fundamental change, then it should die. If Christianity represents the ultimately truth about reality and is the manifestation of God's message to humanity, then it will survive. If it is not, then it probably will and SHOULD die. Truth prevails and truth is immutable and only if something is true does it matter. If Christianity is not true, let it die. I, however, do not believe Christianity needs to change in any fundamental sense nor abandon any essential doctrines or creeds.

Christianity may be on a slight decline in America, although it still is thriving quite well. In Europe it has all but collapsed. But it is also booming in many developing nations all around the world. Christianity is growing in the East and shrinking in the West. Of the entire world population that considers itself Christian, the largest majority is made up of Asians. Statistically speaking, the average Christian in the world is no longer someone of white European ancestry.

[heavens-steed.livejournal.com]

Christianity has existed for 2000 years and throughout that time many people and nations have tried to destroy it and they have always failed. In fact, historically, whenever Christianity was severely persecuted it grew even more. Moreover, Christianity is the only major religion with an inherent auto-correcting stabilizer. Whenever Christianity strayed too far from the path and fell into corruption, there were those within who stood up and demanded change. Martin Luther is the prime example. Christianity has always been able to adapt to changing times without changing its core principles, unlike Islam, which still remains largely in the tenth century. And even with issues like homosexuality where most Christians have stood in opposition, there are gay/gay-friendly churches in existence today. There are outspoken Christians arguing against the notion that being gay is a sin. In contrast, I have never heard of a gay mosque or a gay synagogue.

I know you look forward with rapturous delight at the destruction of Christianity, but I think you'll be sorely disappointed.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

There was nothing reactionary about the latest election results. Progressive maybe, which is quite the opposite of reactionary.

We already had record level spending, bigger government, rising unemployment, recession, economic collapse, bankruptcy, corruption and incompetence under the Bush administration. There's absolutely nothing new about that.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Sorry. I knew you'd be set off by this one.

I couldn't care less about whether Christianity lives or dies as a religion. I do, however, care a great deal about whether "Christians" get to enforce their particular ideas on others who don't agree with them. This is unacceptable, period. Christians can practice whatever they choose within their own lives, homes, and churches. They have no right whatsoever to try to encode their ideas into law. Sorry.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

I liked those words
Thanks for letting me read them :)