Monday, December 19, 2016

Postmodernity and the "Ideal" Jesus

From Catholic World Reporter-

“God made us in his image—and we returned the favor.” I was reminded of this old joke reading the latest tome from John Shelby Spong, for he employs what he thinks he knows of biblical studies and theology to sever Jesus both from history and his Jewish matrix to generate an ideal Jesus who affirms the progressive project entire, a Jesus who looks like Spong.

For those not familiar with Spong, he has long reigned as the maddest of clerical madmen, an energetic Episcopalian bishop of the sort with views and hubris only the American Episcopal Church could produce. Denying every article of creedal Christianity from Virgin Birth to Resurrection and promoting every progressive cause célèbre from abortion to transgenderism, Spong has written books such as Why Christianity Must Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers in Exile (“a rousing call for a Christianity based on critical thought rather than blind faith, on love rather than judgment, and that focuses on life more than religion”) and his autobiography, modestly entitled Here I Stand: My Struggle for Integrity, Love, and Equality. “Modestly,” I write, because many will recognize Here I Stand as the title of Roland Bainton’s classic biography of Martin Luther. Spong thus sees himself as a revolutionary just as he sees Luther, a man standing at a historical apex crushing the Church’s hidebound traditional beliefs and pushing her forward into a brave new age. Although it is probably not a fair description of Luther, it is certainly Spong’s agenda: insisting Christianity keep up with the science and mores of the times.


More here-

http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/5289/postmodernity_and_the_ideal_jesus.aspx

No comments: