The Presidential Campaign and the Book of Judges

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 11 October 2012 3 Comments
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Question

What if it was discovered that Christ had a "near death" experience?  Is it possible?  What effect would it have on Christianity?

Answer

Dear Lydia,

I think your imagination has been working overtime!

First, everything we know about Jesus is located in the four gospels that are not eye witness accounts, but the products of the second and third generations of Christians, written 40 to 70 years after the event we call the crucifixion.  So they are interpretations of Jesus not factual reporting.  If Jesus had had an out of body experience, all we would get to read about would be how it was interpreted 40-70 years later.

Second, an out of the body experience, at least as I have read about them is a subjective experience not participated in by anyone, but the subject.  I think that what people call out of body experiences can be explained quite naturally, but I know of no verifiable data of a person, who is “out of the body” making himself or herself known to other people.  If I did read an account that claimed that, I would not believe it or would ascribe it to hallucination.

The Jesus story is based upon a person who lived in history and with whom people had intense experiences, which they interpreted as the presence of God enabling them to transcend the normal limits of mortality.  Our problem is that we have literalized those experiences and written creeds, doctrines and dogmas on the basis of those literalizations.

Your question seems to me to be the result of seeking, either consciously or unconsciously, to escape these creedal structures and find a new way to interpret these experiences.  I commend you for that.  To walk down the road of “out of body” literature is, I believe, little more than a dead end street.

~John Shelby Spong

 

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