“Resurrection” A Reality or a Pious Dream? Part I

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 23 April 2015 2 Comments
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Question

For many years, I have been in the process of trying to preserve my Christian heritage on the one hand and on the other conflicted by the many absurdities of Christian mythology. As a stubborn seeker, scientist and psychiatrist, it has been my joy to find my beliefs summarized in your life's work, which I am thoroughly reviewing and studying.

You have given me new hope and it is my mission to use science to provide a grounded base for hope. I find in you a kindred soul which is helping me write the song I will leave behind for my loved ones still in the delusional denial of life's existential anxieties by holding onto myths that they truly don't believe.

I wish you Pacce e Benne, peace and goodness, the ancient traditional Franciscan blessing and I look forward to further discourses with you and meeting you personally. 

Answer

Dear Dr. Suria,

Thank you for your letter. I am glad that you have found my work helpful to your life and career.

There is certainly a division between what you call your “Christian heritage” and “Christian mythology,” but I am not sure they can be or even should be separated. Myths are the way human beings understand their world. That is not the problem, literalizing the myths is.

Because Santa Claus is a myth does not mean that the spirit of giving should not be embraced. Because there are some circumstances in human life that cannot be fixed does not mean that through science and research, they cannot be moved beyond the limits of yesterday. The cultural wisdom expressed in the story of Humpty Dumpty that all the kings horses and all the king’s men could not put Humpty Dumpty together again, does not mean that we should not expand life expectancy as we have done by doubling it over the last 200 years. Because the story of the virgin birth is so clearly a myth does not mean that we human beings have not found something in Jesus that human life by itself could never have produced. If you, as a psychiatrist cannot actually cure a psychotic person, but by psychotherapy and the use of certain drugs, you can enable that patient to function perhaps in a neurotic, but not psychotic pattern, is that not worth doing?

Life is a mystery which we are called to engage. What we think of as obvious truth today may look like mythology to our descendants in the 23rd or 24th century. Truth may not be relative, but our perception of truth always is. The experience of God may be real and eternal, but our attempt to explain that experience in a Bible, the creeds, our doctrines, dogmas and liturgies is never eternal. That is a fine line to walk. Organized religion constantly falls into idolatry. By that I mean that we relate to things we have created, e.g. the Bible and human creeds, as if they are the truth to which they only point.

Thank you for your insights, your courage and your faith. They inspire me. I hope they will inspire thousands.

John Shelby Spong

 

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