I do think I can address all of these in one post. vic actually thanks for the spit.
To suggest that Spong is an apostate is to judge the man.
To suggest that if Jesus did not rise physically from the dead then our faith in him is useless is simply erroneous. We are clearly told that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom". I accept a spiritual resurrection..
The Good News of Jesus Christ was the arrival of the kingdom of God. That was his main message. This kingdom is open to all who wish it whether they be Christian, Muslim, Hindu etc.
Let us now address the issue of orthodoxy. The orthodoxy followed by many was the invention of the reformation and does not come from the early church. It was invented some 400 years ago. The men and women that I study go back to the earliest church in order to see what it meant then and what it means now.
The meanings of words have changed over the centuries. The Divine has not changed but how we view him/her has. We now understand much better with our ever increasing fund of knowledge and our life experiences.
I will address some words. "God---In English Bibles, the word God stands for three Hebrew expressions---el. elohim, and YHWH--as well as for theos in the Greek Scriptures."
"In the Hebrew Scriptures el, or more commonly the plural elohim, denotes divine powers of various kinds. When Arabic-speaking Christians and Muslims pray, they address their prayers to Allah, a word from the same root. El and elohim could also be used in reference to the other deities worshiped by the tribes in the neighborhood of the ancient Israelites." Pg 109, "From Literal to Literary", J. R. Adams.
On sin--"We are no better off today, even with the help of modern psychology, to explain why people can be motivated by both a desire for self-preservation and for self-destruction [sin] , by both altruism and total disregard for the well-being of other people. Christians in the fourth century came up with an explanation that has had tragic consequences. Augustine of Hippo decided that the tendencies toward sin were pass from generation to generation therough the generative act itself. Sex is sinful so everyone is born sinful and has a capacity for doing good only through the grace of God transmitted in baptism. In spite of the protests by Britain's first theologian of note, a layman from Wales whose name was Pelagius, the views of Augustine prevailed."
"The result in the wester world has been a terrible preoccupation with sex and disparagement of women. Even worse, the Augustinian view of sin reduces a sense of personal responsibility for one's behaviour. As Peter Brown, one of his recent biographers, put it, to accept Augustine's view of sin is to drift into a kind of languid piety."
"The sin metaphor, understood as missing the mark, can be quite useful in helping troubled people figure out where they might have gone wrong. Instead of seeing themselves as hopelessly corrupt, the can learn to accept responsibility for those actions that did not deal directly with the issue at hand." Pg. 232 Ibid.
Grace--Both grace and the biblical word it translates suggest a quality of an attractive gift or a favorable impression. The Hebrew word is chen, often translated as favor. In British English grace and favor are sometimes links, as in the expression grace and favor housing, residences supplied rent free to civil servants or military personnel. [now and important point] The Greek word is charis, the root of charisma and Eucharist." Pg115. Ibid.
Last one. "Eve, noun---In the stories found in the second and third chapters of Genesis, adam--the sexually undifferentiated human being--becomes divided into male and femal parts. The female part in the story at first has no name. She is simply ishah, woman." p89, Ibid.
That last one shows quite a change when it moves from an asexual being to the name of a man.
Shalom
Ted
