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Bishop Spong Q&A(The Ten Commandments)

You mentioned that there are two sets of the Ten Commandments, and that one of them included the injunction against boiling a kid in its mother's milk. I believe you said this version was in Deuteronomy. But I looked up the Deuteronomy version, chapter 5, verses 6-21, and I find no reference to boiling. In fact this recitation of the Ten Commandments appears to be in complete agreement with the recitation in Exodus, chapter 20, verses 3-17. Would you please explain where I would find the Ten Commandments recitation that includes the boiling the kid reference you described? Thanks.
Dear Rick,

You must have misheard. I said there are three versions of the Ten Commandments. The oldest one is Exodus 34, the second is Exodus 20 and the last is Deuteronomy 5. It is in Exodus 34 that you will find the injunction about "boiling a kid in its mother's milk." This version is almost totally cultic.

If you look again at Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, you will discover that there is not "complete agreement" as you suggest. The primary difference is in the commandment about the Sabbath. Deuteronomy suggests that the Sabbath was to be observed because they had once been slaves in Egypt and even slaves must have a day of rest. In Exodus 20, the original Sabbath Day commandment has been edited to claim that God, resting from the work of creation on the Sabbath, was the reason for its continued observance. That addition to the original fourth commandment was from the quill of the priestly writers in the Babylonian exile (roughly from 596 to 450 BCE, depending on which return from exile was the last one), who also wrote the seven day creation story at the same time. That creation story did not exist when Deuteronomy was written. So the versions of the Ten Commandments are really four: the primitive Exodus 34 version from the "J" writer in the 10th century BCE; the familiar one from Exodus 20, which is originally from the "E" writer in the 9th century BCE but has been substantially edited by the "P" writer in the 6th century BCE; and the Deuteronomy 5 version, which is from the 7th century BCE and from the hand of the Deuteronomic writer. The biblical writers accounted for these several versions by suggesting that because Moses broke the tablets, God had to redo them and God did not redo them in the same way.

The fact is that these rules, like all covenant rules, emerged through the life of the nation of Israel and probably always had several versions. That is not a problem unless you are a fundamentalist.

– John Shelby Spong

Bishop Spong Q&A(The Jesus Experience)

If, as you have suggested, there was no literal empty tomb and the miracle stories do not describe events that actually happened in history, what was there about Jesus that so deeply captivated the first disciples? Is there something about the Jesus of history to which I can point today that anchors one as a Christian to see Jesus as an icon of faith?

Dear Irving,

Since I think that we can document that both the empty tomb story and the miracle stories included in the gospels are later additions to the Jesus story, your question actually carries us into the Jesus experience. It was the Jesus experience that caused people to see him as victorious over death and as the messianic figure around which the miracle stories gathered.

I see the primary Jesus experience as being that of a boundary breaker. His humanity and his consciousness seem to me to be so whole and so expanded that he was able to escape the basic human drive of survival that binds so many of us who are less fully developed. Unlike us, he appeared to need no security barrier behind which to hide. He could thus step across the boundaries of tribe, prejudice, guilt and even religion into a new dimension of what it means to be human and this is what caused people to experience God present in him. His call to us is therefore not to be religious but to be human and to be whole.

That is what every gospel symbol, from his miraculous birth to his empty tomb, is seeking to convey, so we read them as doorways into the meaning of God.
– John Shelby Spong

Bishop Spong Q&A (Does God intervene?)

I moved from being an atheist to a believer. I would never have been an atheist if I had paid more attention to the church I was raised in, the United Church of Canada. I saw Christianity negatively because of the bad example and message of the conservative churches. To be fair, though, my church should have presented its views better. When I investigated, I found that it was not just secularism applied compassionately, but there were theological roots to Liberal Christian beliefs contrary to what fundamentalists claim. I have since found that there are good and bad wings in the Lutheran, Catholic and Anglican churches. I wonder if it is fair to say that God does not ever intervene. I have heard of some things that defy logical explanation. On a modest point, my Dad almost died in February of 2005. Perhaps it was just the power of positive thinking, but after the United Church Hospital chaplain led a prayer, he improved and three weeks later I brought him home. He has since passed away but he got 17 more months of life. I saw in your records that you wrote an essay, "Why I am not a Unitarian." I tried unsuccessfully to retrieve that essay. Could you repeat it please?
Dear Jeff,

I share your enthusiasm for the United Church of Canada. It was born in the 1920's as a merger among Protestant bodies in Canada, but primarily between the English Methodists and the Scottish Presbyterians in the Canadian Prairies. Just the fact that these bodies had to be able to see more strength in the things that united them than weakness in the things that divided them created a consciousness within that church that in successive generations would help them to be open to other changing possibilities.

In the 1930's, they affirmed that their ministry was open to women long before any woman sought ordination. Canadian Anglicans did not do that until the 1980's. In 1988 the United Church of Canada declared that no one was to be precluded from their life or ministry because of sexual orientation. At that time, the Canadian Anglicans were putting a priest named James Ferry on trial in a medieval institution called Bishopscourt and found him guilty of "disobeying his bishop" and removed from him the license to officiate as an Anglican priest. His crime? He had confessed his homosexuality to his bishop because he was being blackmailed in his congregation. His bishop responded by outing him publicly and demanding that he leave his partner of some years. When James Ferry refused to obey this command of his bishop he was found "guilty of disobeying his bishop."

Under the leadership of a moderator named Bill Phipps, the United Church of Canada inaugurated theological discussions that moved parts of this church into a contemporary conversation with the modern world.

It was the United Church of Canada that decided to build an experimental church in a Toronto suburb that would lease space in a shopping mall for worship on Sunday and do everything else in the homes of its members. Its life would allow liturgical experimentation and was designed to pursue theological learning even when it challenged conventional Christian understanding. They wanted to meet the alienated former church members more than halfway.

It was the United Church of Canada that produced and nurtured the Rev. Gretta Vosper, pastor at a Toronto suburban church, who became one of Canada's most exciting and, yes, controversial Christian voices. She leads the Progressive Christian Movement in Canada and is the author of a recent Canadian bestseller, With or Without God, a book that seeks a new way of understanding Christianity in the 21st century. While conservatives called for her expulsion, both her congregation and the United Church of Canada have been very supportive.

It is the United Church of Canada that has poured resources into conference centers across that vast nation, from Tatamagouche in Nova Scotia to Naramata in British Columbia, with Five Oaks in Ontario and Prairie Christian Training Center in Fort Qu'ppelle in Saskatchewan.

It is a church that encourages growth, contemporary music, theological and cultural diversity, environmental concerns, Christian education and social activism. I am devoted to it and have been deeply enriched by it.

To your question of whether God intervenes and the anecdotal data that you offer in support of that idea: I am suspicious of most claims but I would never say that God was limited by my knowledge. The theological problem comes when those who support intervention have to explain why God did not intervene to end slavery, to stop the Holocaust, to divert a tsunami or a hurricane. It is not easy or accurate to be theologically simplistic.

– John Shelby Spong

Bishop Spong Q&A ("living life to the fullest")

I am 87 years old and first discovered your writings within the last ten years. I've read all your recent books — some twice — and find them challenging and inspiring, but I have a question. You frequently exhort your reader to "live life to the fullest," to "love wastefully," and "to be all you can be." There is clearly a distinction in your mind between "living life to the fullest" and "to be all you can be," but it is not obvious to me. In my mind they are pretty much the same. Can you explain how they differ (or direct me to a reference in your books that explains it)?
Dear Barden,

Congratulations on reaching the age of 87. I hope your journey through life has been fulfilling.

I'm not sure that living fully and being all that you can be are substantially different. I was trained as a Tillichian theologian and life or living was identified with the Spirit (I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life). Love was identified with Jesus (O Love of God Incarnate) and Being was the name of God (The Ground of all Being). So I think of life, love and being as a modern way of defining what the Church originally meant by the Trinity. Clearly, however, if one lives fully, one is being all one can be.

Thank you for bringing that to my attention.

Live well!
John Shelby Spong