Women's
Book Group in Review
by
Bev Staaden
The
Women's Book Group had a lively discussion about Bishop
Spong's book: "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism."
Some of the "nuggets" from Spong are:
We
"must probe the historic words in quest for the
underlying experience and then seek ways to bring
that experience forward in time so that it's truth
might be known again even in our generation." (p.
191)
Spong
explores the formation of the Bible and reveals
historical inaccuracies and distortions which were due
to:
- The
oral tradition which existed for so long before the
written word translations where concepts and values
affected the use of language
-
Pre-scientific understandings
-
Subjective viewpoints and experiences of various
writers
"The
knowledge available to Christians in any age was and is
nothing more or less than the common knowledge of that
era" (p. 230)
"If it continues to be viewed literally, the Bible, in
my opinion, is doomed to be cast aside as both dated and
irrelevant." (p. 15)
"We must seek the truth that lies beneath the mythology
of the distant past, so that we might experience that
truth ... namely, that somehow in and through the person
of Jesus of Nazareth, the reality of God has become an
experience in human history that is universally
available." (p.237)
"... Jesus means love-divine, penetrating, opening,
life-giving, ecstatic love. Such love is the very
essence of what we mean by God. God is love.
Jesus is Love. God was in Christ." (p. 238)
Spong's book speaks to the need for mainline churches to
explore the Bible. In other words, too many of us
are "biblically illiterate."
"The
biblical scholarship of the past two hundred years has
simply not been made available to the man or the woman
in the pew." His hope (and that of the Book Group)
is that we make opportunity to "re-educate ourselves."
(p. 10)
"Finally, I confront the living Word of God in the
realization that God calls all of God's creation into
the fullness of life. Each of us is created,
loved, and invited by the Source of life into the
fullness of life, into a heightened consciousness, into
having the courage to be ourselves -- all of the selves
that we are. The more significantly human we are,
the more we reveal the meaning of divinity." (p. 248)
Check out the website
www.johnshelbyspong.com for more information and the
newsletter series, "A New Christianity for the New
World."
