Rating: 
Summary: If Christ Were Not Arisen
Review: This is better than most of Spong's works, if only because it makes more of an effort to grapple with the biblical texts. However, it once again misrepresents his opposition as much more unsophisticated than is the case. If Spong is to invoke Tillich, than his Tillich should be set upon Karl Barth, rather than Jerry Falwell. More to the point, the book never gets around to providing a real answer to the obvious question of "If no bodily Jesus, then what?" The obvious answers, a living body or nothing, are forbidden from the outset, so the exercise is in the end unsatisfying.
Rating: 
Summary: Full of shaky, misguided assumptions.
Review: To Mr. Jones:On what authority do you claim that Mr. Spong is right. It is very hypocritical to say that Christians regards God the Father as a "bellhop" to answer prayer requests. True prayer is the daily struggle to live in the grace freely given by God through Our Lord. As for the "close-minded" Church you attack, you have no right to hoist sinful, anti-Scriptural lifestyles advocated by your so-called bishop upon God-fearing Christians. True prayer is praise offered to the Lord, not prayer requests or excuses for debauchery. This book has very shaky foundations as previously ripped apart by Luke Timothy Johnson in "The Real Jesus". True Christianity believes in a transcendent God that holds and acts within history. Spong's ideas are falsehoods warned by St. John as the work of anti-christs. For true Christians, I recommend any book by Bishop Kallistos (Timothy Ware) for a sound exposition of the ancient faith.
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