Nothing New Under the Sun

I earlier posted a section of Ben Meyers' review of John Spong's book Jesus for the Non-Religious, which has gotten the attention of a number of you, several of whom have left comments. The crux of the issue it seems is Ben's statements about Spong's less than radical reduction of Jesus and his message to inclusion and tolerance. I don't think that Ben is saying that such values aren't important, but that he finds Spong's Jesus to be limited simply to that.

In many ways, Spong's Jesus, as Ben lays it out -- and I admit I've not read the book and so I'm taking this second hand, but I've read Spong before and I don't think he's saying anything here that he's not said before -- is very similar to Thomas Jefferson's Jesus. He's a Jesus that is stripped of those things that make us uncomfortable -- including the sometimes embarrassing statements about healings and other miracles. It is of course a demythologized Jesus -- and maybe we must do some of this -- but I'm not sure that the stripped down model offers us much more than a mere moralism.

Jesus was a first century Jew -- of peasant stock perhaps -- who called people to embrace God's call on their lives, to abandon the comforts of home and radically follow him wherever he would lead. It's a radical claim that I've yet to fully embrace -- for I like the comforts of home too much.
This may be a Jesus that will appeal to some of the non-religious, but I guess what I find problematic in many of these portrayals of Jesus is that there's no religion left in it. Those who know me know I'm committed to interfaith dialog and activism. I believe that there is more that unites us than divides us, but at the end of the day, without saying my faith is better than anyone elses, I am a Christian who follows Jesus and yes affirms him to be Son of God. This distinctly religious Jesus that calls us to faith in the God revealed in his life is what's missing here.
This is why I recommend so highly the little book Your Calling as a Christian by Tim Carson. It's an invitation to walk with Jesus.

Comments

Mike L. said…
Bob, I appreciate your view on this because it is one that is familiar. However, there is something in Meyers' review and in your agreement that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The problem I have with your critique is:

1. It implies that the only thing of value in Jesus is his ability to perform miracles. In my mind that is a lower form of Jesus. It places his value on the same level as the thousands of other miracle workers over the years in all traditions. It turns Jesus into a medicine man type of figure whose link to God is proven because his miracles are real but everyone else's are fake.

2. It implies that the reason for not taking miracle stories literal is because those things are "uncomfortable" for us. That is a poor characterzation of our views. The reason we don't see those as literal is not for the sake of our comfort, but because of our love of Jesus and our desire to see his story told and cherished in an age when we realize a version of the story that requires belief in supernatural intervention is unbelievable.

3. It implies that a faith without a supernatural Jesus would be less faithful. For many of us "non-literalists", the opposite is true. Jefferson may have rejected Christianity because of his non-literal views, but I blame the church for that. If the church had presented a way like that presented by Borg and Spong for Jeffereson, then I think he would have been able to have a more robust faith without cutting out parts of the Bible. It is the church's insistent to present only an ancient view of the world that has hindered those like Jefferson from being champions of faith and lovers of the whole Bible.

4. finally, Spong's view of Jesus is a more "real" version and NOT a mythical version. He (and I in some ways) speaks about the mythical Jesus in an attempt to unlock the real Jesus and keep him in plain site so he doesn't get lost in the myths.
Robert Cornwall said…
Mike,

Thanks for the response -- I'm not saying that the only thing of value is Jesus' performance of miracles -- or that we must take them literally. What I do believe, and I think Borg agrees, is that those stories -- whether literal history or not -- have their own integrity. They're not just add ons of a superstitious people.

Luke Timothy Johnson, whom Spong calls part of the Religious Right (but is in reality a liberal Catholic teaching at Candler Seminary)reminds us that finding the "real" Jesus isn't possible -- that is, we can't hope to peel off the extraneous layers and then find a Jesus that we can claim to be historical.

Yes, to some degree part of me clings to what Borg calls a soft-literalism, but I'm not a "literalist" in the sense that I take everything at face value. That should be clear from other things I've written here.

I think the difference between Borg and Spong -- as I read them is that Borg (and Crossan) seem to take the Bible a lot more seriously than does Spong.

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