Humpty, I just wanted to say, welcome to the boards.
Thank you Skammer –
This is great MB and I think I am at about 11 posts per day right now. I’ll soon calm down a little I think. It is just so hard to keep discussions on topic and so hard to resist arguing them when they stray. Almost everyone here is smart and willing to listen though and that is what make this board unique and is why I paid to join.
Which was made by your Lord and which by a mere man?
You feel that unless someone is a Christian they are cut off from God, right? You said it’s “just silly” for Spong to call himself a Christian. I’m afraid I’m not mistaken. Jesus taught that it’s not in creeds and formulatic beliefs that salvation is found; but in Love. Yet you seem to find that if one does not adhere to the Creed you desire, then he’s not a Christian.
It’s notable, too, that you failed to reply to my reference to the Arian Controversy.
I assume that you are referring to the passages I quoted – one of which was made by my Lord. I could if you wish post several other utterances by Christ that have the same idea but I felt it was redundant. Some of the passages are very similar. The other quotes were made by various men who were chosen by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to create the foundation of Christianity and spread it throughout the world. But the point about sidestepping the issue is that both of us can come up with quote after quote to buttress our points – that will not get us anywhere. I also wouldn’t necessarliy call Paul a “mere” man when we are discussing the history of Christianity.
Not really. You assume that. I feel that a person who doesn’t believe in the diety and resurrection of Christ is separated from God more than a person who does believe those things (we are all separated from God). “Cut off” is too strong of a statement. I don’t believe anyone will be cut off from God until thier final judgement. As to how God wil decide whether to cut someone off or not – that is up to him. He said he will judge each according to thier own – he set up no criteria for final judgement.
I do believe (and I think I have good reason to believe) that one who disagrees with Christ’s own claims about himself and who also disagrees with the teachings of Christ’s disciples and apostles about the nature of Christ and the resurrection should be questioned on whether or not they are really a Christian. Christ and his immediate followers without question taught that He was deity and that he died and rose again from the dead and that that event brought salvation to mankind. I can give you some quotes but it is difficult to quote the entire New Testament here.
You are almost right. Jesus indeed taught us that creeds and laws do not lead to salvation. He also taught us that love does bring us salvation – HIS love which was expressed through his death on the cross which served as sacrifice for our sins. It is through God’s love that we are granted salvation by grace. We do not achieve salvation by loving one another. We love one another because Christ has introduced us to the meaning of real love not because it will get us into heaven. Only by God’s grace are will we be allowed into heaven – and that grace was expresses by the sacrifice of his only son. If Christ was not deity – if he were not literally God’s son then entire basis of Christianity breaks down.
P.S. About the Arian Controversy – I’ll bite I guess, next post. But think for a second - are Mormans Christians? How about Muslims? Ba’Hai? Unitarian Universalists? I am not arguing for or against thier beliefs but at what point does a person or group of people begin to establish a separate system of beliefs from one another?
The Arian heresy -
I don’t remeber everything pertaining to this incident but from what I do know I find it somewhat strange that you would want to use it as an example to prove your point. The name itself implies a strong argument for my case. The fact that Arius’s teachings were so controversial and that the Church rejected those teachings lends credence to my assertion that Christians have shared a belief in the deity of Christ and the resurrection of the body. Even if you want to cite Arianism as a differing belief in Christianity you will have a very hard time saying that Arius and his followers didn’t believe Jesus to be at least a type of deity. They believed he was more than human but just not quite as high as God. Nor did they deny the resurrection or the plan of salvation for mankind. The Arian controversy was really an argument over what kind of being was Christ – was he a created being (created in a different way than man) or was he the same type of being as God the Father? The whole argument tended to be about the concept of time – if Christ was begotten then he couldn’t be eternal right? That is what the Arians thought. The Orthodox countered that arguement by saying that God lives outside of the realm of time and that Christ is continually begotten.
We could get into the theological merits of both arguements I suppose but that doesn’t move to the point of this thread. The fact is that Arianism as a movement never had a majority support of either the Church leaders or laiety. It was offically condemned in 325 and again emphatically comdemned by the Church in 381. The result is the Nicene Creed which in the strongest words puts the Arius’s teachings down as heresy. Since then The Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and almost all Protestant Churches recite the Nicene Creed (although the Orthodox church makes one minor adjustment because of a similar argument later on regarding the nature of the Holy Spirit). (The creed is an explicit part of many Anglican/Episcopal services and one wonders if Spong recites it or not).
So I just don’t understand how it is relevant to this discussion. Many times in Church history false and misleading teachings have come up and the Church has rejected them. It is important to note that what Arius taught was out of communion with the history of the Church up to that point. It was not the case that Arius’s ideas were the norm until they were rejected – his ideas were new and after a few decades of passionate debate they were rejected in favor of the traditional intrepretation of the relationship 'tween God and Christ.
I haven’t read the Rubenstien book so I won’t comment on it but the title suggests that up until the Arian crisis there was no real consensus on the nature of the deity of Christ. If he does make that claim he is out of step with most Church historians.
Spong is just a liberal priest whose books haven’t been read by most Episcopalians. Gene Robinson was a high-profile homo whose ordination would have been heard of by most Episcopalians and Anglicans, so it was probably felt a lot more viscerally.
I’m a gaytheist so I have no god in this fight, but I can actually understand the upset by conservative Episcopals. What I don’t understand is the passion so many non-Episcopals feel over the matter.
For many people, the Episcopalian Church was the “Safe Church” – a respectable, long-established form of christianity that in the High Church was Catholic, only without whatever they did not like about the actual Roman Catholic Church (celibacy, papacy, mariology, no contraception, apparitions on tortillas, unaccountable prelates), but that was also Protestant, and quite so in the Low Church, only without whatever they did not like about the stereotypical Evangelical Churches (creationism, televangelists, the Christian Coalition, Left Behind, Jack Chick). This event suddenly challenged them as to that notion of “safety”.
Spong does not cause a schism because he does not get endorsed by the Church; he’s just a dissident in that sense. OTOH Robinson’s confirmation in his post is an official Church endorsement.
My own take is that Spong simply didn’t have enough influence to cause a schism. He was one Bishop, near or after retirement, with some idiosyncratic ideas. He could be conveniently ignored by those who disagreed with him. He changed no Church policies–at least not directly.
Had he fostered a movement within ECUSA to impose his doctrines upon the group as a whole, and had he been successful, he would have given rise to schism.
Thanks for all the responses- I got a good explanation- I actually thought JSS was better known & influential in the Episcopal Church, probably because of his frequent appearances in controvery-hungry media.
I’m an episcopalian, but a rather, well, casual one. I know the basic beliefs of the faith, attend church, but I haven’t paid much attention to current theological discussions or issues.
In all honesty, I haven’t heard much about Spong. I had a vague idea he was out there, but knew very little about his beliefs. Occassionally his name would come up at church functions, but I didn’t exactly hear about him on the evening news. Actually, I’ve heard more about him on this thread than I have anywhere else.
However, I’ve certainly heard of Robinson (whom I whole-heartedly support by the way). I think many other more casual episcopalians may have the same experience. They haven’t heard of Spong, but you can’t avoid hearing about Robinson.
Also, forming an opinion and discussion Spong’s beliefs takes more work than forming an opinion on the ordination of a gay bishop. You’d have to read what Spong teaches and study some theology in order to be in a position to debate it. That’s more involved than seeing a nightly news broadcast and thinking “a gay bishop? now that’s not right!” Not that all who oppose Robinson do so solely on the basis of a knee-jerk reaction. I’m just saying it’s possible to do so with Robinson, but more difficult to do with Spong.
Obviously you don’t remember everything, or even much. Arianism was indeed a widespread view especially among Bishops in the Eastern Church. For for a time it was even the offically sanctioned view . The political fight that led up to the Council in 325 is a fascinating, and telling, story about the Chruch. Without the influence of the Emperor, who knows what the outcome would have been. Until you read more about it, you won’t be able to understand why this is relevant.
It’s relevant because you said, incorrectly, that Jesus is God has been the view of all Christians for 2000 years. By mentioning Arius, I have shown that that wasn’t even always the dominent view.
My take on all this is pretty much the same as FriarTed’s. I’m sure plenty of the same Episcopal clergy who got the church so agitated about Robinson last year, were also aware for a long time about the nature of Bishop Spong’s beliefs, even if the folks in the pews weren’t.
Why the conservatives didn’t press for Spong to be removed from his position as bishop, I don’t know. Even as a rather unconservative Christian, I don’t understand how one can disbelieve in the physical resurrection of Jesus, and still consider oneself sufficiently orthodox to be a clergyman. But anytime homosexuality ‘wins’ over more substantive questions, one must wonder about the ‘eww, gross’ factor, the awareness of irresponsible leaders that they can always count on the idea of male homosexuality to cause a visceral reaction in many of their followers.
My take on Spong’s theology is pretty basic: you get to the end of the Gospels, and there’s the empty tomb, staring you in the face. Either that means something, or it doesn’t. If Jesus’ resurrection wasn’t physical, then his body should still be in that tomb, and each of the four Gospels culminates in an enormous lie: a lie at the very heart of Christianity.
I don’t see how the Arian controversy helps you make that statement.
First of all the Arians did believe that Jesus was deity (that was my original statement by the way). You have cited no evidence that they didn’t and I don’t see how you can. The Arians did not believe that Jesus was a mere man. The entire basis of the Arian conroversy was specifically about what kind of deity was Christ.
How was Arianism ever the dominant view of the Church? And if it ever was how can you say that the dominant view of the Church at the time was that Jesus wasn’t deity? In other words even if you can argue that Arianism was ever the dominant view of the church (which it never was) it doesn’t follow that the Church ever held that Christ was not deity since the Arians also believed that Christ was deity.
I still contened that Christ as deity and bodily resurrection has been the dominant view of the Church for the past 2000 years. The Arian controversy (again) actaully proves my point.
Mentioning an incident in Church history without giving some concrete examples of how it is relevant to this discussion gets you nowhere. You can’t point out the Arian incident and then make the leap to the statement I quoted above. And apparently I do know more about the incident than you do regardless of what you have read. Plainly put – Arius’s views were never the dominant view of the Church (and they did not deny the deity of Christ). They were rejected offically by the Church twice (and implicitly ever since then) and they were relativley short lived as a major movement in Church history. If you believe that I am wrong then please show how Arius taught that Christ wasn’t deity and that the Arian view was ever the dominant view of the Church.
Both the Council of Bythnia in 320 and Council of Caesarea a year or two later declared Arius’ views Orthodox and demanded that Alexander readmit him to his position.
from the Rubenstein book I referenced before:
This is where you demonstrate too shallow of a grasp of the matter. Prior to the Great Council in 325, the exact nature of Jesus’ divinity was hotly debated throughout Christianity, particularly in the Greek speaking East. Whether Jesus was fully human and elevated by God to diety, whether he was God’s first creation, or whether he was fully diety was not decided until then. And even afterwards the debate raged and nearly split the Church between the East and West. Constantius, ruler of the Eastern Empire, was an Arian. Several Councils during the 350s were decidedly pro-Arian.
Another quote from Rubenstein’s book:
All of this is a response to your claim that “the belief that Christ was literally God incarnate … has been the core belief of Christianity for the past 2000 years.” That has been refuted.
You made the claim as an attempt to discredit Spong as a heretic. My point is that it’s only a hereticial point of view as a result of the manipulations of the church in the fourth century. I see now that you’ve backpedalled a bit and now claim it as a “dominant” view instead of the “core” view. No small matter, I say. But even dominant isn’t entirely correct. Dominant in the West, granted. But the view was not dominant in the Eastern, Greek speaking Empire.
The whole exercise is to demonstrate that Christianity has never spoken with a completely unified voice. Never throughout it’s history. And for you to declare Spong “unChristian” is not your right. I don’t see why his beliefs are any more “unChristian” than those of the Calvinists.
Furthermore, I’d recommend Karen Armstrong’s The Battle for God to demonstrate to you that, indeed, Fundamentalist Christianity is very much an American entity.
Yes. No. Don’t know what their beliefs are. Some are, some aren’t.
I find this to be an amazing statement. Do you have some cites to back that up? Religious fundamentalism seems to me to be the norm, and not the exception. Sharia law is certainly fundamentalist, is it not? My great-grandparents were Prussian Mennonite immigrants. They were certainly fundamentalists.
You must be using some very narrow definition of ‘fundamentalist’ if you think it’s a modern and uniquely American phenomenon.
When I said “fundamentalism” I ment “the Christian fundamentalism movement.” I wasn’t speaking of all religious fundamentalists.
As for cites, Wikipedia has a decent article on it. Also, the Niagara Bible Conference is often viewed as the birthplace of the fundamentlist movement. As for fundamentlism being the norm, isn’t there a long history of Biblical scholarship in, both the protestant and and the Catholic church?
Well, I am a personal acquaintance of Jack Spong, if a very casual one – we’ve shared a meal with conversation, and my personal individual contact with him was limited to finding him a room where he could find some privacy to pray between two teaching periods.
Jack’s theology is mediated by a radical rejection of the fundamentalism of his childhood, and is focused in a reinterpretation of what the basic doctrines of Christianity generally and Anglicanism in particular are intended to say. They are expressed much more polemically and pugnaciously in his books than in his personal speeches. There is much I disagree with in his interpretation, but he is not – quite – beyond the limits of Anglican discourse on theology, and very strongly in the Tillichian tradition, Much of the language that inflames the conservatives derives from his using terms in the Tillichian meanings, rather than with the more common connotations.
And Anglicans generally are extremely loath to conduct heresy trials – the fiascos from the Colenso episode in South Africa and Pike in the 60s have much to do with this. In addition, Bp. Righter’s trial ten years ago says a great deal about what motivates the so-called “orthodox” Anglicans, IMO.
Well, my great grandparents were Christian fundamentalists in Prussia. That doesn’t count?
Your original statement was that fundamentalism was a uniquely American thing. Now you’re redefining it, narrowing fundamentalism to ‘Christian’ fundamentalism, and then narrowing it further to a specific movement in the United States. You’re saying essentially that American Fundamentalism is uniquely American. That’s no surprise. But your original statement is misleading and wrong.
That was not my original statement. I said it was created in America. That’s not the same thing as saying it’s uniquely American.
Uh, when someone speaks of “fundamentalism” in a thread on Christianity, I think it’s pretty clear that they mean Christian Fundamentalism. Kinda like how if I’dve said “God” it would have been clear that I ment the Abrahamic god, and not, say, Vishnu.
Let’s see how the American heritage dictionary defines “fundamentalism”:
[quote=The American Heritage Dictionary]
[ol]
[li]A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism. [/li][li].[list=a][*]often Fundamentalism An organized, militant Evangelical movement originating in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century in opposition to Protestant Liberalism and secularism, insisting on the inerrancy of Scripture.[/li][li]Adherence to the theology of this movement.[/ol][/list][/li][/quote]
I had definition (2) in mind–which seems fairly reasonable, given that this thread is about a Christian church–and you read definition (1). You’re right, I’m right: We’re both right! 
That has a great deal to do with the Anglican “we don’t dare actually have any doctrine other than ‘We’re all a big family here.’” practice, I’d say.