Rating: 
Summary: Hypocritical nonsense for the weakminded
Review: A quick question for all those who gave this absurd rant a good review: If a hypocritical, confused old man came to you and tried to sell you a new religion, would you be buying?If you gave this book high marks, you just did!
Rating: 
Summary: Whatever happened, happened. Part 2 of 2.
Review: Let me go back to a time when Moses went up Mount Sinai to receive the 10 Commandments. DeMille's film is an F/X joke. Come on man, fireworks from the sky carving words on stone? Realistically speaking, did Moses, through soul-searching, manage to squeeze out every ounce of brain juice in order to carve out those words, or did he JUST HAPPEN to receive those words from God, the way honeyed words are put into Ezekiel's mouth? Meanwhile, his fellow mates were soul-searching the wrong way, and they built a god out of a golden calf. So who was more right and who was more wrong? You see, this 10% is fickle. Yes, Christianity must evolve from time to time, but even I as a Buddhist cannot deny that the Rock must not be dismissed as our ultimate source and foundation of inspired reference. This Rock must be external. What is the Rock? The ever-evolving self-intelligent Bible? Scriptures? Jesus? Words on stone? Christ? Institution? God? The Ground of Being? Haha, the Ground of Being is, in Spong's terms, strictly an internal thing. A better example: the No. 1 believer in exile, my favorite character, Job. He suffered like no others, and he condemned, lambasted and motor-mouthed like no others. Even a guy like him has a place in the Bible, and you still think Christianity has a lack of religious freedom? That's why theologies are allowed to flourish. That's why contradictions hit left and right. That's why the Vatican can never keep up and hide in its turtle shell. Job is my personal example of change, but I want to make this clear: before you change, always make sure you refer to the Rock. In the end, no matter how much you change, you can never be smarter than God Himself, which means there must be shortcomings in my review somewhere. Hey, I'm only human. I admit it. We as human authors only write to amplify our shortcomings. Spong wrote at the end of his book that he is at peace. Well, good for him, but this is to his own benefit, not to the collective that is known as Humanity. For Humanity to be at peace as one is sadly, infinitely impossible. BUT...if only it is possible, do you think you can rationalize it in words? I don't know what to say. It goes beyond reason. It is a miracle. Today's Afghanistan at this point of my review is a miracle. Like another reviewer said, Spong's book never believes in miracles, because it tries to rationalize everything. It's a miracle if no modern-day authors write for $$$! A 'miracle within reason' would have been called an excuse. My final question: what do you want to believe in: miracles or excuses? I believe in external phenomenon known as miracles because the Resurrection did happen. For all the things that happened before our time, words are not enough to describe them. Words are not enough to contain them. But do you believe they did happen? THEY DID HAPPEN...
Rating:
Summary: Whatever happened, happened. Part 1 of 2.
Review: Hello boys and gals. I'm Buddhist 'on paper'. I'm Chinese. I'm Singaporean. And I go to church every Sunday morning. I'm placed in a unique position as part of a multi-racial citizenship to comment on this. The book is 5 stars for all the right reasons and 0 stars for all the wrong reasons. In my country here, Buddhism is not uncommonly labeled as a science of the mind, not a religion. I'm fine with that, because the external God in Buddhism context is often referred to as the 'cosmos of the universe'. "Now what the hell is that?" you might ask. I really don't know and couldn't care less. As such, Buddhism primarily emphasises on soul-searching. Well done, Bishop Spong. You have truly succeeded in your reasoning that we should all live in godliness through soul-searching. Like what one reviewer said, no matter how Spong writes, he is STILL writing about Buddhism. In Christian context, it must be called 'Baptism of Fire'. In Christian context, it must be the last 10% of which you must ask your heart who you are, what you stand for and what your core values are in this life, here on this earth. Now read carefully my next paragraph. There is absolutely no denying that this 10% is forever fickle. If you go overboard in this 10%, you are a fundamentalist, because all you see in this world is your own self! Even if Spong insists that the Gospels are 'not divinely authored', has embarassing contradictions and inconsistencies because they are not static and keep evolving, I guess that is for the better! The Bible is the perfect 'imperfect' Book then. So be it! I can't deny it was already written, translated a thousand times and still remain the one and truly bestseller of all times, which means it must still be relevant. It must be! Everyone of us, besides soul-searching, are also looking for something external, a prove that seeing is believing. What have I seen? The Church! The Mosque! The Temple! The Synagogue! Regardless of religion, people praying together to commune with God under an institutional shelter, to keep the faith. Prayers aren't useless. It is through prayers that I hope one day believers can finally look eye-to-eye to one another and smile, saying, "You have never been in exile. You are not alone. We are all in this together." I was in exile too, and I could not see a thing, only my own self. What a hypocrite! The Holy Trinity: The Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He speaks from above us, from fellow brothers and sisters, from within us. From above us: the laws, precepts and commandments. The Covenant or Pact that IS still kept between Him and us. External. From fellow brothers and sisters: Jesus! He's no fiction. He's history. He led by example. His behavior on earth speaks for Himself. You decide to follow Him or not. Scrutinize His behavior then. The good, the bad (is there any?), the controversial. It's good exercise. Spong did it for himself, and you should too. More than 2 person at least saw Him risen. Now how did He do that? Let the quantum-physics scientists, not Spong, find that out for you. I'm not wasting time dwelling on how it happened, but what it meant. Love? After all, IT DID HAPPEN. External. From within us: My primary concern of this review. The fickle last 10%. Spong's book demonstrates his last 10%. Is it just soul-searching or the Holy Spirit, which I define as the 'Holy sense of Being that just snap into the vestiges of our intelligence'? Based on this question, I fully 100% agree with what Spong was trying to reconcile when he wrote about the evolution (or according to Pat Robertson, 'creation in ascending order'. Nobody ever has scientific proof on the concept of Origin, either for evolution or creation. Let's reach a consensus: they happened concurrently. Haha!) of mankind and a heightened consciousness circa 20000 years ago. Is this the time of Genesis? No doubt some Christians around the world still deny the existence of all that happened above 20000 years ago, and dinosaurs. May I ask: how do you deny those fossils and bones? After all, IT DID HAPPEN. Continue on next review...
Rating:
Summary: Spong's attempt at killing god
Review: First of all, Spong's writing is clear, and his research is very well documented. However, if Spong here admits that the 'Christianity' he desires leaves no room for God -- at least no room for a 'theistic' & personal God. Here are my top five disappointments with, "Why Christianity Must Change or Die." 1. The idea that propositional statements should not be used to describe God is argued. However, Spong ends up describing his god in propositional terms. (ground of all being, source of life, source of love) 2. Spong reinterprets Bonhoeffer's 'religionless Christianity' into a Christianity without God. This is flatly unfair to Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was contrasting 'religion' with 'relationship' by describing how religion (or man's attempts) can get in the way of a right relationship with God through Jesus. 3. Spong accurately describes Augustine's theological beliefs, but then suggests that Augustine was the originator of doctrines like the atonement and original sin. These were both clearly articulated by Paul hundreds of years earlier. 4. Spong clings tenaciously to the title of 'believer' while dismantling belief in anything objective. If he were to be honest, he is no longer a believer because he has nothing to believe in - well, other than himself. 5. The title of the book is "Why Christianity Must Change or Die". The changes Spong proposes are so extreme and final that I think a better title would be "Why Christianity must Die". Spong rejects Christianity not because it is illogical, untrue, or unfounded, but because he is offended by it. Perhaps an even more accurate title would be "Why Bishop Spong is not a Christian" What is described here is not Christianity, but rather it is a religion Spong wishes existed. It is 'Spongianity' for he makes a religion after his own heart and in his image. Maybe that's the best title of all, "Spongianity" by Spong.
Rating:
Summary: Good news!
Review: Good news: God's truth does not change.... ever! Cultural acceptance does not turn what's Biblically wrong into right, no matter how many people are behind it. If truth changes, then it was never truth to begin with. The Bible is either true, or it's false. We may want to change it, or sugar coat it to suit our needs, but doing so never changes the truth of those words. We can question and discount the omnipotence and masculinity of God all we want, but this truth will never change: Matt 19:26 "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Deu 32:3 I will proclaim the name of the Lord.
Oh, praise the greatness of our God!
4 He is the Rock, His works are perfect,
and all His ways are just.
A faithful God who does no wrong,
upright and just is He. Look, if we are too busy pointing our fingers at the failings and crimes of churches throughout history instead of getting closer to God, then of course we're going to be disappointed...very disappointed. God never tells us to put our faith, our hope, our belief into a church, a priest, or a bishop. Attend a good church, yes, but look to Jesus Christ alone, and follow Jesus Christ alone. That's what the Bible tells us. If we do this, we won't be led astray by a corrupt church, a corrupt doctrine, or corrupt men and women. It boils down to this: we all have choices. We either decide to follow God, or we don't. We either decide to accept the Bible as His word, or we don't. That's it... there are no other options or alternatives. If we are going to decide that God's word needs to be changed and altered to suit our needs, our desires, and our lifestyles, fair enough... that's our choice. But then we are going to have to accept the consequences of abandoning God and His word as well. Go with God!
Rating:
Summary: Why does Spong use the title Christian
Review: I would like to ask Spong why he uses the title Christian. He denies every single essential doctrine of Christianity. I can only surmise that Spong's reason for hanging on to the title of Christian is to give him an audience that he might not otherwise have if he were to be honest and tell the truth, in that he is at best just another person who has devised his own religion. But due to the fact that he holds the title of Bishop or at least he did at one time, this seems to give him the ability, at least in the eyes of some, to speak authoritativly on the subject of Christianity. What is even more irratating then Spong himself, is the fact that the institution that he is a part of has not ex-communicated him for outright heresy. Unfortunately the Episcopal Church is no better then the man they have ordained as bishop. My recommendation is yes, buy the book and use it for cat litter, no on the other hand, don't do this to your cat. Spong is truly in the classical sense a heretic from the word go.
Rating: 
Summary: Throwing out the baby with the bath water
Review: In this very honest and courageous book Protestant bishop John Shelby Spong tries to wipe clean Christian theology of all mythological, superstitious, or idolatrous elements. He does succeed in showing how much of current theology and tradition is meaningless, but he consistently goes too far. For example in one of his most interesting arguments he explains how the dogma of Christ's divinity was created: First, the earliest New Testament writer, Paul, declared that Jesus became divine at the cross. Subsequent writers moved the moment in which Jesus became divine back to the time of his baptism, then of his birth, and finally the latest writer, John, moved the divinity of Jesus back to the beginning of all time. A similar account is given for the appearance of the concept of the Holy Spirit. So far so good, but suddenly, as if the previous discussion had made it necessary, Spong makes away with the dogma of Trinity itself. It may be true that Christian dogma was created in a messy, all too human fashion, but this does not mean that the end result must be wrong and made away with. Trinity is the Christian vision of God, and is brightly beautiful and deeply meaningful for many people. Spong suggests that it should be abandoned without really explaining why. Over and over again he abstracts important concepts beyond recognition, and I would say beyond relevance for almost everybody. For example he decries the "theistic God". Theism is not a commonplace concept, I had to look it up. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica "Theism is the view that all limited or finite things are dependent in some way on one supreme or ultimate reality of which one may also speak in personal terms." I have no problem with this, and I don't see why the fact that the idea of theism has been abused means that theism is false. Spong himself has a completely impersonal view of God as the "Ground of All Being". It is difficult to have such an abstract entity be the Creator, so this fundamental aspect of God is simply not mentioned in the book. How does one pray to the Ground of All Being? Spong rightfully criticizes the view of prayer as the means to get God's attention and intervention according to our needs, but then he makes away with prayer altogether, declaring that prayer is living in God; but prayer without communication is not prayer at all. In another passage he claims that the concept of heaven does not make sense anymore because today we can fly in the sky and astronauts have penetrated outer space, so there is no place for a physical abode of God called heaven. Some Christians held the primitive view that heaven was a place somewhere above the
clouds, and from this Spong deduces that heaven does not exist! He seems to believe that if an idea has been used in error then the idea itself must be in error. So he ends up again and again throwing out the baby with the bath water. In this book Spong equates Christianity with Christian theology and tradition. The title of the book should be (and would make more sense if it were): "Why Christian theology and tradition must change or become irrelevant". In a similar vein he equates the concept of God with the concept of belief in God. That is why over and over again he writes that God might die. Of course this makes no sense at all, God and death are incompatible concepts; what he is talking about is that faith in God may die. All of this makes for a confusing and jarring reading. By equating Christianity with dogma and tradition Spong is led to believe that if these were fixed in the ways suggested in the book then Christianity would grow through its current crisis. Being a religious leader himself, he thinks that dogma and tradition, the two pillars on which religious institutions base their spiritual leadership, are now the problem and if transformed they will become the solution. He thinks that the main reason why so many educated people today turn from Christianity and find so little relevance of Christ's message in their lives is that Christian theology is difficult a believe in this time and age. There is another view, which is not discussed at all in this book: Christianity is becoming less credible because of the hypocrisy of the people who call themselves Christians. Many people think: even the leaders of Christian institutions are not making a clear effort to live according to Christ's message, so why should I? Theology is fine and good, particularly on a satisfied stomach, but Jesus has called us to love each other - not to create a more credible theology. Spong's book may be valiant and revolutionary, but in the end it only reinforces the idea that dogma and tradition is what matters, not people and how they live. This is an excellent book and will make you think a lot, especially if you are a believer. Very highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: reading my mind
Review: Spong must have been reading my mind. He clearly articulates all the doubts I have long felt and lets me know that I am not alone in this. Many churches seem to only reluctantly discard outdated doctrine - one example given is that it wasn't until 1991 that the Catholic church officially acknowledged that Galileo was right (and the Bible is clearly wrong) regarding the nature of the earth and solar system! (some fundamentalists still don't seem to accept that!) I have often thought - as Spong suggests - that most churches expect me to "check in my brain at the front door". I cannot do this, so I sit through church services thinking "are they for real?" Spong encourages those of us just starting down the path to go to the next level. He lets us know that it ok to use our God given power of reason to question everything and anything that the church traditionally teaches. He provides historical context to show us where the current teachings came from, then presents alternative views. Some point out that his teachings are really not that new - and they may be right for those well read on liberal "theology" - but they were new and refreshing ideas to me. An example of how he takes it to the next level: I have long ago dismissed the idea of a theistic God sitting like a king in heaven somewhere. But still the church teaches the doctrine of Trinity as a core concept that must not be questioned. But as Spong points out - of what good is the concept is God in "3 persons" once you have discarded the idea of God as a personal being. What of virgin births and physical resurrections from the dead? Who hasn't sat in the pews at Christmastime and felt a little like the kid who still wants to believe in Santa Claus, but deep down knows its make believe! Spong assures us that these questions are not only ok, but are essential for healthy spiritual growth. He offers a useful alternative context in which to consider these biblical accounts. He raises the same questions I have asked myself often about worship and prayer. Is God so vain that he sits around basking in the adulation of his "subjects". Of course not - but our hymns and prayers tend to do just this. He could do better to address the subject of prayer a little more deeply. I believe Spong gets a little too skeptical when discussing miracles - he dismisses them all as implausible. I tend to believe that there is some power deep within us where the human and divine touch and mingle that has the power to bend the "rules" of nature and result in miracles. I believe there is some evidence of this in real life. But this is his book and his belief - I do not need to agree with him 100% to be able to learn and enjoy. He does get a little bitter at times when describing the institution of the church - but his anger is not directed at any indivdual - just the institution itself.
Rating: 
Summary: Gnosticism Lives
Review: hello All, Reverend Spong's book is one of many to have come out since
the Gnostic Gospels were discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945. The Vatican has even put out a new decree (Vatican III) that attempts to negate any 'inspired writings' that refer to the 'new' gnostic texts. Jesus the 'Christ' (Joshua Ben Joseph) was trying to put God back into man, and not man into temples...
The art of the temple is inspiring as we know where that comes from... however, the iNtEnT of 'the church' is not so dignified, as it represents it's own preservation... nothing more ! The truth shall prevail ... We are made in the image of our Creator in that our greatest drive is to create/recreate; whether that be through our arts, children, and /or our relationships with one another. - tAWM¥
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Summary: Spong and the Essence of His Nontheism
Review: This book MUST be read! It is simply a prime example of what books are for, and that is for the edification of logical knowledge as well as for inspiration to discover those things which are not able to be literally defined and to inspire dissertation of what the individual believes of a particularly compelling argument. Spong is a marvel of a man, I have met him, and he is approachable and at peace with himself. So would every one be if they moved in such pure pursuit of what he believes to be the truth. This is not to say that I, like he, am ready to abandon all of my belief in the godly or miracle nature of Messianic acts. However, he lays out a beuatiful deconstruction of the writing of the Gospels and a compelling argument with examples as to why much of them may have been influenced with Hebrew fable. I want to get this book for everybody! This is, to me, the sign of a great book! However, he doesn't bridge very well from his literal nontheistic belief to the fact he is a faithful Christian. Oh well, maybe in the next book.
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