Rating: 
Summary: An affirmation of what I've believed in my heart for years
Review: While I became a Christian only a decade ago, I have embraced it wholeheartedly. However, since I did not have the luxury of a belief instilled in me from an early age, I naturally asked many questions that folks who have believed their whole lives didn't dare ask. Spong asks these same questions. While a few of the answers that he gives don't agree with my own experiences or beliefs, I found myself more often than not saying "YES!!! THAT'S WHAT I'VE FELT MYSELF!!!" In a world where fundamentalists tell us that "God said it, I believe it, that settles it", Bishop Spong says back to them "if your beliefs cannot stand up to a challenge, should you then still hold to those beliefs?" If some of these beliefs don't change, then the Christian church is in for a slow and painful death. This book offers a light at the end of a very dark tunnel. While it is certainly not the last word on where Christianity must head, it is certainly a good start.
Rating: 
Summary: Painful read. Nice try, but no dice.
Review: This book was probably one of the most painful reads in a long time. Spong makes a mess out of theology. If I were an Episcopalian, I'd be pretty damn embarrassed. I can only think that the only people who would like this would be "freethinking" Baby Boomers who are still freewheeling in revolutionary ideologies.
Rating:
Summary: Begging the Question from the Title to the End
Review: I cannot recommend this book. Doubtless those who, like Mr. Spong, wish to disbelieve in anything in particular while congratulating themselves on their "religious" sentiments, "intelligence" and liberal politics, will find in this book what they desire. The rest of us are not so sure. Mr. Spong, from the very title of his book (from which we conclude that dogmatic Christianity must naturally perish and that nothing supernatural will prevent this), assumes _a priori_ that miracles and the supernatural never occur. With this simple assumption, he can proceed to the "devastating" conclusions that the virgin birth is impossible because scientists discovered the egg cell (!) and that Christ could not have ascended because we enlightened humans now know that God doesn't live in the sky (!!). Of course, in the latter case, Mr. Spong also has to make use of his incredibly meager historical sense and ignore the fact that intelligent Christians since Augustine and before have understood that God transcends space and time. Of course, since all of Mr. Spong's opponents are brainless fundamentalists, I could be mistaken. Seriously: Why must he and many like him (who, by the way, date back to the Victorian era and well beyond) always assume that, because an event has metaphorical significance, it can never therefore be literally true? Sometimes it can and sometimes it can't. The assumption simply does not, logically, follow. I will grant Mr. Spong this, which will earn him the one star that Amazon's rating system forces me to give him: he understands clearly that the current casual and populist trends in worship do in fact undermine the very nature of Christianity. Those who already agree with Mr. Spong (I do not call him a bishop or a Christian, for he is in fact a pantheist) will, no doubt, love this book. Many of us who don't will not so much hate it as find it a nearly complete waste of time. To those who remain undecided, and particularly to those who are even the least bit inclined to give Christianity a fair hearing, I say this: Read also (or better yet, read _instead_) C. S. Lewis's book _Miracles_. It does not beg the question of whether or not the supernatural occurs, and is intelligently written from beginning to end.
Rating:
Summary: The unexamined faith is not worth believing
Review: I am familiar with Spong's works and read this, his latest, with interest, though a little skepticism. His enthusiasm for his topic comes across at times as a little strident. Yet, his concerns and questions are legitimate; and his conclusions are compelling, especially the feelings he evokes in his closing chapters. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Words.
Review: For 40 years, I've managed to hang onto Christianity and refused to give up the idea that I was a Christian. For the same number of years, my thoughts deteriorated from simple disagreement to rage because a viable "mythology," or way of explaining life, seemed less and less comprehended, even by those professional Christians "leading" the flock. First, I discovered mythology and comprehended it in a totally new way. Then, I discovered the good Bishop's works. The first discovery calmed my rage; the second raised my hopes. In mythology, the East represents new life (sun rising, etc.). Reflecting back on my own experience in Protestantism, I came to remember that every church I have participated in had its altar in every direction but the East, and the majority were in the West, which has, for human time as I understand, always represented death. The intention, found in European cathedrals everywhere, was that one should face life in that sacred structure and carry the strength given in that meditation out into the world of death. For 30 years, I knew what I didn't know...something was wrong. Even on that level, Western Christianity has failed to nurture life. The Bishop seems to know what the new mythology will be and has defined prayer, etc., but I don't know what it will be. I do know that it will not be what it has been, a mythology off-track, anachronistically confusing and killing what spirit we still have as a civilization. We are entering a new Reformation. The Bishop is one of the people courageous enough to be near the point of the movement. "Believers in exile"----I will never be able to express my appreciation for that term. Suddenly, I'm not alone any more.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent thought piece
Review: I'm retired military, and part of our ethic has been to "train as you fight, fight as you train." This is the best preparation for the troops. Otherwise, what you prepare for may not match the reality of what you confront. Bishop Spong is essentially arguing the same point with regard to the fate of Christianity. (OK, I'm stretching the analogy.) The Gospels and Paul's letters, which he reviews quite well, were written when the metaphors and images told a story relevant to the world view of the time. The Christian message -- with (I agree) a powerful spirit experience behind it -- communicated well and spread. People understood and benefited from it. It made sense. Now, the "training" offered in those images doesn't work. Our world view is different, more expansive and comprehensive. So, Christianity is dying, despite the strident defenses of our traditionalist friends. 100 years from now, the point will be even more clear. Yet, the spirit (as Spong adroitly and in my judgment correctly defines it) remains as vital as at the beginning. How then do we make it relevant? Spong's answer: let's wade through the flotsam and get back to basics. Focus on the message behind the myth. Train ourselves in the spirit as we live today, not as we lived 200 years ago. After all, we no longer wear togas (at least routinely). Although he waxes into polemics in a few places (notably the first chapter), Spong poses some vary compelling and good questions. All thinking Christians, whether they consider themselves in exile or not, should read this book. For those interested in learning more on the same topic, I have found authors of comparable intelligence (though perhaps slightly differing views), include E.P. Sanders, John P. Meier, and John Dominic Crossan.
Rating: 
Summary: As an Episcopalian, I don't agree.
Review: While Bishop Spong brings up some interesting and challenging ideas, reading this book left me feeling empty. If this is all there is to Christianity, then why bother to even call it that? To agree that "the theistic God has no work to do" and that "the power once assigned to this God is now explained in countless other ways" is to foolishly imply that humankind now has the answer to everything. True, the human race has "evolved" a long way in the past 2000 years, but we have certainly not even remotely come close to understanding all there is to know about the universe. While agreeing that the entire bible cannot be interpreted literally, I could never go so far as to throw out every unexplainable miracle, including the resurrection and the probability of Christ's divinity, and still consider myself a Christian, or even a liberal Episcopalian. To say that "there is no God external to life" and that "God is not a being superior to all other beings," but merely the "Ground of Being itself" is to lower God to an impersonal level and raise humankind to a 'we are all God' way of thinking. Modern science cannot disprove the existence of the supernatural.
Rating:
Summary: faith,desire,and capital T Truth....
Review: Faith: I am impressed with Spong's study and multi-level considerations of the Bible and religion. I think he presents good arguments for not taking many parts of the bible too literally. It is just that he never convinces me that what you have left is enough to sustain a belief system(his being a Christian one). He is a far better at deconsructing than rationally con-structing. If the New testament is not to be taken literally than what can we go by for a better picture of the life of Jesus? I just wish he would admit that faith at some point becomes blind to reason. Otherwise I just can't understand what he is holding on to. I find something contradictory and inconsistant about someone who uses reason to deconstruct and faith to build. Desire: Sure, we may desire an external father figure deity making sure we don't stray too far and punishing those who don't listen just as we may desire a God that comes from within, one we are inseparable from and may need us as bad as we may need it. But obviously we don't always get what we want and if there is such a thing as an ultimate reality it most likely does not take our desires into account...it simply IS! T ruth: Are there attributes of Jesus that are worth modeling? Sure. In my opinion there is countless others that are worth modeling such as Buddah , Buckminster Fuller, John Lennon, maybe Alice from the Brady Bunch, who knows maybe even some past or future politician (all right it's a stretch). One may serve as a good, maybe even a perfect model, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we should base a religion on them. I would certainly hope that we have access to the so called god spirit (Holy Spirit) Spong refers to within ourselves but I am just not as sure as he seems to be. Perhaps the future will be more tolerant of those who admit that they just don't know..?....How do we truly seperate belief, desire and truth??? In my opinion Spong's reformation may be a vicious loop..replacing one system of belief and faith with another system of belief and faith to infinity...never getting any closer to an objective truth... if one can really exist of course. In my opinion religion is about eventually arriving at some belief system that usually involves fundamentalism and dogma. In my opinion a more honest inquiry into the nature of our existence requires the following phrases..."it's possible" and " I don't know".
Rating:
Summary: Jesus was a mortal, like you and me! Spong is a treasure!
Review: Bishop Spong's book is a must! For most of us who have been disillusioned with churches, religious back- biting and the fundamentalist claims of "you must believe this way or you are doomed", Spong opens up the Bible to the intelligent minds who wants to believe, and have a hard time calling themselves Christians. The Bishop gives us a new look at Jesus, at God-- whom he calls "The Ground of All Being." He writes with compassion and love. A man who has been targeted by religious zelots, threatened, and denounced by others when the old ways of believing are being called unbelievable to anyone with a brain. (My words not Spongs.)I can't wait to hear more from Bishop Spong and to read his other books.
Rating:
Summary: The Archbishop strikes again!
Review: John Shelby Spong strikes again. As always in the forefront of Christian Revisionism, the Archbishop once again asks us to question what we have been taught was immutable and true. Line by line he probes the Testaments - not because he wants to destroy them. ArchBishop Spong asks us to question what traditionalists would demand we don't question. Rather than replace text he would have us REFRESH the content. Much like Richard Patton's revelatory work "THE Autobiography of Jesus of Nazareth", Spong wants us to know Jesus as the Human Being that promised "as I do, you ALSO can do"! Spong would not be welcome at Sunday School. He addresses all those questions we were told not to ask. Both Spong and Patton are in the forefront of returning the faithful that have become disillusioned by the Establishment of Church, back to a Spiritual Consciousness that is too readily dismissed as "New Age".. Patton especially creates a Jesus that would be comfortable with a C! offee Latte. Both men have given the Sacred Cow a serious poke in the side and we have to question exactly who the Church serves - the Priesthood or the People!
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