This was shared with me today and I must say, it’s exceptionally refreshing in many ways. I’m Catholic and I’m not about to become Episcopalian (cue Seinfeld: “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
). But I’d love to have dinner with Bishop John Shelby Spong someday.
“The function of the Christ is not to rescue the sinners, but to empower you and to call you to be more deeply and fully human than you’ve ever realized there was the potential in you to be. Maybe salvation needs to be conveyed in terms of enhancing your humanity rather than rescuing you from it.”
upworthy.com/best-explanation-of-religion-i-have-ever-heard-and-im-practically-an-atheist?c=ufb1
I’m wondering what others think of this?
It rubbed me the wrong way to think of Christ having a “function” as if he were a tool. That was my first impression.
I listened to the vid and found the Bishop to be a very persuasive proponent of some sort of deism. He apparently does not believe in any existing religion, his own included, and bases his discrediting of the Christian faith on God’s being larger than that, larger than any particular religion, or invention of man. By denying the divinity of Christ, he cannot see God as in one sense being perfectly comprehensible by man. Before you disagree, I too believe that God is the Incomprehensible One, the Infinite Being incapable of being captured by the human mind. But… Jesus did say, he who sees me sees the Father. Jesus is God in the flesh. So the Incomprehensible becomes comprehensible in some mysterious way, while at the same time, continues to defy comprehension. That’s how I see it anyway.
This fellow has educated himself out of his Christian faith, if he ever had it. I think this often happens with highly educated people, that is, if they can’t explain it, they deny it’s existence. Yet he still does hang onto the notion of God. I wonder if that is a permanent fixture in his scheme of things, and the title suggests that he is bordering on atheism, which is very clear in his words. I would not be surprised to see him move toward “man is evolving into god” as he becomes more human and as the human consciousness evolves toward its fruition, or some such nonsense that has no basis in religion or science. He is “out there” if you ask me. He just spouts speculations with no basis, revealed or scientific.
This intellectualizing of religion is appealing to many. There is no guilt, which he speaks of as the control mechanism of organized religion. There is no sin, just evolution. There is no hell-- it’s just the fear factor used to control human behavior. It begs the question, why should there be a heaven either. Did he say that was a myth, too? If he did not, I think he will have to come to that sooner or later. I can’t say that the thought never occurred to me that the Catholic Church was just an organization to control a large segment of the population with its guilt and sin, heaven and hell, need to be humble (compliant), and to be detached from the world and the things of the world (give your money to the Church), but that cynical thought is always fleeting and recognized for what it is, a deception of the devil. The good Bishop has been greatly deceived by that same entity.
For those who want to intellectualize everything, they have a formidable opponent in the devil whose intellect is far superior to any man’s. Without the Spirit of God to enlighten us to the spiritual realities, the game is lost. The game is lost for Bishop Spong… for the time being. Pray for him.
This is a great point. I wish I had captured it so succinctly. Satan’s original temptation seems to have had something to do with preferring the natural order over the spiritual, too. Some things never change. 