Saturday, May 19, 2007
The Story That Changed My Life
In his book "Why Christianity Must Change or Die", John Shelby Spong points out that Paul's letters do little to explain the meaning of Jesus, but are much more concerned with proclaiming Jesus through ecstatic proclamations. Then, Spong suggests that the Gospel writers take up the task of expanding Paul's work by crafting narratives around Paul's words about the importance of Jesus. He mentions the word "distorted" but he goes on later to describe that this word is not meant to devalue the work but only to frame it within context of the limitations of human language. These stories are no longer an obstacle for me. They come to life when I see them through this lens of creative story-telling woven together around important metaphorical truths. The experience of Jesus clearly needed to be narrated. In these Gospel stories the Jesus experience would be explained, interpreted, and rationalized in terms of a first-century Jewish worldview. Inevitably, this meant that the Jesus experience would be distorted.
I've always seen this process backwards because it appears that Paul was expanding the Gospel stories, but we know that isn't possible since his work came first. I guess the biblical ordering confused the issue. Paul uses bold statements about Jesus as the incarnation of the spirit, the need to be transformed through death, and becoming new creatures through resurrection. Then the Gospel writers gradually expanded on these truths to give us a better picture by crafting the stories about Jesus' virgin-birth, baptism and descending of God's spirit, death and resurrection, and ascension. All these stories contain elements of Paul's symbolic language illustrated in vibrant narrative form.
This point must be heard: the Gospels are first-century narrations based on first-century interpretations. Therefore they have never been other than that. We must read them today not to discover the literal truth about Jesus, but rather to be led into the Jesus experience they were seeking to convey. That experience always lies behind the distortions, which are inevitable since words are limited. If the Gospels are to be for us revelations of truth, we must enter these texts, go beneath the words, discover the experience that made the words necessary, and in this manner seek the meaning to which the words point. One must never identify the text with the revelation or the messenger with the message. That has been the major error in our two thousand years of Christian history. It is an insight that today is still feared and resisted. But let it be clearly stated, the Gospels are not in any sense holy, they are not accurate, and they are not to be confused with reality. They are rather beautiful portraits painted by first century Jewish artists, designed to point the reader toward that which is in fact holy, accurate, and real. The Gospels represent that stage in the development of the faith story in which ecstatic exclamation begins to be placed into narrative form.
8 comments:
Spong's perspective is most interesting. It is certainly a believable one. I'll have to look into his ideas further. Ordering of the books of the NT has always been a problem for the non-historical reader. Maybe they should be placed in chronological order..as a first step to a clearer understanding.
Yes, very interesting. You know, I have seen this book countless times, picked it up and then put it back down. I think next time I should just hold onto it. With Borg, being one of my favorite authors/"theologians", how would you compare him to Spong?
By the way Mike, thanks for all your participation on my blog. Soon as my kid is born, hopefully I'll be able to devote more time to blogging.
Spong is more of a passionate preacher and Borg is a teacher and exegete. I don't think their views are much different, but Spong is more passionate and more controversial just because he really has tried to get more exposure as the voice of liberal theology.
They write for 2 different audiences. I recommend Borg to my freinds that have a traditional christian background but are curious about more progressive thoughts. His language is gentle and inteneded to re-educate Christians. Spong is better for the person that has already given up on Christianity and may even call themselves an atheist. His language is more critical of Christianity which likely will sound familiar and welcome to atheists while it might be too harsh to Christians. In the end the message is the same.
Excellent. Thanks Mike.
Hi Mike,
I just dropped in via Real Live Preacher. I read "Meaning of Jesus" with Borg and Wright recently. Coming from a somewhat conservative background I was surprised to come away from it thinking that Borg came across as having a very vibrant faith (expressed more so in his words than in Wright's). I was taught that is impossible, after all, liberals have nothing to ground faith on. Then I started reading Spong. Again I was surprised by what seems to be a depth of faith, even more apperant than with Borg. Yet, from a conservative perspective, Spong has even less than Borg to stand on... hmmm...
So, your comments to JP have helped to confirm what I have thought I am understanding about Spong.
The 2 different audiences is helpful too.
Thanks
Blessings
Jim
Jim,
Thanks for visiting and making a comment. I'm glad the discussion helped.
You mentioned that you felt "liberals have nothing to ground faith on". That would seem to present a very ironic view of faith. Is a faith that needs some type of "grounding" really faith? if so, then what exactly are you having faith in?
I would flip that around a bit. I would suggest that conservatives are so incapable of faith that they manufacture grounding or a set of "fundamentals" so they can believe without having to have faith. Then their faith becomes belief in those fundamental doctrines rather than faith in Jesus.
Of course, it is always easy to paint a bad picture of someone else but it is good to try and see things from the perspective of anointer person.
Mike,
I know Spong means well and he really takes some hits for it, but this language is not helpful in loving people, feeding the poor, etc. It really isn't. He states that the gospels are not accurate and yet that they can be important but not accurate and yet real. This is incredibly convoluted and unnecessary double talk.
And why are we continually getting sidetracked on this "no I'm right" thing? Isn't Spong doing the same thing as any fudamentalist does, I'm right you're not?
For instance, it's no secret that there is a lot of very confusing stuff in the gospels, hardly clarifications or expositions on Paul's writings from a few dozen years before. Additionally, if they were looking to clarify stuff, wouldn't they clarify Paul's dogmatic my way or the highway crap? Why did they just leave it? You see, trying to reason through some made-up theorized timeline is getting us nowhere and is convincing to no one other than us.
This is very challenging for me, because, all this free-form stuff means nothing in the real world. We may feel good that we have general sentiments simalar to 1st century people who wanted to make a difference, but we don't need to be fighting over who's right.
Let's just do it!
Am I way off, here?
Mitch
No I don't think you are completely off base Mitch. I agree very much with what you said.
I do however think that it is important to give people a view of Jesus that they can value. If the ONLY way to understand Jesus is through the eyes of modern fundamentalist then he becomes a joke for most people and we won't be able to mobilize behind his mission. So I think Spong is an important figure in helping us understand Jesus in his original setting so we can correctly frame him within our modern setting.
I think Spong would agree with you that the whole point is about getting past the differences and doing something. I agree too, but I don't want to loose the idea of a believable Jesus in the process.
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