Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture

By John Shelby Spong

Book Overview

Chapter One A Preamble: Sex Drove Me to the Bible Sex drove me to the Bible! This statement is literally true, but not in the sense that most would interpret it. In 1988 my book entitled Living in Sin? A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality was published by Harper and Row. In that book I was led to question traditional religious attitudes and traditional religious definitions on a wide variety of sexual issues, from homosexuality to premarital living arrangements. There was an immediate outcry from conservative religious circles in defense of something they called biblical morality. Proof Texting and Prejudice This appeal to the Bible to justify and to sustain an attitude that was clearly passing away had a very familiar ring to me. I grew up in America''s segregated South with its rich evangelical biblical heritage. Time after time I heard the Bible quoted to justify segregation. I was told that Ham, Noah''s son, had looked on Noah in his nakedness, and for this sin he had been cursed to servitude and slavery along with all his progeny (Gen. 9:25-27). It did not occur to those quoting this Scripture to raise questions about what kind of God was assumed in this verse, or whether or not they could worship such a God. Since they could not identify themselves with those who were the victims of this cruelty, the God to whom they ascribed this victimizing power did not appear to them to be seriously compromised. It also did not seem to matter that this corporate condemnation of millions of people to servitude because of their ancestor''s indiscretion might also contradict other parts of the sacred text. The prophet Ezekiel, for example, writes: "What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ''The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children''s teeth are set on edge''? As I live, says the Lord God, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sins shall die" (Ezek. 18:2-4). The only concern of the one who quoted the texts in my early life was to maintain that person''s prejudice, to enable that person to avoid having to change destructive attitudes. I lived in Lynchburg, Virginia, in the late 1960s, when independent Baptist preacher Jerry Falwell was just beginning his rise to national prominence. Intense racism was certainly in the air at that time, and Jerry Falwell played to these feelings as his popularity grew. To start a "Christian school" in that period of history was a popular response to the Supreme Court order to dismantle the segregated school system endemic to the South since the Civil War. Teachers in Falwell''s school had to take an oath of conformity to biblical inerrancy, and by that same view of Scripture, Jerry Falwell could justify his emotional commitment to segregation, although, in fairness to Mr. Falwell, it needs to be said that he has moved away from these negative attitudes as the years have gone by. It was in this period of history that the segregationist governor of Georgia, Lester Maddox, became a candidate for president of the United States and was supported by many southern fundamentalists. Maddox was a Georgia restaurateur who battled for his "constitutional right" to serve only a segregated public. He gave out ax handles at his restaurant as a hint of the way he thought those who wanted to desegregate public businesses might be discouraged from doing so. With ease, many texts out of the Hebrew Scriptures could be quoted to justify the need for God''s chosen people to keep themselves separate and apart from those judged to be unchosen, heathen, or evil. That was, and is, a major theme in the books of both Ezra and Nehemiah, for example (Ezra 10:12, 15; Neh. 13:1-3). Of course those texts could be countered by other texts to produce ambivalence or relativity in biblical truth, but fundamentalists could not tolerate this. Those whose religious security is rooted in a literal Bible do not want that security disturbed. They are not happy when facts challenge their biblical understanding or when nuances in the text are introduced or when they are forced to deal with either contradictions or changing insights. The Bible, as they understand it, shares in the permanence and certainty of God, convinces them that they are right, and justifies the enormous fear and even negativity that lie so close to the surface in fundamentalistic religion. For biblical literalists, there is always an enemy to be defeated in mortal combat. Sometimes that enemy is Satan-the devil literalized and made very real and serving the primary purpose of removing responsibility from the one who has fallen into sin. Onetimepopular American evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, when caught in a New Orleans motel with a prostitute, explained his behavior by just such an appeal to Satan. His evangelistic enterprises were so successful, he stated, that the devil was being hurled back into darkness by this white knight of a preacher. So the devil launched a counterattack and lured evangelist Swaggart into a trap and dealt a mortal blow to his soul-winning ministry. If the devil can ensnare a heroic figure like Swaggart, so the argument went, think what he (the devil is always male, witches are always female) can do to the lesser persons who are mere church members. In evangelical circles, child discipline tends to be quite physical, both because children are thought to be "born in sin" and therefore evil and because the Book of Proverbs teaches parents that "he who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him" (Prov. 13:24). One disobedient lad, facing corporal punishment in "the woodshed," is said to have argued for a suspended sentence by saying, "It wasn''t my fault, father. The devil made me do it." To which the father replied, "Well son, I guess it is my duty to beat the devil out of you!" Blaming the devil is a popular but not always su

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060675098
• ISBN13: 9780060675097
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: HarperOne
• Length: 267 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

For God's sake!

It is eye opening book from a Bishop who exposed the distorted version of the Bible from the biased Fundamentalism. It is interesting and wonderful to see a Jewish cult developed into a world religion. Jesus messages of peace were the weapon to suppress other different unorthodox voices. It is a good book to understand the fight among the 296 sects of Christians

This Book Changed My Life Forever!

Yes, this book has changed my life forever! I used to be a fundamentalist Christian, trying to find "security" in my extreme belief and point of view of my religion. I used to believe that the Bible is the Whole Truth and the perfect word of God. Now my eyes are open and I can see how dangerous, destructive and narrow-minded it was. Look at the problems in the world nowadays, terrorism, hatred to certain groups of the community and wars... Mostly caused by the bigots, fundamentalists (in any religions) who think that they are the best and other people who are not the same like them are the enemy of God and should be destroyed or converted into their own religion. If we look into the history, Christianity itself from the beginning has transformed from "being persecuted" into "the persecutor", witch-hunting in the past and now the same thing happens only in a different formats. Why do we have to be hypocrites? For example, look at so many so called "Christian Artists" who did "sin", got divorced and so forth and still they are "forgiven" and "accepted" by the congregation as long as they say "God forgave my sin"? How ridiculous is that? It's so easy to legitimize everything by saying "God this.." and "God that.."? While the God that you are talking about is "silent"? Bishop Spong wants to share his point of view of the real essence in Christianity that has been lost and we supposed to have in this age now. We should have been more developed in our way of thinking, more advanced, not going back to the dark old way of thinking in the "stone age". Thank you Bishop Spong for this masterpiece! People will always remember this for many many years to come. I totally support you and people like you out there who are willing to do something for humanity. One last word, who are the people who threatened Bishop Spong with death sentence for revealing this "extereme point of view of Christianity - as they thought so"? They are the so called "Christian Devotees" and "The Guardian of The Truth of God". If God could speak out, he will never legitimize anyone to kill anyone else by any excuse. Looks like they are defending their "insecurity" should the truth comes out.

A Few Quotes

- My purpose in this volume is first to resuce the Bible from the exclusive hands of those who demand that it be literal truth and second to open that sacred story to levels of insight and beauty that, in my experience, literalism has never produced.- I honor fundamentalism's demand that the Bible be taken seriously.- To traffic in guilt as the church has done, to take the beauty and life-giving quality of sexual love and distort it with layer after layer of sexual guilt is simply no longer defensible, if it ever was.- When the love of God is contained inside human barriers, it dies. It ceases to be the demanding, searing, opening love of God. It has become instead the perfume of human respectability, sprinkled on the cesspools of human negativity.- Religion almost inevitably tries to take our anxiety away from us by claiming that which religion can never deliver - absolute certainty.These are just a few of the many passages I highlighted when reading this volume. A book that I"m sure to read again and again for a different point of view, one that talks about the Bible not as a devinely inspired, unchanging thing, but as a tome that was written by men of their time trying to convey the deep meaning of the life altering experiences they encountered. A must read for it's measured, thoughtful, direct and stance.Since reading this book two weeks agao I've been wondering why I hold certain beliefs, pondering new meanings and finding new insights. In short Spong has done something no other Priest or theologian has done for me in a LONG time - he's got me thinking about the Bible and my relation to it on a daily basis.

Opened a Door

Reading this book has allowed me, a long time atheist, to reconsider the church I was brought up in and which I left due to unreconcilable conflicts between a literal Bible and the facts of scientific discovery. I had heard others talk about the Bible as "symbolism" but never in a way that made those symbols both accessible as parable and profound as statements of faith.Regardless of attacks from conservative and fundamentalist Christians, this book does nothing to belittle or reject Jesus Christ. Bishop Spong's work allows one to see beyond the human frailty of the authors of the Gospel and to connect directly with the profound love and power that must have walked the earth to inspire such stories.I recommend this book to anyone who thinks that the Bible is wrong just because it is told from a paradigm we no longer accept.

Insightful and moving

In a clear writing style, Spong exposes the fundamentalist, mindlessly literal movement in Christianity as simply foolish, and returns our attention to the message of the Word of God rather than the words themselves. Reading this book has been insightful, and made me proud to be a Christian. No doubt that folks who like to pretend that the Bible is perfectly correct in every phase, often those same folks who have justified slavery, segregation, the inferiority of women, and many our society's ills using the words of the Bible, will find Spong's ideas threatening. For me, it deeped my understanding of God and faith.

Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism

For many years I struggled to understand the Bible and the fundamental, rigid, exclusive Christian doctrine I was raised to believe. Bishop Spong gives all doubters permission to ask questions, to seek answers, to accept other forms of religion, and to remain a believer. One cannot be a student of science,language,culture, philosophy and religion without questioning whether or not the Bible is the inerrant word of God. I have come to believe the Bible is the living word of God because of the truths it contains that are as relevant today as they were in Old Testament times. Are all of the events related within it real; are all the stories absolute truth? I don't think so, but Bishop Spong provided me with a way to accept the lessons the Bible teaches without having to reject my mind's inability to accept every word as being the inerrant word of God, and every event as an historical fact.