My First Mentor: Robert Littlefield Crandall

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 20 October 2011 1 Comments
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Question

I've just finished reading your book, Eternal Life and just before that Jesus for the Non-Religious. My spiritual seeking had taken me away from Christianity to traditional philosophies such as Advita (literally means non-duality). However, since being introduced to your work, I have a renewed desire to look deeper into my own faith tradition for the truth that Jesus was trying to convey to humanity, whereas in the past, I had all but given up on the Bible.

The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas seems to be more in tune with the mystical experience of the Jesus/God experience you talk about in your new book.  Could you please give us your take on this gospel?

“I am the one who comes from what is whole.  I was given from the things of my father.  For this reason I say, if one is whole, one will be filled with light but, if one is divided, one will be filled with darkness.  Whoever has ears should hear.  There is light within a man of light and it shines on the whole world.  If it does not shine, it is darkness.”  Jesus - Gospel of Thomas.

Answer

Dear Rodney,

I am familiar with and attracted to the Gospel of Thomas which only came to the attention of western scholars in 1946.  It has had a meteoric rise since the discovery of its full text in Nag Hammadi that year.  The Jesus Seminar quickly voted to recognize this gospel as an authentic part of Christianity’s scriptures and included it in the Seminar’s masterpiece entitled The Five Gospels, edited by Robert Funk and Roy Hoover. Elaine Pagels, the brilliant professor of Early Christianity at Princeton University, made a monumental contribution to Thomas scholarship when she wrote Beyond Belief, published by Random House in 2003.  I commend that book to you.

As you note, Thomas’ message is much more eastern than western, more transcendental than literal, more mystical than rationalist.  It does show us something about Christianity that was real before doctrines and dogmas began to stifle its life. It also helps us to recall that Christianity has never been fixed, but is rather always evolving.  The Christian dialogue is always between the experience of God and the thought forms of the world at the moment the faith is being articulated.  No articulation is ever final to say nothing of being “inerrant” or “infallible.”  Scripture, creeds, doctrines and dogmas hopefully always point us to God, but not one of them ever captures God.  Indeed it is the height of idolatry to suggest, as religious systems frequently do, that human words can ever contain the truth of God.

So I urge you to gain what insight you can by living fully, loving wastefully and being all that you can be and then put that into dialogue with the insights you might have previously gained from Paul, Mark, Matthew and John and keep walking into the mystery of God as you journey through the 21st century.

Thank you for your question.

~John Shelby Spong

 

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