Resurrection: A Reality or a Pious Dream? Part X The Story of the Ascension

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 9 July 2015 1 Comments
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Question

I wondered if you would be kind enough to comment on the related abuse both of women and of children. One person, defending this behavior, quoted the Bible in justification for his abusive action. In a very informed article in the New York Times, Dr. Dyson touched on the religious aspect of abuse. I would like to hear your response.

Answer

Dear Nancy,

I fear the Bible's literal words are frequently used to justify violent behavior. "Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child," while not a literal quote from the Bible, is nonetheless quoted regularly as if it is to justify corporal punishment. If corporal punishment, however, is ever justified, and I do not believe it is, the kind of beating a professional football player recently administered to his four year old son is still abusive behavior, so is knocking one's wife into unconsciousness in an elevator done by another professional football player. Violence permeates our society and it shows up regularly off the field in the behavior of NFL players. That kind of violence can never be justified by appeals to the Bible.

The Bible is also quoted frequently in defense of prejudice. Examples are found in such texts as “wives obey your husbands,” “slaves obey your masters” and the suggestion that homosexual persons should be put to death, which you will find in the book of Leviticus. That is, however, a profoundly ignorant way to approach the Bible, yet people like James Dobson (Focus on the Family), Evangelist Pat Robertson, (talking about both women and homosexuals) and right wing politicians, many of whom regard justice for the poor as an economic mistake that will weaken their self-reliance, still quote the Bible to justify their prejudices, which clearly also reflect violence.

The Bible was written between the years 1000 BCE and 140 CE. It reflects many prejudices which society has, thank God, outgrown. It justifies slavery in both Testaments. It calls for the death penalty for homosexual persons. It views religious imperialism as a virtue. It justifies war. It speaks approvingly of anti-Semitic behavior. Even the Holocaust was justified by some on the basis of a biblical text. Matthew had a Jewish crowd respond to Pilate's claim that he was innocent of the blood of Jesus by shouting: "His blood be upon us and upon our children."

John's gospel has Jesus say that the whole purpose of his life is that "They may have life and have it abundantly." The abuse of children is never life-giving. The denigration of women is never life-giving. The persecution of homosexual people is never life-giving. The rejection of the religious sensitivities of those who worship differently is never life-giving. The persecution of heretics is never life-giving for either the victim or the perpetrator. The continued racism in our society, which is still revealed in such things as the attempts by both the Supreme Court and the various state legislatures, operating with the support of the Supreme Court, to make voting difficult for people of color and to gerrymander districts to minimize the voting power of the minorities. It matters not to me whether quotations from the Bible are used to justify or even to perfume this kind of behavior, those actions are still life-denying and therefore must be called evil. The fact that the Bible, literally interpreted, is frequently used in the pursuit of that evil simply sickens me.

People will use anything they can to justify their attitudes. I deeply regret that they still use the Bible in such an uninformed way I think Christians should call this attitude out wherever it appears, even when those articulating this strange attempt to justify violence claim to be Christians themselves..

John Shelby Spong

 

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