Study Guide to John Shelby Spong A New Christianity for a New World.   ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: Session 1

The following materials were prepared by Keith McPaul for his NCNW study group at Maleny, Queensland:

Prayer of St Fulgentius

Extract from Archbishop Peter Carnley

Extract from Krister Standahl

Extract from David Ray Griffin

Extract from Christopher Heath

 

Keith has also provided materials prepared for a preliminary session and for sessions 2, 3, 5 and 6.

A Prayer for Guidance in Study

After St Fulgentius, Bishop of Ruspe, 508 ce.

 

We pray, o God, the God of truth,

That what we know not of things we ought to know you will teach us;

That in what we know of the truth you will keep us;

That in what we are mistaken, as humans must be, you will correct us;

That at whatever truths we stumble you will enlighten us;

And from all things that are false,

And from all knowledge that would be hurtful, deliver us. Amen.

 

Archbishop Peter Carnley, Church leader

Extract from Archbishop Peter Carnley's presidential address to General Synod of the Anglican Church in Australia, Brisbane, 21 July 2001. (emphasis added)

We may, however, need to do more than strategies, more than ways of doing things, more than practical plans, and goals, and programmes, to get there. We may have to do some hard thinking about the content of the message. My experience over the last twelve months convinces me that we have to lift the level of theological conversation both in the Church and in the community generally. When I tell you that Australia is Bishop Spong's leading market, ahead of New Zealand, Canada, USA, and Britain, I think you may realise that there is as vacuum that we have to begin to fill for ourselves. We certainly have to work on bridging the gap between the current Australian interest in spirituality and the flagging interest in organised religion. I think we also have to do some work on our own self-understanding as Church, and of the nature and importance of the quality of our communion together as a national church for the success of our mission in the world.

 

 

Krister Stendahl, theologian

Scriptural Literacy

Each minority has its texts; what its history has recorded, what God has recorded in the hearts of people. Their writing is shaped by their experiences. These are our texts. Out of our perspective we interpret them. When a child is born, ... the baby's world consists of nothing more than itself and the mother's breast. That's the whole world, and one of the things that happens as we grow up is that it dawns upon us that other children have sucked other breasts. The process of sorting out is call maturation. Now, one of the most intriguing texts on the universality and particular (of our religion)... is the passage in First Corinthians 15. Let me tell it in the form of a Jewish-style midrash.

"It is the day of consummation and the whole world is gathered and there we are, we Christians. Now as we look up there is God and Christ on God's right hand exactly as we have been told. So we turn round and see that there are also all the others. We see a sort of pan-religious and ecumenical representation and we turn around with a Christian smile which says; 'You see, it is just as we said and isn't it wonderful that our God is so generous that you can all be here!' When we turn back towards God there is no Christ to be seen on God's right side because Christ will never be present to feed into the smugness of his believers; or, as the text says: 'And so when the end comes, Christ will lay it all down before the Father and God will become all in all.' That is another way of witnessing to the mystery."

 

David Ray Griffin, theologian

What others say about Christianity

"The primary doctrines of the Christian faith are the following:

1. God, the creator of the universe, is loving;
2. The world is therefore essentially good, although it is now filled with evil;
3. It is God's purpose to overcome this evil;
4. This overcoming will include a salvation for us in a life beyond bodily death;
5. God has revealed these truths and acted decisively to realise the divine purpose in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

There are secondary doctrines, such as virgin birth and the trinity, and tertiary doctrines, such as the immaculate conception and predestination, that have been developed by the Church to support the primary doctrines. The distinction between the primary doctrines on the one hand and the secondary and tertiary is important to bear in mind when we are formulating the Christian good news for contemporary society. Unfortunately the secondary and tertiary doctrines can seem more important, and defended more rigorously than the primary doctrines. We must remember that the secondary and tertiary doctrines are not part of the good news."

 

 

Christopher Heath, Anglican Priest

What others say about God

"One of the first things is to say that God is not capricious. If we know God loves the world, then this has been the case for all time and will remain for all time. I have heard some commentators suggest that God's love and God's anger are just opposite sides of the same coin. I would not worship a god for whom this is true, who it would seem that the precise moment we stepped out of line God's anger was there hiding all the time, masquerading as love. Such Jeckle and Hyde pictures of God are bizarre.

"At some stage in life, we each have to make a choice of what we believe God to be like. There is conflicting evidence in the Bible, so that while we are right to look for guidance in the Bible, in the traditions and witness of the Church, in actions of Christian and non-Christian - God does not and will not force us. We are given a choice. I suggest we need to choose our God carefully.

"I Choose a God who loves the world, a God who loves others besides me, and who those who think like me, because I realise that I do not hold the fullness of God within my own understanding, and I realise that other people's perceptions of God illuminate my own. .... My choice of a God who loves the world, a God who loves others beside me, and those who think like me, is not an easy, comfortable choice - a good choice for those who like sitting on the fence. Some fences I've tried to sit on have been very uncomfortable, and it is never comfortable when one realises one has to consider those others that God accepts as readily as one hopes God accepts us."

 

 

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