Sunday, August 29, 2010

A Little Spong


‎"God is not a Christian. God is not a Jew. God is not a Muslim, Buddhist or a Hindu. All of those are human systems which humans have created to try to help us walk into the mystery of God."

Posted by at
Labels: , ,

7 comments:

  1. Lisa CAugust 29, 2010 at 12:46 PM

    "Enhancing your humanity....rather than rescuing you from it."

    I like that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. John StarkAugust 31, 2010 at 9:02 PM

    Very cool video

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousSeptember 3, 2010 at 7:37 PM

    I can't get the video to pull up, but quite an amazing quote.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Steven StarkSeptember 3, 2010 at 8:24 PM

    Yeah, that quote pretty much describes my view of religion. They are the fallible creation of fallible humans, but that does not mean that they aren't valid, useful methods for seeking God.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousSeptember 5, 2010 at 7:50 PM

    The problem with Spong's view though is that what happens to justice? What happens to those who do evil that do not meet justice in this life?

    Sorry, just something I thought about watching this again. It's frightening to me that Spong says "you don't need to be born again" because that seems to be the key message of Jesus and St. John the Baptist. I don't know. Just thoughts.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Steven StarkSeptember 6, 2010 at 12:10 PM

    I don't believe that justice is the same as revenge - rather I think justice is instructive, so there is room for justice, I think. Was there a particular comment of his that seemed problematic for justice?

    Perhaps Jesus' (or the Johannine Jesus) means "born again" in the spiritual realm - a gnostic idea. But Spong seems to be referencing an immaturity that I see as well in some forms of Christianity. We do need to grow up and understand the reasons for right and wrong, not simply put a child-like faith in an external authority to tell us things. Perhaps Jesus meant that our very maturity is what needed to be born?

    Remember Paul as well - "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways."

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousSeptember 6, 2010 at 8:45 PM

    You're a wise man, Steven.

    Perhaps by fate I was watching Star Wars today and Obi-wan said something to the effect of "many of the truths we accept depend on our point of view."

    Perhaps that's the difference between literalist Christianity and liberal Christianity. The point of view shifts, and so the way truth is perceived is shifted.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)