A New Christianity for a New World by John Shelby Spong

Author:John Shelby Spong
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061750250
Publisher: HarperCollins

NINE

ORIGINAL SIN IS OUT;

THE REALITY OF EVIL IS IN

We enter a broken and torn and sinful world—that’s for sure. But we do not enter as blotches on existence, as sinful creatures, we burst into the world as “original blessings.” . . . Creation-centered mystics have always begun their theology with original blessing not original sin.1

—MATTHEW FOX, priest and author

I have now presented the Christ figure in what is at least for me a new light. I see him as a portrait of divinity into which a full humanity inevitably flows, not as the incarnation of a supernatural external deity on a divine mission of rescue. In the preceding chapters, I have laid this radically different perspective before my readers. I know from discussions I have had with people about this new perspective that it will open me to charges on two fronts.

First, there will be those traditionalists who will hear in my Christ-proposal echoes of that nineteenth-century Protestant liberalism that reduced Jesus to the role of teacher and good example. They will argue, and I think rightly, that there is no significant power in such a definition. A good example may be admirable, but it does not empower me to follow the exemplary life. Indeed, good examples tend to exacerbate the human tendency to feel inadequate. I have never known a child’s behavior to improve dramatically when the parent encourages him or her by saying, “Why don’t you be more like your big brother or big sister?” Such an approach does not recognize the destructive power of comparison present in our survival-oriented humanity.

But to this first charge I respond that I am not portraying Jesus simply as a teacher and example to be followed. I regard teaching as the barest component of my understanding of the Christ-function. So this criticism seems to me to rise out of a deep and significant, perhaps even willful, misrepresentation of what I am trying to develop. Jesus is to me far more than just an example.

My primary vision of Christ is that he is a source of godly empowerment who calls me beyond my boundaries. When I have the courage to accept his invitation, I enter another dimension of humanity that opens new and compelling doors to me. I am drawn by this experience deeper and deeper into life. What I see in the Christ is not an example to follow. It is a vision that compels. Risk and reward are balanced to build a powerful sense of motivation.

Yet it is at this very point that I expect to encounter the second criticism, which is that I have not fully understood the reality of human evil. That is a charge regularly leveled against those of us who dare to move beyond rescue and guilt. I agree with those who say that the biggest weakness in liberal theological thought is that it minimizes the human capacity for evil. I do not want to be guilty of that. I want to make sure that the Christ

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