Watching the United Kingdom Wrestle with its Deficit

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 26 January 2011 6 Comments
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Question

I finished reading your book Liberating the Gospel this past Sunday and was fascinated and excited by the biblical scholarship you outlined in it. I’ve read Why Christianity Must Change or Die and Jesus for the Non-Religious and I look forward to reading the rest of your books as well. You have no idea how wonderful it has been for me to find a religious leader who presents such thoughtful and meaningful perspectives on the Bible; perspectives that allow me to use my brain while remaining spiritual.

Later that night, I turned on the TV only to hear Jack Van Impe and his wife Roxella (people I was not familiar with until that very moment) reminding viewers that he and his wife do not preach about the end of the world, they preach about the second coming of Christ. He quotes passages that say a certain number of people will go with Christ up to heaven and then come back to live 1000 years ON EARTH…and then something else will happen and then God’s chosen ones will live here FOREVER. Each of his assertions was supported with Bible verse after Bible verse like a man with Tourette’s.

The distance between your views in Liberating the Gospels and the views expressed by Van Impe’s struck me that day. In my life there are people around me who believe in the literal interpretation of scripture. Have you ever considered creating a television show of your own to provide an alternative view to the craziness I heard on the airwaves Sunday night? Are there personal approaches you might suggest that I take with people I know that take scripture so literally (e.g. women shouldn’t be ministers for Jesus had no female disciples, homosexuality is an abomination or “love the sinner, hate the sin”, etc., etc., etc.

Answer

Dear Kris,

Thank you for your letter. I have seen Jack Van Impe and Roxella on television from time to time, but not for long. Their profound ignorance of the Bible combined with a deeply prejudiced view of other human beings made further watching not something I was interested in doing. People like the Van Impes are a dime a dozen on radio and TV and they always have the answers to every issue with biblical quotes to spare readily available. If one can justify one’s prejudices with quotations from the Bible, assumed to be the “literal and sure word of God,” one never has to think or to be challenged by new knowledge. I grew up in that sort of world. I am a Christian today because I escaped that mind set. Many, however, either do not or can not escape and unfortunately they represent ignorance in its most profound dimension.

There are two kinds of ignorance. There is the ignorance that comes from lack of knowledge. That is easily addressed through education. The second kind of ignorance is the ignorance of those who do not know that they do not know. This is the ignorance of religious imperialism that pretends to know all there is to know about God and is not open to any other truth. The Van Impe’s would seem to fall into that category.

No, I haven’t considered a television program and I might add no one has considered one for me. My medium is the written word, books and this column. Both of which have given me the privilege of hearing from you.

~John Shelby Spong

 

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