Bishop Spong and Other Religions

You may remember that a few years ago the Episcopal Bishop of Newark, the Rt. Rev. John Spong, announced in his diocesan newspaper that he had recently prayed at a Buddhist altar in Hong Kong.

This involved his rejecting the saving uniqueness of Christ and finding all religions equally valid ways to God. Bp. Spong puts his thoughts in print to challenge the Church and all of us should thank him for his candor. He has grabbed us all by the throat and addressed the key issue for all people: "What think ye of Christ? Who do you say that I am?"

What did he propose?

What did the Bishop propose? "I am not a Buddhist and do not expect to become one," he wrote. "I do not believe, however, that the God I worship has been captured solely in my words, my forms or my concepts. Rather, these words, these forms and these concepts have arisen out of the experience and history of my life. . . . My conviction is that the true God, the divine mystery, the essence of holiness, is within and beyond all of these ancient worship traditions."

God, he continued, "is pointed to by all, captured by none. So, when I visit a Buddhist temple it is not for me a pagan place, and its worship is not the worship of idols as I was taught in my early Christian upbringing. It is rather a holy place where human beings different from me have felt the presence of God." He questioned whether we could believe any longer in Jesus' "unique universal ultimacy" or "with integrity continue to support and engage in a missionary enterprise designed to convert... that seems to assume the narrow and traditional claims for Christianity."

"Faithfulness to Christ for me means saying no to the strictly defined alternatives of yesterday's religious enterprise," he concluded, "even while I seek to say yes to these truths into which I believe this century is calling Christians. . . . I will not make any further attempt to convert the Buddhist, the Jew, the Hindu or the Moslem. I am content to learn from them and to walk with them side by side toward the God who lives, I believe, beyond the images that bind and blind us. all."

Points of agreement

Since I shall disagree fundamentally with Bp. Spong, 1 believe it's important to begin with our points of agreement, although I am afraid we must often part company with him on the interpretation and expression of these points.

First, we agree on the importance of freedom of religion. Perhaps no form of slavery is so profound as to be bound in error about the Gospel and hence, since we are made in God's image, about our own dignity and nature. Therefore, to hear and respond to the truth is a profound human right.

Second, we agree that dialogue between the world's religions, philosophies, and world views is appropriate. Because we are concerned with truth, we need to think with one another.

Third, the Bishop and I agree that God is a mystery. The distinction between the creator and the creature means that we shall never fully grasp God. He simply is too great for us. On the other hand, we are made in the image of God for fellowship with Him. This means that we can receive a true revelation of God and know Him aright within the limits of our human nature. According to the Bible, the problem we have in knowing God is not that we are creatures, but that we are sinners, which is quite a different matter. We can receive God's revelation, but we distort what we receive.

Finally, we agree that we ought to be open to seeing elements of truth in all the world's religions. Such truth arises from God's general revelation of Himself in and through the created order and in human self-consciousness. Alas, having said that, I must hasten to say that the Scriptural evaluation of human philosophies and religions is not a fundamentally positive one. Though they may contain elements of truth, and indeed be held with a deep and profound sense of devotion, they are caught up in the human sinful condition the Bible describes as darkness. Even St. Paul himself, a highly trained thinker and a devout member of the people of God, had distorted the Biblical revelation and found himself opposing God in Christ and persecuting the Church. He had his eyes opened only at the appearance of the risen Lord on the road to Damascus.

Only completed in Christ

Therefore, while we can agree with the Bishop that the world's religions contain elements of truth, we have to add that they are only corrected and completed in Christ. The Christian's relation to other religions is more complex than the Bishop's belief all religions are parallel and complement each other.

I turn now to the profound contradictions that seem to me to exist between Bp. Spong's beliefs and God's revelation of Himself in Christ as this is held before us in the Scripture, the tradition of the Church, and reason so informed.

First, the uniqueness of Christ has always been a scandal. Bp. Spong implies that the 20th century presents a fundamentally new challenge to the Christian faith. This is wrong. St. Paul speaks of the Gospel as being an offense to the Gentiles and a stumbling block to the Jews. He knew that Judaism with its ethical assumptions and the pagan philosophies with their belief that truth was universally accessible to the mind of the philosopher would be offended by the Gospel.

Second, we affirm that the transcendent, mysterious God has revealed Himself to us in Jesus Christ. The Bishop defines God only in general terms, as "the divine mystery, the essence of holiness," and then refers to all revelations of the mystery of God as "images that bind and blind us all." That sounds quite respectful and humble. However, it is certainly disrespectful to the Biblical claim that God assumed a form in Jesus in which He might be truly known (John 1:11).

Third, it is both realistic and courteous to believe Muslims and Hindus when they assert that their religions differ profoundly from Christianity. Bp. Spong simply hasn't been talking to the serious adherents of the world's religions. For example, Islam makes a point of saying, "God has no son," whereas Christianity confesses that Jesus is the Son of God incarnate. In its more mystical forms, Hinduism declares that we are God, whereas Biblical faith says that we are creatures made in the image of God.

It seems to me that the Bishop only proves that those who are loosely tied to the particularities of their own religion, believing that they are but inadequate images "that bind and blind us all," get along well with those loosely tied to the particularities of their religions. This does not prove the compatibility of the world's religions. It simply proves that relativists get along well because they have very little about which to disagree.

Particular and universal

Fourth, true Christianity is particular yet universal. Christian faith asserts that the God revealed in the particular man Jesus is the God of all people universally. Let us assume that everyone in the world has polio. Would we object that God was "narrow" to move in the heart and mind of Dr. Salk to provide a vaccine? Would we say that healing is "within and beyond" the medicines of the nations and urge people to continue taking their traditional herb tea? Or would we try to get the vaccine to all the world? Such medical "particularity" is not narrow but healing. In the same way, God's particularity in Jesus is His method of healing broken creatures.

Fifth, the Christian "image" of God is necessary to the Christian's full and happy life. I wonder if the Bishop's God above all beliefs and images is not really a "least common denominator" God who won't change us much. As C. S. Lewis wrote: "The god of whom no dogmas are believed is a mere shadow. He will not produce the fear of the Lord in which wisdom begins, and therefore, will not produce that love in which it is consummated. . . . There is in this minimal religion nothing that can convince, convert, or (in the best sense) console; nothing, therefore, which can restore vitality to our civilization. It is not costly enough. It can never be a controller or even a rival to our natural sloth and greed."

Sixth, faith in Christ is at the heart of the Biblical, historical Christian faith. In other words, my disagreements with the Bishop arise from no Church party. They arise from the universal Christian confession. But since I am an Anglican writing to Anglicans, let me appeal to the Book of Common Prayer. Does it allow the fundamental shift from the Scriptural teaching and the universal teaching of the Church that Bp. Spong proposes?

Its catechism defines the Messiah as "one sent by God to free us from the power of sin, so that with the help of God we may live in harmony with God, within ourselves, with our neighbors and with all creation." It continues that we believe "the Messiah, or Christ, is Jesus of Nazareth, the only Son of God" and that the mission of the Church is "to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ." Here we find the Scriptural teaching affirmed, by the most contemporary thought of our Church. It leaves no room for Bp. Spong's equality of all religions. This teaching is woven into all the services of the Church.

I am always a bit suspicious of anyone who offers a new key to the Scripture. I think of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science. She too claimed to possess a special knowledge which reinterpreted the Scriptures. For example, she claimed that death was "an illusion." Yet she died. Is it not possible that the Bishop's proposals are equally unfortunate?

Finally, the God we worship will determine how we act. I think the Bishop believes that every religion will accept his moral code while worshipping different gods. Hindus in India used to burn a widow to death on her husband's funeral pyre, before the British stopped them. Does the Bishop really believe that all beliefs are morally equal?

A better way

In conclusion I want to point in a totally different direction! Christians are a rejoicing, confident, and thankful people. We have a divine purpose and vocation in the world today. We rejoice because God has definitively revealed Himself. As the promise of secularism grows dimmer, people cry out ever more for something or someone to believe in. The Bishop's relativized Christ is not the savior they seek and need.

As His people, we are now sent into the world to say and show that God is gracious and righteous, that He has in His Son so loved the world, that He has opened up a new and a living way to Himself. This is a way in which all truth will find its proper setting and all the opinions we hold will find their proper correction and completion.

We are to demonstrate this by the quality of our compassion and love as well as our willingness to suffer. This is our divine vocation.

The Rt. Rev. Dr. John Rodgers was the second Dean of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry and professor of theology until his retirement in 1994. He is also a retired bishop in the Anglican Mission in America.  He has come out of retirement to serve as Trinity's Interim Dean and President for the 2007-2008 academic year.  "Bishop Spong and Other Religions" is reprinted with permission from the "Religious Pluralism and Global Mission" (Summer 1992) issue of Trinity's quarterly magazine Mission & Ministry.