John Shelby Spong - Separating the Fourth Gospel

[Music] [Music] and now to present today's first two o'clock program for this year here in the Hall of Philosophy at the Chautauqua Institution where this week we're focusing on the theme of the fourth gospel tales of a Jewish mystic we're delighted to have back by popular demand John Shelby Spong the retired Episcopal bishop of Newark and a creative scriptural interpreter and a master storyteller I've been reading his book and it brought to mind an extraordinary quotation from Kafka that I thought you might appreciate Kafka says I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us if the book real reading doesn't shake us awake like a blow on the skull why bother reading it in the first place so that it can make us happy as you say it's good god we'd be just as happy if we had no books at all books that make us happy we could in a pinch write ourselves what we need are books that hit us like a most painful misfortune like the death of someone we loved more than we love ourselves that make us feel as though we had been banished to the woods far from any human presence like a suicide a book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us jack spawn you've written another of such books and you'll be pleased to know that Bishop Spong will be doing a book signing this Friday after his lecture the signing will take place on the porch of the Hall of missions and books will be sold there as well if there any left by then so please be sure to visit the bookstore before then we are most grateful to the Eileen and Warren Martin lectureship for merging studies in Bible and theology for support of today's lecture a lectureship given to honor the loving memory of Warren Martin's beloved wife Eileen so let's please express our appreciation to Warren Martin who is with us here today along with this is an Eileen's daughter Claudia at the conclusion of the lecture will allow brief time for questions and answers we'll be inviting you to line up on either side of the platform at the microphones and the Bishop Spong or I will acknowledge interrogators in alternating order so now please join me in extending a very warm welcome to today's special guests John Shelby Spong a fearsome need before I began to contribute to the growing and somewhat thick southern culture that we are experiencing this week so let me add to Joanna's definition of a southern novel the definition of country and western music if you play country and western music backwards the truck starts the dog doesn't die and your wife comes home thank you for coming to this class the first one in the two o'clock series of the Chautauqua summer Thank You Robert Franklin for your gracious introduction Thank You Warren Martin for your career your ministry and your generosity and thank you Christine just for loving me I want to start this study of the fourth gospel and what you will surely find a strange place when I was a child or a early teenager I spent a number of summers attending a summer camp in the mountains of Western North Carolina church camp the last thing we did each night before going to sleep in our cabins was to gather around the large campfire and sing camp songs I'm sure that this was designed to sort of calm us down so that we might go to sleep some of these songs had religious themes I remember learning we are climbing Jacob's Ladder some of them were romantic ballads that were terribly important to 14 15 16 year-olds whose hormones were clanging and some were just secular songs that we enjoyed and it's one of those secular songs with which I'd like to start this class not by singing it god forbid but by telling you about it it was a ballad as a ballad about a Dutchman whose name was dunder Beck and under Beck's only claim to fame was that he had invented a sausage making machine in many verses but the chorus went like this ode under Beck ode under Beck how could you be so mean I'm sorry you invented such a terrible machine the Pussycats and bobtail rats will never more be seen for they'll all be ground to sausage meat and under Beck's machine now do not start that class with this song to give you indigestion in order to cause you at your next sausage breakfast to be repelled I do it rather to illustrate the problem we have in helping people to understand the Bible we treat the Bible like it's sausage we make no attempt to identify the component few of us can unscramble sausage to tell you what's in it and very few of us can unscramble our knowledge of the Bible to tell us anything about the particular parts of that Bible we rather homogenized the Bible we blend the stories with no idea of how the various parts might have looked before the blending process began for example how many of you are aware that Paul who did all of his writing between 51 and 64 seems to have had no knowledge that miracles were ever associated with the memory of Jesus of Nazareth no reference to a miracle in the Pauline corpus miracles don't even enter the Christian tradition until the eighth decade of this Common Era when Mark is written mark is also the first writer to give us any narrative of the events of the crucifixion from the arrest through the trial to the actual act of crucifying that's again in the eighth decade that we get our first knowledge of that narrative that's 30 that's 40 to 42 years after the event how many people are aware that the virgin birth tradition is a late developing tradition it does not enter the Christian Church's life until the ninth decade in the writings of Matthew how many people are aware that the story of the Ascension of Jesus in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the gathered Christian community is a tenth decade addition to the Christian story out of Luke and the book of Acts how many of you would be aware that the story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead didn't enter the Christian tradition until the very last years of the 10th decade can you still trust a tradition when you begin to know how its various parts came in to the story one other place where this is so obvious is ever time you and I participate in or attend a Christmas pageant and almost everybody has been a shepherd or a wise man or somebody at some point in that Christmas parent maybe even an angel but do you know that every time you see a Christmas pageant you set back biblical scholarship about 50 years Christmas Paget's don't put any value on scholarship at all because what they've done is to blend together two very different stories so that you can create one pageant the stories are incompatible in Matthew the oldest of the birth narratives Mary and Joseph live in Bethlehem they live in a house over which a star can shine so there's no need to have a journey up to Bethlehem they already live there but matthew has a problem because he knows that Jesus is called Jesus of Nazareth that he's known as a Galilean so Matthew's got to develop a story to get him out of Bethlehem and back up to Galilee so he can grow up as Jesus of Nazareth and so that's when he puts King Herod's wicked ways into his story but Luke on the other hand believes that Mary and Joseph live in Nazareth but Luke knows the tradition that the Messiah has got to be born in David city of Bethlehem so he has to develop a story that's going to get Mary and Joseph up to Bethlehem and that's where you get the story of the decree that went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed and that everybody had to go to their ancestral home because Joseph was of the house and lineage of David he had to go back to Bethlehem folks there were a thousand years between King David and Jesus there five generations in every century in that period of time we're talking about fifty generations who's going to trace their ancestry back 50 generations they don't even do that in the first families of Virginia if they went back one more generation that all be peasant farmers you don't want to do that also in 50 generations King David would have had about a billion direct ancestors there's no wonder there was no room in the end can you imagine the stampede of over a billion people going to a little village of 300 folks there's some other details about the birth narratives that we just sort of work in to our memories that aren't in the Bible did you know that there are no camels in the story of the wise men that always surprises people go home today and open up your Bible and take the dust off and look at chapters 1 & 2 and see if you can find a camel in the wisemen story they're not there nor is there a donkey on which merry ride sidesaddle being led by Joseph holding the reins they're just not there there's no stable I don't care how many crash scenes you've built in your life there is no stable in the Gospel of Luke and they're no animals in the stable because there's no stable it's not even an animal it says do you see what I see they just like their Christmas pageants violate the text of the Bible every year because we blend the stories inappropriately no one wants to allow a good biblical scholarship to disturb a good pageant the fact is we do the same thing on the other end of the Jesus story I'm sure many of you have attended or participated in or even preached at services on Good Friday organized around the seven last words that Jesus spoke from the cross there's only one problem with that he didn't speak seven last words from the cross there are not seven last words in Matthew and Mark he only says one thing on the cross and that's my God why have you forsaken me by the time Luke comes along he dismisses that and adds three things that you've never heard of it's a big difference to go between my god why have you forsaken me and father into your hands I commend my spirit but that's the journey that Luke makes and when you come to John he dismisses everything that Matthew Mark and Luke say and adds three more and only by adding them up can you get seven they're mutually dismissed John adds two that are very important one is the story of the mother of Jesus meeting the Beloved Disciple at the foot of the cross we're going to talk about that later this week that's not history but it's a powerful symbol the other one that John talks about is to have Jesus say it is finished and you need to understand everything that John is driving toward before you can understand that being the final word that Jesus speaks so the probability is that Jesus said none of the words from the cross that we attribute to him the absolute reality is that he certainly did not say all of them that's the blending process that's making sausage meat out of gospel tradition now this week what I want to do is to try to unscramble the sausage around the fourth gospel now on isolate John's gospel from all of the others I want to force John's gospel to stand in its own isolated integrity and let you look at what it really says my passion in life is to take the biblical story which I am totally devoted to and transform it from the thing that most of us have learned in Sunday school so that we can see it with its power and its richness and its integrity I suspect as the story unfolds some of you will be surprised Sunday school graduates of Sunday school 101 frequently don't have a very good education and I want you to be aware before we start that John is very very different from all of the other Gospels let me pose an issue that I'll try to develop in this way I regard the fourth gospel the Gospel of John as the most profound portrait of Jesus that has ever been painted in Christian history please hear that but at the same time I do not believe that there is one literal word in the fourth gospel that the Jesus of history ever actually spoke and I'm joined in that by the Jesus Seminar that was one of their conclusions 250 New Testament scholars from all traditions around the world mostly in America so that we we first began to get that sense that feeling that maybe what we've been reading is not quite the way the story is I'd also say that while I believe that's the most profound portrait of Jesus ever painted other than the crucifixion I'm not sure that any of the deeds attributed to Jesus in the fourth gospel were deeds that he ever did now try to keep those two things together a deep and radical commitment to the portrait of Jesus in the fourth gospel and an unwillingness to be literal about any word of it now before I get started into that content let me confess to you for the sake of honesty that I until about 10 years ago did not care for the Gospel of John I had three primary reasons for that one is when I read the Gospel of John Jesus seemed to be not human but sort of a human being masquerading or God masquerading as a human being in walking around the earth I thought John presented Jesus relationship with God to be something like carte Clark Kents relationship to super you know they weren't really Jesus and Clark Kent they were really God in Superman that's a very strange idea in Christian history where the humanity of Christ and the divine nature of Christ are both held in equal honor and equal esteem John's Gospel seemed not to do that to me secondly there was a sniff of anti-semitism in John's Gospel that always repelled me you need to know that my devotion to Judaism is very deep because it was been through Judaism that I got my deepest understanding of who Jesus my Lord is I'm in debt to the Jewish people and when I see what has happened in Christian history with anti-semitic thinking to which we Christians have contributed in such large measure from the early church fathers through the Inquisition to the Reformers like Martin Luther all the way to this to the Holocaust Wade broke out in violent eruption have been touched by the Holocaust in deeply emotional ways I'll never forget a time some 10-15 years ago when Christine and I were invited to share in a Passover meal at the home in New York of a woman named dr. Ruth Westheimer some of you will remember dr. Ruth the fascinating thing about that evening for me and I think for Christine is that not only where we the only Gentiles in that home at that time but we were the only ones who had not suffered a primary loss in the Holocaust every one day I had lost a mother or a father or a brother or sister or child one does not live in that experience with those people and come out having any toleration for anti-semitism so I kept smelling sniffs of anti-semitism in the fourth gospel and it made me not want to go much more deeply into that the third reason for not being happy with the fourth gospel was that this gospel played a crucial role in the Council of Nicaea in the early years of the fourth century it was championed by Athanasius against areas and it was the fourth gospel they primarily forced the church to adopt creeds and doctrines and dogmas and they'd went we then began to defend those creeds and doctrines and dogmas by burning anybody at the stake that would disagree with the popular interpretation of each of those so John's Gospel was not something that I felt particularly drawn to so I avoided it I sort of have to do in the ministry to avoid the fourth gospel because the fourth gospel provides the lessons for almost every funeral that any of us ever attend so we almost bump into it automatically but most of my professional life are either ignored or tried to avoid the fourth gospel and then something happened something happened that reor ated oriented me rather dramatically toward this book the first was that I began to study the Jewish roots of John's Gospel particularly a book written by an English woman named Eileen Golding published in the 1960s a book I just devoured once I found it what I discovered is that John's Gospel is a profoundly Jewish book it is filled with Old Testament references that only Jewish people would have understood there's a closed connection in John's Gospel between having Jesus say all of what we call the I am sayings I am the resurrection I am the way the truth and the life I am The Good Shepherd I am the vine only in John do those I am statements appear the most Gentiles have any idea where that comes from but I am was the name of God revealed in the story of the burning bush in the book of Exodus and these were Jewish people trying to identify their Jesus experience with God experienced as Jewish people there was a very different understanding then I began to discover that even the prologue which a lot of authors suggest might be platon mystique or dualistic or Gnostic but the the opening prologue the him to the logos the Word of God seems to me to be ordered directly from a hymn to wisdom in the book of Proverbs so this book became more and more Jewish as I studied it more and more deeply the second thing that happened is that I was introduced primarily through some discoveries in the Dead Sea Scrolls in Qumran in the mid-1940s I was introduced to something called Jewish mysticism most scholars didn't think that this kind of mysticism existed in the first century and therefore could not have influenced Christian writings but the Dead Sea Scrolls reveal that it indeed was present and that helped me to understand that maybe the language John used was Jewish mystical language and not the incarnation a language of fourth century Greek thinking Western civilization I wanted to hear something more about this Jewish understanding God began to sound much more like a Jewish mystic in the fourth gospel then God sounded like someone who had been developed in a Trinitarian formula of the fourth century the final thing in my transformation was that I was working in the early in the later years of the first decade of this century on the book about why I believe that there is a possibility of life after death I think the last time I was here I was doing lectures on that book but in that study I got into an analysis of the development of consciousness and the stages of consciousness and how we've gone from being conscious creatures to being self-conscious human beings and maybe are still evolving toward entering a kind of universal consciousness and with that insight I turned back to the fourth gospel there are two chapters in that book on the fourth gospel and I began to see in that gospel not the language of 4th century Greek oriented thinking but I began to see the language of first century Jewish mysticism and when Jesus begins to say the father and I are one if you have seen me you have seen the father then you need to read that mystically and not incarnation aliy those were the things that turned me around and it cost me to want to do a deeper study of this book so in 2007 I began a five-year study campaign in which I read nothing but the fourth gospel I think I've read every commentary in English in the nineteenth twentieth and twenty-first century that was available to me in the methodist theological library at Drew University where I do my primary study and the result of that was a stunning learning experience where John was absolutely transformed for me and what I want to do in the rest of our time today is to sort of force you to look at John with quick bullet points I'm not going to explain I'm just going to state facts and let them rest upon you you will spend some time during the rest of this week trying to put flesh on these bullet points and my hope is that John's Gospel will never be the same for you as it was never the same for me so listen to these bullet points about the fourth gospel and let me isolate it from the rest of the Bible bullet point number one there no miraculous birth story of Jesus in the Gospel of John it's just not there not only that but the mother of Jesus is never called Mary in the fourth gospel they're only two Mary's in the fourth gospel one is Mary Magdalene the others Mary the sister of Martha the mother of Jesus is never called Mary not only that but there's there are two places in John's Gospel one in Chapter one and one in Chapter six where Jesus is referred to without any explanation as the son of Joseph that's in the Bible a lot of people are surprised when they learn that but that's a bullet point number one bullet point number two in the fourth Gospel John does not baptize Jesus we have that image in our minds but it's just not there all John does in the fourth gospel is to bear witness to Jesus he never baptized as him and one other little caveat John is never called John the Baptist in the fourth gospel most people are surprised to learn that bullet point number three none of Jesus disciples is the author of this book including John Zebedee that's a bit of second century nonsense it's been totally dismissed in the scholarly circles of biblical writers since the early years of the 1900s nobody defends the Johannah and authorship of this gospel why well first of all John Zebedee would be somewhere between 95 and a hundred years of age when he wrote this book very few people write when they're 95 200 I'm gonna try but very few people are writing at that age and not in a time when the average life expectancy was under 30 years of age secondly John Zebedee was a Galilean fisherman Galilean fishermen aren't educated only one about a hundred people in Galilee could read only about one in a thousand could write a galilean fishermen would not be able to do either if he could he wouldn't be a galilean fishermen and the fourth gospel is written not only in Greek which none of Jesus disciples or himself spoke but it's written in a classical exquisite form of Greek none of the disciples were the authors of this book since this book was written 65 to 70 years after the crucifixion it is not written by an eyewitness he doesn't even claim to be written by an eyewitness except in the epilogue about which I'll speak in just a moment believe point number four there are no parables of Jesus in the fourth gospel they just aren't there they put a surprise when they learn that even when they read the gospel they don't notice there are so no short pithy sayings by Jesus when Jesus speaks in the fourth gospel he speaks in long sometimes convoluted monologues they're interrupted generally by another question from another apostle and that just sort of sets him off for another 25 or 30 verses you've all known people like that we have a section of john's gospel called The Farewell discourses which are chapters 13 14 15 and 16 and all of them are almost all monologues that's where Jesus does his speaking so they're no parables then they're short sayings of Jesus bullet point number five many of the familiar stories that we know of the life of Jesus that appear in the other gospel simply do not appear in John there's no story for example of Jesus being tempted by the devil in the wilderness there's no story of Jesus being transformed on top of the Mount of Transfiguration and there's nothing that even comes close to being the Sermon on the Mount bullet point number six the miracles in John's Gospel are not miracles they're called signs there's a difference a miracle is an event which you can look at and describe a sign is something that points beyond whatever you might see to a meaning that cannot be brought into words John has only signs one section of John's Gospel chapters 2 through 11 is called the book of signs and there are eleven of seven of them seven signs seven miracle stories that John say says point to something beyond itself fascinating and John does this from time to time he sought it puts bookends around these things the seven signs have bookend signs on each in and the fascinating thing about the bookends is that there's no reference to these to quote signs or miracle stories anywhere else in the Christian tradition and they're both well-known in very popular stories the opening one is the story of Jesus changing water into wine a very popular story in Episcopal circles I had a close friend in Richmond this is apropos nothing at a close friend in Richmond who was on the Supreme Court of the state of Virginia and the doctor told him he could only have one glass of wine a day for the rest of his life so he went to the store and he bought a fish bowl that looked like a wine glass and he obeyed his doctor's orders he had one glass of wine every day of his life for the rest of his life he has departed this world at this moment but at a happy and ripe old age but the first miracle of turning water into wine where the mother of Jesus plays a dominant role doesn't appear anywhere else it just comes out of the blue in the ninth or tenth decade and the last one the last sign in the book of signs is the story of the raising of Lazarus now that's a fascinating story because Lazarus has been dead for four days he's already buried Jesus has to go out to the cave in order the stone to be removed with a great crowd of people around him including many of his critics he opens the cave and he calls lazarus to come forth and here comes old Lazarus bound by those grave clothes walking like somebody out of mr. Adams and nobody says anything about that for 65 to 70 years there was a public event maybe you're not supposed to be reading this gospel literally maybe John is trying to tell you something that because you and I are in ignorant Gentiles don't understand about his message so the first in the last of the signs are things we've never heard of before and both of them are intensely fanciful the point number 7 John introduces the richest variety of characters into his gospel that you will find anywhere in the New Testament indeed he's almost the only one that develops characters but the fascinating thing is that most of these characters we've never heard of before where have they been hiding for 65 or 70 years and these aren't just insignificant characters John says two of them were members of the twelve when do I Matthew Mark and Luke didn't know about them maybe there were fourteen disciples in not twelve and John filled out the ranks well maybe there's something else going on in this Gospel John introduces characters into his story that had never been heard of before they're prominent characters I'm gonna look at two of them again bookend figures when we gather on Wednesday boy point number eight John still has a few characters that he develops that have been heard of before but when John gets through with them they look different from anything we've ever seen in Matthew Mark and Luke and some of these are very significant characters like the mother of Jesus pretty significant characters there are two stories about the mother of Jesus that have never been in the text of any Christian writing that we know of before and then there's a story of Thomas Thomas is a name on the list of 12 and Mark Matthew and Luke but in John he becomes doubting Thomas and we know his story he's a developed character even little-known people like Andrew and Philip come into some character development in the fourth gospel and there's even the story of Pontius Pilate if you had isolate Pontius Pilate in John and compared Pontius Pilate to Matthew Mark and Luke you'd find a very rich and different character development at the hand of the author of the fourth gospel so what do you make of these figures did John know something that nobody else knew or was John exercising literary license well some of these characters in John's book literary creations and not people of history some of these characters - the author of John sort of like what Harry Potter would be - JK Rowling creations of the author I think we ought to look at that possibility bullet point number nine chapter 21 the epilogue the chapter in which Peter is reconstituted after confessing three times his love for Jesus it's no longer by the great majority of biblical scholars thought to be part of John's original text it's viewed as a later addition to that text in the final bullet point that I'll develop in our final session on Friday the climax in the fourth gospel is not the resurrection of Jesus nor is it his ascension nor is it the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost no for the fourth gospel it is the crucifer fiction that is the ultimate point where the meaning of Jesus life is revealed and therefore it is the climax the crucifixion in John's Gospel is not a tragedy but a triumph that's very different the cross in John's Gospel is a throne from which Jesus reigns it's not a place of torture in which his life is destroyed because that's the way John treats the crucifixion there is no apprehension in Jesus in anticipation of the crucifixion why would you be apprehensive about that which is your ultimate revelation in Matthew Mark and Luke Jesus is always wrestling with shall I drink this cup father if it be thy will remove this cup that's not John John has Jesus say I was born to drink that cup that's the way my life was meant to be I grasp that opportunity and I live it out another interesting note nowhere in this gospel is the death of Jesus ever correlated with the sins of human beings that may be the most difficult thing that we've done to the Christian gospel jesus never rescues people from some mythical fall into original sin in the fourth gospel that's a very different story no one should ever read or could ever read the fourth gospel and still say that bit of pious nonsense that we hear in our hems and in our sermons and in our prayers Jesus died for my sins John would not have understood that at all now those are the bullet points that I outlined today and will develop through the week I know their brief I know their spare but also want to assure you that they're quite true they're well researched I suspect that if we're honest some of us will feel challenged or at least some of our religious presuppositions we'll feel challenged by having to engage these bullet points tomorrow we will begin to put some flesh on them and what I'll do tomorrow primarily is to look at John's Gospel in the words of the author himself and I will try to show you how he tells you on every page in episode after episode you must not read this story literally that's the wrong way to read this story I'm painting a portrait I'm not giving you a photograph so tomorrow we'll look at John's hidden way of communicating which I might add if you were Jewish you would immediately recognize the great problem with most Christians is that we're not Jewish and so we don't have minds that are trained to understand the words of our own Gospels anti-semitism has been a terribly price expensive thing in the history of the Western world and the Jewish people have suffered enormous ly at the hands of Christian people and I don't mean to suggest that the Christian suffering is in in there we're near equal to what we have done to Jewish people but I do want you to know that Christians have also suffered because of our anti-semitism and the primary suffering has been that we were blinded to the meaning of our own Gospels and until we develop Jewish eyes and read our Gospels through Jewish lenses that blindness will continue so we will look at John's way of communicating that this is not to be read literally when we gather tomorrow at the same time and at the same station and we hope you'll all be here thank you very much now if we have time for questions I have a rule every other question has to come from a woman and I want the first question to come from a woman so I'd suggest that we have women line up at this mic and men line up at this mic and we'll go from Mike - Mike that's the first rule the second rule is try to make your questions questions Christians aren't the only people that don't know how to ask questions the press corps in Washington at the president's press conference they don't not ask questions either they all make speeches speeches are wonderful we've only got time for a few and the final request not not a prerequisite is that some of you know that I write a weekly column anybody here received my column over the week it's an essay and a Q&A so I key and stay in dialogue with my public all over the world's opened about a hundred thousand times every week but if you are willing to do so I would be really grateful if you have a question whether you get to ask it or not that you write your question out you've got to give me your name and you've got to give me a hometown because my publisher company in Spokane Washington Spokane Seattle Portland stared Portland when you work on the internet it doesn't matter where they are but they want to make sure that I didn't go up to my study and dream up people who might ask these questions they want some sense that they're literal and they came from real people so they want you to put your name on there if you don't want your name used in a column it's opened a lot around the world just give me your first name and an initial I think they'll accept that but with that preamble I recognized the first lady and that is you and thank you for coming to the mic um could you put the council of nicea in sort of historical context why I've always had issues with that particular you've always what had issues with the Council of Nicaea should and and you know what the church what you believe the church was trying to do at that moment well I think Constantine was trying to do what he was trying to do more than al s' Constantine had finally decided that he needed a unified religion in his empire he thought Christianity was the best candidate to do that and so he said but I can't have Chris the official religion if you bishops don't get together and clarify what Christianity is and stop all your tribal fighting and so he brought them all together and I see in the year 325 and the factions were very deep even at that point and the leader of one faction was a deacon named Athanasius and the leader of the other faction was a priest named arias and they argued about who Jesus was was he of God or like God that was really the argument and that's a nation and orthodoxy developed and after that the only way you could understand Christianity was in terms of creeds and doctrines and dogmas and the doctrine of the Trinity and so forth and arid areas got persecuted as a as a heretic fascinating thing in that discussion was that Athanasius never quoted any gospel except the fourth gospel and he quoted it as a Greek might read it so you have things like Jesus claiming to be God the Father and I are one if you've seen me you've seen the father using the name of God I am over and over and over again when you see the Son of Man lifted up then you will know I am in saying things like before Moses was I am before Abraham was I am and Moses rejoiced to see my day and all sorts of things that later were interpreted to mean Jesus is not very human the sort of a divine visitor and that became Orthodox Christianity now the price with any movement whether it's Judaism or Christianity or Islam is as soon as you get an Orthodox formula then they're going to impose that on everybody and if you don't like it they burn you at the stake and that's what happened in Christian history and so I don't look back on on that as I'd rather Christianity be fluid I think that the faith ought to be like an amoeba under a microscope if you watch an amoeba under a microscope it'll shoot out a suit of pot over here if it meets resistance it pull it back in and shoot out one over here and that's sort of the way faith grows it never grows in paragraphs and as soon as you put it in paragraphs and doctrines and dogma I think you've set persecution for anybody that deviates and of course we've had a lot of people that have deviated in a Galileo whose daughter was nun who was deeply devoted to the Catholic Church I've got in some trouble with them when he said that maybe the Sun does not rotate around the earth we almost put him to death he did a plea bargain and and he got house arrest instead but anyway thank you for your question yes sir thank you very much at the end of your presentation you spoke about the blindness my question is is especially in last three centuries or so with all of the academic and historical work that has come to bear get question to the mic why are why is there so many religious leaders that refuse to acknowledge what you've pointed out and what does that say about their faith well it's a good question I don't know that we can deal with it very deeply in the time we've got there's almost a conspiracy of silence in some parts of the Christian Church less laypeople might learn what all the scholars already know you know I think that's motivated by economic considerations it might upset vey people and they might withdraw their pledges I think that's really what's going on and so we played this game and a young minister a priest will come out of seminary just booming with knowledge and excitement about the things he or she has learned you know trot them out in a sermon or two and the people are scandalized because they they still think Adam and Eve were really real people or that nor really put those dinosaurs on his ark I was interested in Kentucky when they built a new steam Park they asked you everything I have a dinosaur and he said only a baby dinosaur I thought that's an interesting way to solve the literal problem and so after a few people go to the lay leaders of the church and say this new minister might be fine but he's upsetting miss Suzy then the leaders go to that minister and say son and we're always in trouble when they say son or daughter I guess I'd only do that to women said son why don't you preach what you do know and write what you don't know why don't you tell us things about which you're certain and not things about which you have doubt and so they dumb down the congregation to the lowest common denominator and that means that you accept all the people who can't think and you drive away all the people who do think and the Christian Church is in statistical freefall today so I think we've just got a you know I my experience I'm hates it in this gathering but I'm a southerner I live in New Jersey in half for 35 years and I love New Jersey but I grew up in Charlotte and I served churches in Lynchburg Virginia where one of the pastors in town was a young guy named Jerry Falwell and and when I was in Charlotte the last paper on my shell deserve a paper route was the Graham brothers dairy farm where young Billy grew up that's the world I come out of but what I've discovered is that people are hungry for truth not propaganda and I've served churches in Lynchburg which is hardly the cutting edge of liberal America and I served a church in Richmond before are chosen to be bishop and its nickname was the Cathedral of the Confederacy until I got there they hung a blessed Confederate flag on the flagpole outside until I told him I wasn't gonna go into Church flying the Confederate flag and it created a real crisis had only been there three months and the best advice I ever got when I was ordained was don't use your influence before you have some and I didn't have any but I wasn't going to go into a church flying the Confederate flag and so we had this battle and the people are always getting upset and a the job of a pastor is something to keep everybody happy it's much more like the president of the country club you got to keep all the people happy where you're going to have an economic catastrophe and so there's a built-in negativity to a truth but my experience was in Richmond Virginia and in Lynchburg Virginia that when you teach the Bible the way I know the Bible they love it they come out in droves to hear it it's just sort of fascinating to me I had this had a Bible class in downtown Richmond and we had about 300 people a Sunday that came there Pisgah pagans don't do that they know they don't believe the liturgy that they don't really believe the fist players don't really believe that they're miserable offenders they say that every Sunday but they deep down don't believe that for a minute and my mother was Presbyterian she didn't believe that either but anyway that's why I think we have that thank you for your question a lady yes yes thank you Bishop Spong my question relates to one of your final comments here this afternoon when you said that John's Gospel or the fourth gospel does not buy into this Jesus died for my sin the atonement philosophy would you say that that is the major thing that differentiates John from Paul and how did the both of them both wind up in the same New Testament how the Democrats and Republicans wind up in the same Senate they each represent somebody different and Paul was of course earlier Paul dies we think about 64 john stossel's written final form 95 to a hundred so they're a different generation that's you can see when when they take out my God my God why have you forsaken me from the cross it's because they've reached an understanding of Jesus that makes that saying something they can't tolerate Jesus has moved from being a human being who suffers in the crucifixion to being this trans human character who is glorified in the crucifixion and so that word doesn't make a lot of sense anymore but but both the part of the tradition now when I get and I think it's Wednesday I rewrite these things every day so I'm never sure what day's going come out with what but I think Wednesday I'm going to look at these two members of the twelve that nobody's ever heard of before and I think one of them is the way John tips his hat to Paul and brings him into the tradition that's a teaser I hope you'll come back on Wednesday thank you yes sir yes you mentioned authorship not John son of Zebedee and you related that to his aged theory I heard many years ago I wanted to see your take on it would be the same problem with age but the author seems to identify himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved and I think it was Floyd Filson I don't not sure that but the theory that Lazarus was the disciple whom Jesus loves because you don't you don't hear that phrase until after they say see how he loves him well that's right and Boyd Filson is a great scholar who my honor so I wouldn't want to denigrate that but I think the study of the fourth gospel has developed some different possibilities and I'm going to talk about the Beloved Disciple as the other half of the Pauline figure when I get to that'll be Wednesday if I have mansard your question on Wednesday please come back I ask that now that I won't be here thank you I'm sorry about that we rather ladies go ahead okay hi from Westminster Church in Buffalo I'll never have guessed that from your bills Kay wondering if you have had a chance to look at a letter to a Christian nation by Sam Harris and whether you think science can play an important role in helping us determine values oh absolutely I really admire Sam Harris's work I also also know Christopher Hitchens know him before he died had a debate with him in London for four hours on British Internet I teach ITV he's fascinating men not about balance man Christopher Hitchens but fascinating the debate was trained 10:00 and 12:00 in the morning and Karen Armstrong was also on the panel and Christopher Hitchens sipped Scotch whisky out of a tumbler for the whole two hours and he was sort of so like Scottie Peck any of you remember Scott Peck who wrote the road less travel he wrote magnificently but when you saw him he was a chain smoker and almost an alcoholic he didn't live what he was able to talk and that's the that's the sort of the problem that I think you have now I've gotten off too I don't even remember what your question was Sam Harris yeah I think that those guys I really think that that who's the man at Oxford what's his name Christine yeah Richard Dawkins I had dinner with him once I find him absolutely fascinating he's much more pleasant to talk to her than Christopher Hitchens but Sam Harrison and Richard Dawkins and and Christopher Hitchens have offered what I think is a powerful critique of traditional Christianity I think we ought to embrace it and not fight about it because I think they are saying things that we need to look at we've gone through a scientific revolution in the last 500 years the earth is not the center of the universe we were in France a couple weeks ago and we were looking at prehistoric paintings on cave walls some of which were 27,000 years old folks that's 21 thousand years before the world was created according to Bishop Ussher you know we got human beings around painting in caves before the world was created according to Bishop Ussher and the idea that that this little planet called Earth is the center of the universe and that God is somehow above the sky looking down and keeping record books on warren Martin's behavior so they when worden comes to the judgment he'll have everything he's ever done written down in the book that's a rather primitive prehistoric idea there are 200 billion stars in our single galaxy there's somewhere between a hundred billion and a trillion galaxies in our universe we can now through radiocarbon dating we can tell you approximately the date that the universe was created it's between thirteen point seven and thirteen point eight billion years ago we don't know whether it's going to continue to expand or where someday it's going to reach the point where it stops expanding and begins to contract and whether or not the opposite of the big bang will be the big crutch I don't think any of you need to worry about this but those are ideas that when the people wrote the Bible they had no earthly understanding of and so they do all sorts of things that we can't do I'll talk about this a lot more on the 4th on the last day when I get into the Jesus died for our sins versus John's understanding the cross so don't want to go into it more now but I think the whole thing has gotten to the place where fewer and fewer people can believe the symbols that they're taught in church and they don't have any alternative except to leave so they're leaving the church Alumni Association is the fastest growing organization in the Christian West today and across the board in all churches and and and I think it's because we don't give them enough credibility to think that their lives ought to continue to interact with this faith of our fathers and mothers and I passionately believe that we still have something to say to that world yes sir I'm a pastor of a free Methodist Church we're conservative and theology and doctrine for that you may already feel sorry for me I'm not sure but I uh your your lecture today has been very fascinating I think you're on record for calling out conservatives and fundamentalist for all the damage in the recklessness that you believe and your fellow liberals believe that we've done my question would be do you believe that liberal theologians have anything to repent for just as the Conservatives haven't yeah something to repent I think a lot I think liberal theologians are mostly vapid and they they don't have anything you say so they try to say it so beautifully you don't know they have anything to say nothing to say and the last Archbishop of Canterbury that I knew Rowan Williams who at one point in his life was a close friend of mine I think toward the end of his career he developed the capacity of saying nothing so beautifully that nobody had any idea what he was talking about and I think that's the way they hide yeah I think it's tough too it's tough to be a pastor I have great admiration for the people I was there I know what it's like I've great admiration for people who are dedicated to truth but it's not gonna do you any good if you don't bring your congregation along with you and if you're out there a mile ahead of them and they don't know what you're talking about you're not helping anything you're just a bit an exhibitionist so I think there's a real struggle between the pasta and the congregation to grow together but if a pastor doesn't have a vision of what is there for them to go into and I think that's the primary role and I don't mind if nobody agrees I've been in this business too long you know I'm absolutely committed to seeking truth no matter what it does to my presuppositions now the motto of my seminary where seek the truth come whence it may cost what it will and I really want to live into that motto but I'm also to the surprise of many a pretty dedicated convinced Christian that really does upset some of my most severe critics another thing it upsets them is that I know the Bible better than they do that upsets them a lot they talk about it a lot but they don't have the idea about what's going cuz they haven't done the sort necessary study that you have to do but I think that there's a lot we need to repent of conservative and liberal together truth is bigger than any of us yes ma'am well I heard you mentioned Karen Armstrong was coming down got a place down somebody help that might now I think you've just been pull it out did you probably out and handed yeah so my question was what do you think of her writings Karen Armstrong I love her I met Karen Armstrong in this place at the singletons house they had invited us for dinner and invited Karen for dinner they invited Karen for the next night and he invited us the night before and Karen showed up at the wrong night so we were sitting around the kitchen table eating a bowl of vegetable soup instead of this elegant meal that the singletons would normally have provided because we were sort of just getting ready Karen knocked on the door and we was surprised to see her cuz she wasn't invited until the next day but she was surprised too because she was leaving next morning she wasn't gonna be here so he sat down around the kitchen table and I've never I've never had a meal with a person with whom I felt such deep compatibility immediately and she's been on a tremendous journey a Roman Catholic nun they made the mistake of recognizing she was right smart and so they sent her out to Oxford to be educated as a serious mistake and the more she got educated the less she won described toilets with toothbrushes as part of her discipline for being a questioning nun which is what she was was doing and so she started on this enormous pilgrimage I don't know where Karen would say she is today but my definition of Christianity is a lot broader than a lot of people's she would call herself at least the last time we talked about it she would call herself an Eastern transcendentalist but that Roman Catholic heart is still beating in her and I find her turning more and more to sort of the direction that I'm going to try to interpret the symbols in a different way that broadens them so that you can walk with integrity inside the symbols instead of having to restore she's among the closest personal friends we have in the world at this moment so I admire her greatly anything else well we're out of questions through out of time thank you see you tomorrow [Applause] you

Channel: Chautauqua Institution

Views: 25,803

Rating: 4.4666667 out of 5

Keywords: Chautauqua Institution, CHQ, John Shelby Spong (Religious Leader)

Id: -DQJo6Cs7E0

Length: 64min 22sec (3862 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 25 2014