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Summary: Is Christianity Really Worth Saving?
Review: Now-retired Episcopal bishop Shelby Spong has never shied away from contentious statements regarding his faith. For decades, Spong has made himself a target for conservative and fundamentalist Christians with his proclamations on prayer, the role of women and homosexuals in the church, and more. WHY CHRISTIANITY MUST CHANGE OR DIE is another step along this road. Between the book's covers, Spong tackles the wholesale reinvention of the Christian faith, from its methods of worship to the very substance of its belief. In a religious environment where some churches burn Harry Potter books for their supposedly irreligious content, Spong's treatise is certainly on an express lane to the bonfire.Those who take the time to actually read Spong's words will find a thoughtful discussion of the changes Christianity needs to make in the face of a changing social and intellectual landscape. Spong himself struggles with the loss of the premodern innocence that gave rise to the Christian faith, acknowledging that the world as the first-century Christians understood it is not the world in which we live today. Advances in human understanding have fundamentally altered humankind's approach to everything from the weather to disease to the size and origin of the galaxies. Spong's work attempts to find a way for Christianity to remain relevant when its belief system can no longer be accepted literally. WHY CHRISTIANITY MUST CHANGE OR DIE is not a huge book, despite its topic. While Spong has a tendency to run on when he has an idea in his teeth, his thoughts generally move quickly. He doesn't provide inflexible answers to the questions this reinvention raises, instead pointing out where adherence to a premodern understanding of God has crippled the development of Christianity, and then providing his ideas about how to improve matters. Spong, unsurprisingly, knows his stuff, and its likely many readers will learn things about the historical development of Christianity that they never knew before. All readers, however, will be challenged by Spong's proposed solutions to the question of literalist Christianity, defying as it does the vast body of received wisdom regarding God that form the faith basis of Christian-influenced cultures. Spong's book is not for those who accept Christian doctrine wholeheartedly, but for those who cannot divorce reason and learning from their religious beliefs. Rather than lapse into a state of nihilism - nothing matters, least of all an imaginary super-being in the sky - as a result of this perspective, Spong instead strives to reclaim the beauty and fulfillment that comes from a new, contemporary understanding of Biblical writings, God-belief and the life of Jesus. Spong is a true believer who does not want to be robbed of the benefits of the Christian faith. As a result, his words can often be quite moving, even as they shake the pillars of literalist religion. During the course of WHY CHRISTIANITY MUST CHANGE OR DIE, Spong repeatedly refers to himself and fellow travelers as "believers in exile". This is a vast group, and growing larger by the year. In the growing ranks of disaffected believers, Spong sees the coming irrelevance of his bedrock religion. Though some might see his work as a confrontation with the faith, Spong is instead throwing it a lifeline, and while he cannot single-handedly affect a new reformation, he wants to give it a go. WHY CHRISTIANITY MUST CHANGE OR DIE is a rallying cry many should answer.
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