[.ca] Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop ... (ISBN 0060675187)

Wish I had written it--hope it helps:
Can Christianity be saved? Do you know its history? If you believe, do you know how, what you believe came to be? Should salvation be something that is determined by a group of men holding a meeting and casting votes? That is what they did at the first council at Nicea. What IS conversion? If a Roman soldier tells you to convert at the point of a sword, is it the same experience as the vision that St Paul reported? How did Cristianity go so far astray from the early days, and why did Martin Luther nail his edicts on the door of the cathedral? Who were the Neo-Platonists? Why has the Roman church worried so much about heresy and put heretics to death? Would Christ have been interested in a creed? Did he ever talk about a creed? Would he have wanted those uninterested in his message to be burned alive? He instructed his disciples to go forth and heal the sick, cast out demons. But if anyone should not wish their services, they were to leave the house, leave the town, and kick the dust from their heels, for do not cast your pearls before swine. How did the scriptures come to be? Who decided what was official canon and what wasn't? Why were so many of the scriptures found at Nag Hammadi repudiated and not included in the official Bible? Who taught you your Biblical interpretations, anyway? Where did they come from? Is that what the early Christians believed? I used to think that Christianity was so corrupt, so hopelessly defiled, that it is the most dangerous culture in history--and every Bible should be burned. Certain wrong-minded interpretations of the faith require you to surrender your reason, and your God-given judgement. Why would the Almighty give you the ability to understand complex aspects of the world, to appreciate beauty and to write poetry, and then ask you to surrender that reason in the interest of salvation? Christ taught us that the Kingdom of Heaven is already here, all around us. We are blind to it. Our blindness is our given spiritual predicament. He showed us how to be reborn in the spirit, to awaken to the Divine Reality, to see with new eyes and to hear with new ears. This is so valuable that you would sell all of your belongings to obtain this. But its like a sower going forth sowing seeds. Its a treasure buried in a field. Salvation is healing and liberating--in the here and now. It has nothing to do with asserting that you believe in this or that and then getting on the heavenly bus at the end of your days--it has to do with dying, spiritually, to your old ways of being, and being born, spiritually to a new way of perceiving the Father's Kingdom around you. This is an existential, psychological, spiritual process. Either you know what I am talking about or you don't. If you don't then you would sell all you have to obtain it. Don't you get it? Everything you know is wrong! Your wisdom is folly to God, but God's wisdom appears as folly to you. Seek, and ye shall find. Ask, and it shall be given. Knock and it shall be opened.

Rescuing Christianity from John Shelby Spong:
I do agree with Bishop Spong's view that the fundamentalist movement (Jerry Falwell, Bob Jones, et al) has done more to drive people away from the Bible than anything else in Christian history. It happened to me: after attending several fundamentalist churches when I became a Christian, I was discouraged in the doctrines and beliefs that they preached. I turned away from the faith for ten years. Then, after realizing a real emptiness in my life, I turned back to the Scriptures-not following a fundamentalist's own doctrines, but to see for myself what the Bible says. I would let the message of the Bible speak to me. But what I don't get is this: if-as Bishop Spong asserts-the Bible is not to be taken literally (that is: the existence of God; faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus; repentance for sin; etc.) at all, what is the point of being a Christian? Or, why even read the Bible? It is absolutely true that God is love, as Bishop Spong points out. But we who believe have a responsibility, as is pointed out in the Scriptures: study (the Bible) to show yourself approved (in the faith); put on the whole armor of God; fear not, for God is with us; believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. I'll never understand how Spong became bishop of anything; he sounds like an agnostic. The only thing "Rescuing" did for me was to strengthen my Bible reading and beliefs that I already had. It is for this reason that I would recommend Bishop Spong's book at all.

Extremely Provocative & Compelling:
What a great book. I really believe that the Christian Faith today is in much threatened position because of authors like Spong who dare challenge Christianity in its organized, conservative platform. This book should be read by those who've gone way too far in blindly believing the authority of the Bible without checking scholarly sources and logical evidence as recorded in history. However true that it greatly offends those who strongly believe in the fundamentalism of God, it's a thought-provoking book that challenges the minds of many. And this is an important factor on why this book is so good. It can face any challenge and hold water tight on its own. If a belief is not up for a logical challenge, then I believe that it is weak in principle and has no strength to demand faith. This is the great case in this book, do you think that your faith is strong enough for you to hold on to? Will your mind be compelled to check historical and logical answers to find fallacies in your belief? I think that is a question that not many 1-star reviewers are not willing to consider. Go Spong! Provoke the mind and wake them up!

A Christian apologist revisited...:
In spite of Spong's opinions on modern interpretations of the Torah and New Testament, which are informative, I couldn't help but feel that Spong was advocating that Christianity is still valid, if not superior to all other belief systems and that Jesus was the Christ and Messiah. Being that the author is an Episcopal bishop, it is understandable that he'd root for his own team but in the end, I couldn't figure out the point of the book. Either you consider the Bible to be the word of God, albeit "inspired" (Only the Qur'an is said to have been dictated verbatim), in which case, you wouldn't read Spong's book because you think it is blasphemy. Or else, you believe the New Testament to be a quaint collection of stories by a people, in other words, just another mythos of a culture in 1st century Palestine. So why then read the book? I haven't the foggiest idea, which is why I haven't finished it.

What is Truth?:
In a postmodern era, where truth is relative and reality undefinable, this book provides quick and easy pain relief, kind of like taking morphine for cancer. For the most part, we all want to believe that there is a God or at least something out there; that way we don't feel like this life is such a waste. But if we believe in one system, especially one so "antiquated" as the Bible we will be mocked and ridiculed for being closed-minded and ignorant. But we grew up in Christian homes and are much more comfortable with "Christian" spirituality than, say, Eastern Transcendentalism. So what is the open-minded post modernist to do? Enter John Shelby Spong (and others)... Simple, by removing Christianity's belief that we are sinful, Christ no becomes pointless. By removing the parts of Christianity that cause so many people to stumble and which don't make sense in a world where everybody is equally right (see 1 Corinthians 1:18), now Christianity is poised to survive for millennia to come. The problem is that the message of Christianity is the Gospel, the Good News. That Good News is that even though we have been found to be in rebellion to the Creator, Sustainer, and Judge over the universe, He made a way for us to be made right with Him: Christ. Christ came and died so that we would not be judged as the rebels that we are and cast out of His Presence and into eternal death. Sin is that rebellion; Christ is the only solution. Any religion, including a Savior-less Christianity that does not deal with our problem of sin will probably do quite a bit to make us feel better about our damned condition while we're here on earth, but we will still have to stand on our own merits before the Judge. It's like having cancer, ignoring the miracle cure, and taking morphine so that you can ignore the death that you are dying. Christ, rather, will remove your sin and your rebellion as far as the East is from the West. He will remove your death-bringing cancer of sin and give you the true relief of his grace, both now and for eternity. Do not fall for Spong's appealing postmodern message. Realize that reality exists; if the God of the Bible is real, you must repent from your sins and place your only hope in Christ. We cannot determine reality, so to go to scripture under the assumption that we can determine what parts are true and what parts are not is not only really hard to do, it's foolish. The Word of God is truth and we must gauge our perception of reality based on it. This book and the message of Spong is that our perception of and our desire for reality is what is ultimately true and therefore we have free reign to tailor scripture to meet that reality that we desire. As soon as we do that, we miss the Gospel and Christianity ceases to be Christianity (see Galatians 1:6-9)