That Jesus...what a nice fella...

Jason Lee Steorts on Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong's Non-Theistic God

"This Jesus would be unrecognizable to most Christians. The largest section of the book is an attack on "the supernatural forms of yesterday's Christianity." Spong executes this attack by means of a lengthy textual criticism of the Gospels, sprinkled with occasional undeveloped thoughts on the incompatibility of traditional belief with a modern worldview. ("The ability of anyone to walk on water exists in our world not in reality, but only in very bad golf jokes.") Along the way, he jettisons the following claims, among others: that Mary was a virgin at the time of Jesus's birth; that Jesus performed miracles; that Jesus atoned for the sins of mankind; that Jesus was resurrected; and that the resurrected Jesus ascended to Heaven.

Spong's analysis is interesting as far as it goes, though his tendency to dismiss all disagreement as "hysterical" -- his adjective of choice for traditional believers -- is unbecoming, morally and intellectually. I offer here no evaluation of his textual criticism, as literary sleuthing is rarely dispositive. Instead, let's assume for the sake of argument that his thesis is correct: Jesus performed no miracles, wrought no atonement, and rose from no tomb. When one is left with such a Christ, what does it mean to say -- as Spong says of himself -- that one is "a believing Christian"? What does one believe in? How could one persuade anyone else to share this belief?"

-Jason Lee Steorts, National Review