ELIE WIESEL 1928-2016 R.I.P.

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 21 July 2016 4 Comments
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Question

If developments in how we understand the way the world works means the death of theism and other theological revolutions, what does this mean for the welfare of those millions of Christians in the past who have believed on the basis of false concepts and beliefs?

Answer

Dear William,

I wonder why this issue bothers you. Do you assume that those who do not agree with today’s insights are to be punished? Do you think that it is somehow unfair for some to have to face the fact that they were wrong? Do you identify with the group you are describing and wonder what it means for you, your security or your future?

Jesus is quoted as saying to us, “Judge not,” yet your question rings with a sense of judgment. That is not a human task, judgment belongs to God alone. What changes in perspective others go through is ultimately not the business of any human being.

Time moves on. By our standards today both Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman were racists. In their own time, however, Lincoln was the great emancipator of slavery and Truman pioneered the idea of bringing black Americans into equality by integrating the armed forces. He did this in 1948, long before it became “socially acceptable” to the white majority to proclaim any kind of equality between our black citizens and our white citizens in any area of our common life. Heroes are those who move before the majority is willing to move. Harry Truman was a hero.

Polygamy was acceptable in parts of the Hebrew Scriptures. Solomon was said to have had a thousand wives. No one would argue for such a pattern today. The author of Colossians and Ephesians, books that we once incorrectly attributed to Paul, ordered slaves to be obedient to their masters and wives to be obedient to their husbands. When someone states these biblical passages today to suggest that those patterns still are appropriate for anyone, they are roundly and properly condemned as immoral. There are no ethical norms that are unchanging except the norm of loving and even the way we love or interpret love is never stationery.

So the human task is to journey through an ever-changing world, trying to be faithful to the meaning of God as we, with our limited vision, perceive that meaning. We do not possess God, we do not possess God’s truth no matter what our religious authority claims suggest. So we do not worry about those who believed the things that we today reject. That is ultimately God’s business and God has a way of being non-judgmental that is far greater than that found in those who claim to be “true believers.”

John Shelby Spong

 

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