I, and many others, stand upon Bishop Spong's shoulders

Column by Rev. Roger Wolsey on 15 December 2016 17 Comments

It’s accurately said that “we stand on the shoulders of giants” and John Shelby Spong is one of mine. Bishop Spong has been a tremendous influence on my life as a pastor who is also a theologian and writer. Though we’re not of the same denomination, we are birds of a feather and kindred spirits. We share similar vocational callings. We give a damn about Christianity and its capacity to serve as a source of healing and prophetic transformation in a world that sorely needs those things. And, we care enough about the lineage we’re part of to critique the hell out of it – literally – to help separate the wheat from the chaff in ways that help the faith to be relevant and meaningful in this new millennium.

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Question

The Bible speaks of God addressing particular people, e.g. Abraham, Moses, Elijah and Nathan directly. Other people claim that God has spoken directly to them. How do you account for or explain that?

Answer

Dear Bob,

In a word very carefully!!

I think we need to heed the wisdom of the man who said, "When I speak to God it is called prayer. When God speaks to me it is called paranoia."

People who have a deep sense of vocation do feel that God is directing their lives and so they might well refer to that by saying, "God spoke to me and called me to this vocation." That, however, must be understood metaphorically not literally.

Does God have vocal cords that enable the Divine One to speak? Does God have a larynx through which words can be formed? Does God speak in Hebrew, Greek or English? Does God have a heavenly accent? Literalism gets silly when we ask such questions. When Moses at the burning bush felt the call from God to go to Egypt to seek freedom of the Jewish people from slavery, was that a literal happening? Was it external? Could it have been photographed or recorded? Or was it internal, subjective, and seen only with the eyes of the mind? People, who claim that they have visions, hear voices or who believe that they bring messages from God are either mentally unbalanced or deceptive, since they appear to need external validation for their internal yearnings. Either way they need to submit their insights to a larger community for both judgment and validation. Great harm has been done to too many people as the direct result of such claims. I distrust them almost 100%!!

~John Shelby Spong

 

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