Answering John Shelby Spong and His Heirs ·
Responding to Spong, Ten Years Delay
The pretended "bishop" John Shelby Spong who was not a faithful, has blasted faith as idolatry and given his own definition of faith, and Progressing Spirit sent out one statement of this sort given on December 8, 2011.
First, a certain Russ posed a question (yes, the question posed by Russ is part of the original context, since Spong's response start "Dear Russ," and refers to wording in the question).
Q: By Russ
What do we mean by the word “faith?” People, who would dismiss us as anti-intellectual, ridicule faith with the presumption that it means believing in things that are hard to believe in or believing in things that are contrary to known facts. I know this is not what we Christians mean by that word (outside the evangelical fringe), but I don’t have good words to explain it. Can you help?
Given that what he considers as "the evangelical fringe" corresponds fairly much to what CSL considered as typically Catholic, and given CSL's comment on "Honest to God" was one of the reasons I converted, Russ could once have equally stated outside the millions of Catholics (except Catholics in US have been subject to an apostasy since this was true).
The Christian credal statements, including the ones Catholicism has in superabundance over those accepted by Evangelicals are neither hard to believe, nor contrary to
known fact. Some are however hard to believe if at the same time you believe certain falsehoods that are presumed to be facts, because they are in fact contrary to these presumed facts.
Now, we get to the response by Spong.
A: By Bishop John Shelby Spong
Dear Russ,
I can try. Faith in its original biblical meaning had more to do with trust than it does with believing. This trust was not in the conviction that all would be well, but that whatever tomorrow brings, God would be present in it. That is why the author of the epistle to the Hebrews could write that it was “by faith that Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees” to form a new nation in a new place. It was “by faith” that Moses left the known of Egypt for the unknown of the wilderness.
A Church father commented on the faith able to move mountains. He stated : first believe the dogmas, and if you need, God will give you faith to move mountains. The faith of Abraham and of Moses was of the mountain moving kind. But they first of all
also believed in the dogmas God had revealed through original history, from Adam's first lifeday, on day six, and further on.
Later in Christian history “faith” was connected with believing certain propositional statements. That was when the creeds began to be called expressions of “the Faith.” Actually, this was little more that idolatry. Creeds represent the human and ecclesiastical assertion that the mystery and wonder of God can actually be captured in something that human beings have created. That is in creeds, doctrines or dogmas. This practice is also the source of the development of religious imperialism, which ultimately gave birth to the Inquisition, to religious persecution, to religious wars and many other evils.
This is a big chunk, and I'll break it down.
Later in Christian history “faith” was connected with believing certain propositional statements.
Spong presumed this was not the case with the author of Hebrews. Btw, we do not know with absolute certainty whether it was St. Paul or St. Barnabas (which is a totally different question than whether the Epistle of Barnabas, outside accepted canon, is or isn't by St. Barnabas : it is another writing than Hebrews). Even more precisely, Spong presumed this was not yet the case with the author of Hebrews. It only "later" became the case in post-Apostolic times. And Spong is as shy of saying when this happened as some evangelicals a little better read in history than Hislop are of saying when actually Christian bishops of Rome got replaced with idolatrous or semi-idolatrous Popes. Because, that Classic Puritan view too has interests in imprecision.
Here is the opening of Hebrews, first three verses:
God, who, at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all, In these days hath spoken to us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world. Who being the brightness of his glory, and the figure of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, making purgation of sins, sitteth on the right hand of the majesty on high.
Can we break this down to propositions? Yes, we can, and we should:
- God has at sundry times (not just once) spoken;
- He has done so to the fathers (ancestral Hebrews);
- He has done so by prophets;
- He has closed His revelation in the days the author of Hebrews and his audience can remember;
- Namely by His Son;
- God has appointed His Son heir of all things;
- God made the world by His Son;
- The Son is the brightness of the glory and figure of the substance of the Father;
- The Son upholds all things by the word of His power;
- The Son makes purgation of sins;
- The Son sits at the right hand of the majesty on high.
And in this context, we already have a statement which is contrary to
presumed fact - "on high" means that if we get far enough above Earth (into space) we get to a place where the Son can both breathe
and sit. I don't know where Danny Faulkner puts this space, if he accepts that the universe we see has stars millions of light years away. I know I for my own place it above the sphere of the fix stars.
That was when the creeds began to be called expressions of “the Faith.”
Again, Spong doesn't here say when, and he is not giving any argument here for why this was not already the case for the author of Hebrews. In fact, some have said that the Apostolic Creed is not by the apostles and this would fit that ideology very well. But even if it wasn't, the author of Hebrews certainly did give propositional statements, as we have seen, and some of them very closely parallel to sentences in the creeds, and obviously considers this as expressing the Faith.
Actually, this was little more that idolatry.
Oh dear, here comes a Protestant Puritan again ...
Creeds represent the human and ecclesiastical assertion that the mystery and wonder of God can actually be captured in something that human beings have created. That is in creeds, doctrines or dogmas.
I'm reminded of how Ian Paisley's admirers call the Catholic dogmas on the Ecuharist "idolatrous" - men have certainly made both the bread and the wine that the Holy Mass starts out from, and yet we claim, Christ has in each valid Mass, through the words of the priest (pronounced by a man who, personally, is not the Son of God, unless he was made into a kind of union with Him through ordination, something Puritans also claim to be idolatrous) changed the real being of bread and wine into that of His own flesh and blood.
This practice is also the source of the development of religious imperialism, which ultimately gave birth to the Inquisition, to religious persecution, to religious wars and many other evils.
This part I will break down even further.
This practice is also the source of the development of religious imperialism,
You mean - I'm adressing those now promoting his work - like Matthew 28?
Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.
In my opinion, taking "all nations" as a target certainly sounds imperialistic!
which ultimately gave birth to the Inquisition,
I feel, Spong is here closer to the Puritan who wrote
Trail of Blood than to the learned historian of Inquisition Kamen.
to religious persecution,
Yes, Christ had said His Church would be involved in two-way in persecution, Matthew 21:44:
And whosoever shall fall on this stone, shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder.
to religious wars
Again, like He said:
Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
and many other evils.
I think conflict between close kin could count as an evil and that therefore Christ said He would occasion this evil. Note very well,
good things are occasions for evil too. You like boiling tea water on fire? Fire is good then, but it can obviously occasion evil, as when houses burn to the ground or people burn with their houses.
Creeds are at best pointers to the mystery of God. They are not and should never have been allowed to become strait jackets that we were required to put on in order to pretend that we have captured the truth of God.
Obviously, to a man
very certain of the millions or even billions of light years to the furthest stars, trying to believe Christ is seated above these may seem like a straitjacket. It may be like believing sth that's hard to believe (bc he doesn't know how it fits together) or like believing sth contrary to known fact.
Here is an apt word for that kind of attitude, II Cor 10:5 says:
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty to God unto the pulling down of fortifications, destroying counsels, And every height that exhalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ;
Ah, did St. Paul say sth about the
understanding needing to obey God? Not just the expectation? Well, yes he did. That means dogma.
The first creed of the church was only three words. It was an affirmation that “Jesus is Messiah” rather than a set of beliefs. To call Jesus “messiah” was to claim that in the life of Jesus the transcendent power of the divine has been met and engaged. I think this is still the best creed the church has ever formulated.
We certainly do find the statement "Jesus is the Christ" all over the New Testament, and Christ certainly means Messiah, but this does not warrant pretending the "original kerygma" was limited to this affirmation. Indeed, the first sermon the Church made on Pentecost, in the words of St. Peter, includes lots more and includes statements about fact that Spong arguably rejected:
Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the sorrows of hell, as it was impossible that he should be holden by it.
Ah, again certain statements that Spong didn't believe - like the dead, even the righteous back then, going to a place in the netherworld, being held there and awaiting resurrection, or in the case of the righteous, they were then awaiting Christ's human soul, united to God the Son, to descend to liberate them.
In a word (or two), I define faith as “having the courage to be.”
Lots of atheists, and lots of them simply not suicidal, would in that case "have faith" - I am glad they have some good hopes, I am glad they have courage, but idolaters have had that too and even Spong realised they are not faithful, since he tried to denigrate Church teaching by comparing it to idolatry.
By now, I expect John Shelby Spong knows better.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
in advance of publication
abbot St. Sylvester
26.XI.2021
Apud Fabrianum, in Piceno, beati Silvestri Abbatis, Institutoris Congregationis Monachorum Silvestrinorum
It will be visible on 8.XII.2021, ten years on the day after John Shelby Spong wrote what I quoted from a newsletter linking
here.
As other parts of the publication state that there is a problem with Thanksgiving, I'm reminded of Chesterton's dictum, England should have a feast to celebrate the Puritans left!
