Addressing the National Conference of the American Humanist Association

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 23 June 2016 8 Comments
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Question

I recently spent a weekend with you at a Unitarian Universalist church in Sarasota and then I heard you again at the national meeting of the American humanist Association in Chicago.

I am a Humanistic Jew, past president of the Society for Humanistic Judaism and a member of the UU Church. At Sarasota I understood you to say that we must reject supernatural theism in favor of some other form of theism, which is so difficult to define that you described it as attempting to “nail smoke to a wall.”

This leads me to ask, why not go directly from supernatural theism to secular humanism in a form which is represented by Humanistic Judaism and by the Sunday Assembly accommodated by so many UU churches? Humanism seems to me to offer the community aspect of traditional religion without the supernatural underpinnings. Why then should we deal with the intermediate form of theism at all, which cannot even be defined in rational terms?

I have another suggestion, which I offer with great respect. Please do not make any more remarks which treat transgender people as though their gender is optional. Their gender is inborn, just as everyone’s gender is inborn, even though in the case of some transgender people the genitalia are out of sync. I know this because I am the father of an adult transgender son, born ostensibly female. Seeing this issue through my eyes might help you to see it in a different light.

Answer

Dear Louis,

Thank you for your letter. I found the congregation and the clergy of the UU Church of Sarasota to be a very exciting faith community. I am glad you have found a home in that congregation.

Let me, however, correct both of your statements just slightly. I do not reject supernatural theism “for some other form of theism” as you seem to have heard. I reject supernatural theism and all other versions of theism as inadequate human words to seek to understand our experience of God. Theism defines God as a being, supernatural in power, dwelling somewhere external to the world and not only ready but capable of intervening in some miraculous way. What we need to develop is an entirely new way of interpreting our experience of transcendence. I do not think secular humanism is the only alternative or even the best alternative. It was the German Reformed theologian, Paul Tillich, who first moved me from thinking of God as a being to thinking of God as “Being” itself. It is still human language and thus still inadequate to capture the essence of God but it is a step in the right direction. I regard humanism as a good word, but “secular humanism” is not near broad enough to make sense out of what I call my “God experience.” I acknowledge the reality of a dimension of life that I call “Otherness,” and describe as wonder and mystery, concepts which the word “secular” does not capture. Deep down I consider myself a humanist. I think Christianity, when properly understood, is profoundly humanistic. How else can the words placed into the mouth of Jesus by the author of the 4th Gospel be understood: “I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly."

In regard to your reference about my use of the word “transgender,” once again I do not think that you heard what I said properly. The “choice” I was talking about had nothing to do with being transgender. I fully recognize and accept the wisdom of science that sexual orientation is a given not a chosen. The choice to which I was referring was the choice that transgender people had as to when to ask questions in the format under which we were operating, which called for a rotation of order between males and females to achieve gender balance in the question period. Transgender people have the choice, I said, as whether they will line up as males or females.

I wish you well.

John Shelby Spong

 

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