Charting a New Reformation, Part XXXIII - Thesis #10, Prayer

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 1 September 2016 25 Comments
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Question

I thoroughly connect with your developing New Reformation series which nicely builds on your book A New Christianity for a New World. It also parallels my own faith development. I am a lay Christian worship and discussion leader as well as an amateur poet. My recent book, Psalms for our Days, available on Amazon.com, is softly informed by my progressive, expanded sense of God, which you characterize as that “ambiguous, God-shaped hole.”

Recently a friend gave me John D. Caputo’s new book, The Folly of God, which details in dense a-theological verbiage your Reformation arguments. You speak of experiencing God with an evolving sense of awe, but without being able to describe God with “human language that…itself becomes symbolic, pointing to the illusion of truth, while no longer able to contain it” and to religious leaders, who search for the security of certainty, which always turns out to be just another bit of idolatry.” Caputo calls this (Ch. 9) the inspiration for “theopoetics,” a figurative (poetic) means to express with finite language what happens to us within the ineffable “Kingdom of God.” It is strange that you two contemporaries never reference each other’s discussions. I have been struck that many of my “contemporary psalms” serendipitously address many theopoetic Christian concepts.

I am hoping that your Reformation series will continue to help inform me as I prepare to lead a class on the first few steps of “Living in the Kingdom of God.” I’ll be addressing folks in my Lutheran congregation, who have not yet embraced the “laborious work of probing the ambiguous symbols of our faith story for new meanings.” Defining that bridge from the existing creeds and familiar doctrines toward more contemporary, meaningful concepts of life lived with an unconditional God, is a challenging undertaking. Most of my good Christian friends are neither poets nor theologians, but many have implicitly dismissed the orthodox God from their everyday reality as I have. Thanks for the way you strive for clarity along the path over this bridge.

Answer

Dear Dave,

Thank you for your letter. You are attempting to do with a group from your Lutheran church the difficult task of theology. One great Rabbi once spoke of doing theology on one foot. By this he meant that theology was always in process and ever changing. When one lifts one’s foot to take another step, one always winds up in another place, achieving a new angle of vision and calling for a new adaptation of all that one believes. It is not easy to do this either intellectually or psychologically, but it does move one forward to a deeper understanding of God.

Not everyone will appreciate your efforts. Security is so much more attractive to many people than truth. I hope you will love and not judge those who cannot go where you are leading. Seeds planted today may not germinate in your history for years, but no potential seed is ever wasted. So be patient, kind and loving.

Give my regards to the members of your Lutheran class and tell them that the journey into the truth of God is never easy, but it is always worthwhile.

John Shelby Spong

 

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