Controversial Author Releases Final Book
After suffering a stroke in 2016, liberal author John Shelby Spong has written his final book. Unable to hold a pen for long periods of time, Spong wrote the book Unbelievable with the help of his wife.
At the time of the stroke, Spong was some 90 percent of the way through the book’s writing.
Spong, 86, is controversial for his liberal theology. This includes his argument that the concept of God as a personal Deity, or theism, is outdated.
As well as lecturing and undertaking book tours around the world, Spong has received several death threats. He was banned from speaking in Sydney Anglican churches during the 2007 tour promoting Jesus for the Non-Religious (despite having no bookings to do so). A 2003 article by Barney Zwartz described him as “The bishop that doesn’t believe in God” a label that Spong has rejected.
Reforming Christianity
Spong’s final book Unbelievable argues that the traditional tenets of Christian creeds are untenable. The book contains 12 theses for reforming Christianity.
In an article on PCN Britain’s website, Spong writes that he wanted his final book, “to be more than a mediocre work.”
“It had to be clear and understandable,” he writes.
“I tried to develop a crucial distinction between the Christ experience and the Christ explanation. The experience is real and timeless; the explanation must be surrendered, but the experience does not have to go with it.”
“The Incarnation, the virgin birth, resuscitation as the meaning of resurrection and the concept of the Holy Trinity-all are explanations that will never last. People hear the experience of Christ being challenged when it is only the explanation that is at stake. I wanted to make sure that people could understand that explanations have to die, but the experience remains eternal.”
In a mostly positive review of Unbelievable, Medium’s Zachary Houle writes that the book, “has shattered a few things that I thought I believed about the Church into a million broken pieces.”
“Things will be different from now on. And I wonder if I’ll be reviewing many more Christian books in the future. Why? Unbelievable buries them all, making them simply irrelevant.”
“The Peril of the Self-Referent”
Former Sydney University Chaplain Rev. Dr. John Hirt provided Insights with a far less sanguine assessment of Spong’s legacy.
“The fact that he has retired won’t mean the end of his contributions because his disciples will take up the charge,” Rev. Dr. Hirt said.
“What his theology has done has not brought illumination to the faith. It’s only fuelled the fire of fundamentalists against what they perceive as liberalism.”
According to Rev. Dr. Hirt, Spong’s theology “represents the peril of the self-referent that curiously aligns him with Donald Trump and Joel Osteen.”
“[These figures] choose to ignore the great apostolic traditions of the church as if they suddenly reinvented Christianity.”
Spong was the Episcopalian Bishop of Newark from 1979 until his retirement from the role in 2000.
Unbelievable: Why Neither Ancient Creeds Nor the Reformation Can Produce a Living Faith Today will be published by HarperOne on 13 February, 2018.
Image: John Shelby Spong at CrossWalk America 2006, by Scott Griessel
Jonathan Foye is Insights’ Editor
5 thoughts on “Controversial Author Releases Final Book”
John Hirt is right. Spong has inspired a wave of fundamentalists. It’s an irony that many don’t get – liberalism and fundamentalism are flip sides of the same coin, both at odds with the apostolic Christian faith.
I am currently reading “Here I am Lord” by the same author. Bishop Spring’s writing style is very detailed and “dense”. I think it will take me many years to read all of his books as well as a hefty wallet. I think I have to admire how he stood up to White supremacists in the 1950s and 1960s. Sometimes there is a self vindication in his writing style. But maybe that can be forgiven. We each have to follow our own path. Connecting and sharing with others where we can. Being different where there is evidence to do so. St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians can give guidance about love. In the meantime I will take what I can from other’s ideas. Accepting whatever guidance fuels my journey. Reflection and silence will play their part.
Spong is brilliant. I have grown up in the faith by having my own beliefs challenged and to critically challenged to rethink what I believe. Spongs writings through the years have helped me to deconstruct and reconstruct my personal and informed theology and faith. Read Fowler or Sweeney stages of faith.
Stages of Faith is brilliant.
-Jonathan
Born into a Catholic faith, I have read AND understood several of
Bishop Spongs books better than any church service, better than any formal RE lesson enrolled in catholic schools, better than any reading of the old and new testaments, which in the literal sense make idiots of us all if we were to believe it as THE GOSPEL TRUTH.
I mean, when I saw Monty Python’s LIFE OF BRIAN for the first time in late 70s, it offered better logical reasons as to WHY eg, a person suffering an incurable disease that would mean a lifetime of persecution,marginalisation and eviction to a leprosy colony, would not offer a simple THANKYOU for a magical,miracle cure not offered to all other fellow men MADE IN THE IMAGE OF CHRIST, is explained quote well by logical conclusion as the only possible reason, in the early opening scenes of the film. Throughout the entire film I saw no evidence of sacrilege against Jesus, only the well earnt disrespect of the dumb blind animals who surrounded him, followed him and ultimately crucified him moreso for political expediency than for any religious reason…crucified along with many other dissidents in a very public way to send a message to independent thinkers and scholars what will happen if they actually USE the brain THE GREAT DESIGNER, the CREATOR gave us, expecting us to USE it.