Thoughts on Spong

After seeing a circulated excerpt from "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism" I managed to get hold of a copy of the book and felt that my recorded thoughts might interest others. I did not agree with all the author's arguments, but am glad I read the book anyway; why should I, a nonconformist among nonconformists, agree totally with a bishop?

Thirty plus years ago, when I was studying Religious Knowledge in the misguided hope of moving on to Bible College, I first came across the field of "higher criticism". That is the kind of theological study that considers how the scriptures originally came together ("lower criticism" compares preserved text copies to deduce what the original text must have said). At the time I rejected all suggestions that the Bible could be anything less than the literal Word of God (note the capitals), inspired by the Almighty right down to the actual words. I haven't believed that for years but when I abandon old ideas I tend to cling onto their wreckage until I find a safer footing, even though I know that the wreckage is useless. Bishop Spong's book has put the final nail in the coffin of my terminally ill, but not till now properly buried, fundamentalism.

Fundamentalism tries to honour and protect the scriptures by upholding their accuracy, truthfulness and literal inspiration. To maintain this position it also has to preserve traditions about the original authorship of individual books, and that is what the higher critics' studies shot down. Bishop Spong points out that fundamentalism does disservice to the Bible by destroying any shred of credibility it might have with normal people. If the Bible has to be 100% right to be authoritative, then its power can be destroyed by disqualifying a single text. Ten national newspapers can disagree about details of the daily news but, if they show general agreement, we accept their story. If we allow that the scriptures are a collection of diversely opinioned stories and anthologies then we give them a durable authority. They were the genuine convictions of their authors, affected by their sectarian environment and the age they lived in, but valuable as signposts to the development of theology against the background of diverse human experience. Let people pick and choose what to believe and they'll sort out a truth they feel safe with; tell them it's all or nothing and they'll reject the lot.

Bishop Spong wanders into some strange by-ways during the course of his book, for instance, spending two chapters on his argument that Paul was homosexually inclined. Spong's arguments are well reasoned and, who knows? he could be right. But this is an example of a weakness that reduces the book's value. Underlying Spong's reasoning is his need to explain what to him is an incomprehensible fierceness in Paul's invective against the law. Personally, I can find enough reason for the strength of Paul's language in the law/grace issue itself. Spong cannot, and this suggests that he lacks personal experience of the psychological effects of evangelical legalism. A similar problem appears when the good bishop deals with miracles and prophetic texts. It is fair and reasonable to question individual stories of unusual phenomena, but for people who believe that they have witnessed the miraculous, it is not acceptable to dismiss the possibility of miracle. The same applies to those who have spoken prophetically or those who have experienced remarkable "coincidences" following prayer. Bible stories cannot be disproved by baldly declaring that miracles don't happen.

//Continued