A Question of Simple Faith

While searching among the drafts I had saved for future blog posts, I found an item, dated March 19, 2009, from the Q & A column of Bishop John Shelby Spong.

Bishop Spong is the antithesis of the Bible-thumping fundamentalists who lead the GOP's "Tea-and-Crumble" faction and who simultaneously claim to be champions of individual freedom while openly working to legislate America into a theocracy where all would have to toe their right-wing fundamentalist line.

Like fundamentalists of every stripe, they prey on those with "simple faith," promoting ignorance, demanding blind obedience, and using fear of going against "the word of God" to advance their vision of reality. And they pray for a repressive, racist, homophobic, divisive, Orwellian second-coming of a Jesus bearing little or no resemblance to the one who submitted to crucifixion for the remission of sin.

Bishop Spong, in contrast, demands nothing of those with "simple faith." Instead, he offers them as a gift the only tool human beings need for revealing truth - the right to question their own belief system.

I believe today is a very good day to share that article from 2009.

===

Stephen Argent of Sussex, United Kingdom, writes:

Thank you for the stimulation of your published works and weekly newsletter. My question concerns the pastoral care of those Christians who do not have the intellectual capacity or strength of character to tolerate the ambiguity of your message. Rightly or wrongly their "simple" faith sustains them and many would be fatally undermined should they be confronted by doubts concerning such issues as the virgin birth and the bodily resurrection. Is it right to leave their views unchallenged, or should gentle sensitivity necessitate a less direct approach? I am aware that I will appear patronizing in posing this question, but from your own pastoral experience how have you dealt with this matter?

Dear Stephen,

Your question is a frequent one, but in my opinion it reveals things under the surface that I believe need to be faced.

First, is your concern really for those whose "simple" faith is being disturbed by developing knowledge? Frequently I find this question asked by one who is himself disturbed, but projects it on to others.

Second, are you really suggesting that truth should be compromised for the sake of those who might not be able to understand? Does that not make religion a bit of an opiate for the people?

Third, if truth is to be compromised in the realm of the church for the sake of those who might not understand or for those you call simple believers, has not the church become totalitarian? Is that not an example of control by giving people security when they cannot deal with truth? Is such a formula followed in any other discipline of human knowledge? Is religion somehow virtuous when it does what would be deplored in any other human arena?

Fourth, the pursuit of truth in religion is never imposed on people by force. That is not the nature of liberal education. The only people who seem to me to impose specific religious answers on anyone are those evangelical Protestants or conservative Catholics who believe that they possess the unchanging truth of God.

Fifth, the task of the Christian is to love "the least of these" our brothers and sisters. Seeking to protect them from uncomfortable truth is not just patronizing as your letter suggests, it is both demeaning and dehumanizing.

Finally, one of my professors once said, "Any God who can be killed ought to be killed." To which I would add, any faith that can be undermined should be undermined. A God or a faith that needs you or me to prop it up has already died long ago. You do not need to defend a living God. Only dead gods seem to require that.

– John Shelby Spong

He Is Still Dangerous

Perhaps you've seen reports on this story, which is currently playing out in Columbus, Ohio.

Carla Hale, Gay Teacher, Fired From Catholic High School After Being 'Outed' By Mother's Obituary

Carla Hale, a beloved teacher at Bishop Watterson High School, was fired because of her sexuality. She was a teacher who cared for her students and treated each one with respect. The school, however, did not reciprocate that respect in its treatment of her. Discrimination and injustice is something that we all have a duty to fight in today's society. It's unfair that someone who cared so much about her students and her job should lose them on the basis of something she cannot even control.

Read more about this story here.

What follows is my take on the dynamics of the situation:

Whether they know it or not, the people who fired Carla Hale are reenacting what the Pharisees did 2000 years ago to the itinerant carpenter, whom they claim to follow and whose authority they have appropriated and assigned to themselves.

He's the guy who refused to condemn the adulteress; the guy who supped with tax collectors and sinners; the guy who preached love for all and said "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" when questioned about allowing his followers to ignore a "law."

Yep. That guy - the one they nailed to a cross to protect their positions of power and influence within a stagnant social structure clinging to the past and peddling a snake oil security at the cost of one's personal integrity and worth - the very items "that guy" declared to be the essence of the good news - that you, and in fact all people, are worth God's love (Matthew 10:31).

The posturing of those who fired Carla Hale reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from the movie "Jesus Christ Superstar." The Scribes and Pharisees stand upon and protect a flimsy scaffold amid the ruins of the temple as they sing sing "He Is Dangerous!" and "This Jesus Must Die!"

It is no accident, of course, that the scene opens with an overhead shot of buzzards soaring and the Scribes and Pharisees are dressed in black robes.

Link to source

Paul Ryan's Last Supper

Given the alternate reality in which the GOP lives and operates, this picture from today's Columbus Dispatch appears to be a carefully staged perversion of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper.

Paul Ryan is Jesus holding forth with the gospel of GOP orthodoxy, which requires sacrifice by all but the super-rich.

A man, Clarence Mingo, sits at Ryan's right hand ready to do his bidding without question. A woman, Anne Gonzales sits to his left (sinister) side, the side for subservience and submissiveness.

The man is Black; the woman sports an Hispanic surname. Surprise! Surprise!

The only element missing is Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia as Judas clutching the bag of coins the Citizens United decision gave to the GOP to undermine the election process which put Barack Obama in the White House.

How Big Is Your God?

Here's another Q & A from Bishop John Shelby Spong followed by some thoughts it evoked.

John Arvey, from Sunnyvale, CA asks:

You have discussed the influence of astronomy on our God view. What do you think will happen when life on other planets is discovered? Will this expand or contract your image of God?

Dear John:

In a word, I believe nothing will happen. I assume it's inevitable already. Our image of God is always too small. Our problem is that we cannot think in God categories. God is the same. Our image of God expands every time we discover something more about life, the universe or our own humanity.

– John Shelby Spong

===

To subscribe to Bishop Spong's Weekly Q & A newsletter go to this link, scroll to the bottom, and enter your email address: http://www.johnshelbyspong.com/publicsite/index.aspx

===

According to Bishop Spong, we humans gain greater insight into the nature of God through the process of learning - exploring all areas of human knowledge and then changing our beliefs when an ever expanding understanding of reality demands that we do so. That process, however, with its inherent challenge to our cherished beliefs, is anathema to both conservative Christian and conservative political philosophy as embodied in the Tea Party Movement and championed by the braying of Rush Limbaugh and FOX News.

Christian Conservatism of this type offers its followers a very small God. In fact and in practice, it holds that knowledge of God is completely and perfectly revealed in a rigid, sect-specific interpretation of the Bible, and learning is sinful whenever it calls into question any aspect of that interpretation.

Political Conservatism of this type also offers its followers a very small God - the status quo. It holds that American values are completely and perfectly revealed in the rigid, ideology-specific interpretation the Constitution known as strict constructionism, and learning which calls this interpretation into question is unpatriotic.

Thus, both groups strive to maintain the status quo in which special privilege is granted to those with great wealth. Both the Bible and the Constitution are wielded as brooms to sweep reports of the escalating economic inequality in America under a carpet of willful ignorance.

Instead of delighting in and celebrating the prospect of a deepening relationship to and understanding of the divine, these conservatives live in a world filled with fear. They fear change. They fear knowledge which clearly shows that observed reality is quite different from what their rigid beliefs declare it to be.

Deep down, they know that any philosophy which offers a guarantee of unassailable rectitude is a sham, and they are afraid that a just God will hold them accountable for the intolerance, selfishness, bigotry, homophobia, greed, self-righteousness, and ignorance their beliefs foster.

Is it any wonder that they resort to fear-mongering and intimidation when they engage in the political process?

It would appear that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was decades ahead of his time when he said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."