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Retired Utah Episcopal
Episcopal Bishop says
Hie gospel of Matthew, on the other hand, was
written by a Jew forjewish readers who were not part
of the church. Matthew proposed, following the
destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, a new Juda
ism based on Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. Matthew
searched Jewish scripture and tradition for prophe
cies fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. Occasionally, he is
so anxious to establish this link that he stretches the
point, as when he compares Jonah’s three days and
three nights in the belly of the “whale” with Jesus’s
three days andjhree nights in his tomb. (Matthew lost
count—Jesus was placed in the tomb just Friday
night, remaining there Saturday and Saturday night,
and rising from the dead on Sunday morning—in
other words, two nights, one full day, and parts of two
other days.) Although he used Mark’s gospel as
source material, Matthew did not consider Mark
inerrant—he did not hesitate to alter particulars
when he felt he knew better. Matthew makes explicit
claims of messiahship that were only hinted at by
Mark. Matthew makes more claims of miracles—he
is the only source for the story about the Star of
Bethlehem at Jesus’ birth.
bike, also the author of the Acts oj the Apostles,
relied heavily on the gospel of Mark. Luke’s gospel
contains few miracle accounts, and even though the
book’s Christmas story is the most beloved of all, its
author seems unaware (as does Paul) of the doctrine of
the Virgin Birth. But Luke’s purpose in writing was to
present Jesus as the logical outgrowth of Judaism, and
he was doing this (oddly enough) to impress gentiles.
That makes no sense at all until you realize that, at the
time Luke wrote, the Jewish religion was legally prac
ticed throughout the Roman Empire and had gentile
followers even in Rome, a place where exotic religions
competed for popularity. A separate Christian “reli
gion” however, was neither recognized nor legal. Luke
was trying to make The Way (as it was called) respect
able through its connection with Judaism.
The last of the gospels, John, is a highly impres
sionistic and well-developed theological work, not a
mere story. It places in the mouth of Jesus speeches
as impressive as a character of Shakespeare that
would sound out of place in the other gospels, and
describes miracles not found in any earlier accounts.
But the author is no more a “liar” than those devo
tional painters who depicted the infant Jesus in
priestly robes with a halo on his head, his pudgy
fingers lifted in blessing. He might be compared to a
docudrama writer who constructs “true to life”
diologue for George Washington or Franklin
Roosevelt—words never spoken, but words the au
thor thinks could have been (or should have been)
spoken.
Remember that no one who received John’s
account from his own hands—a century or so after
Jesus walked the roads of Galilee—would have imag
ined that John had any way of knowing that Jesus
actually spoke the words “1 am the Way, the Truth
and the Life.” But John knew what he believed, and
wrote it.
This is what Spong is getting at: the books of the
Bible recount what their authors experienced. Fun
damentalists argue that we must accept uncritically
whatever they wrote and not trouble ourselves with
the numerous instances in which they contradict one
another. For Spong, recapturing the experience is
more important, for that experience is one person’s
encounter with an Ultimate Reality too great to be
either comprehended or captured in words.
Spong doesn’t buy the traditional idea of a God
so righteous he could not forgive the sins of human
ity unless a perfect human being could serve as a
human sacrifice to balance the books. He does sug
gest that Jesus was a human being so alive with the
divine that he made others able to see the same divine
essense within themselves. For Spong, that and not
the crucifixion was the redemptive act. All the lore
and ritual and tradition of Chrisitianity are simply an
attempt to make concrete something that is beyond
explanation.
Fundamentalists say that Spong has watered down
Christianity with rationalism. Spong would say that the
dogmas of Christian tradition dampen the reality be
hind the faith, and that endless theological disputation
is rationalization enough to tire anybody.
Spong seeks to free the central truth of Christian
ity from its encrusted myth and tradition—that is, from
the remnants of successive attempts by many genera
tions to reinterpret the faith for their own times and in
their own languages. Only then might contemporary
men and women experience it for themselves. He warns
that today’s vision will be inadequate for the future,
which will have to make the same effort for themselves.
The Christian religion has been harnessed to
justify the idea that the earth is flat and that the sun and
stars revolve around it, that disease is caused by de
monic possession, that women are mere property and
morally inferior to men, that Kings rule by divine right,
that slavery is part of the natural order of things—and,
of course, that homosexuality is sinful. Spong calls upon
us not to accept that these things define Christianity but
to ask how they got added to its baggage.
The Bible’s original prose and poetry are not so
artistic, nor its stories so gripping, that its literary
qualities alone could account for its long survival.
The splendor of the Kingjames Bible was, after all, a
product of 17th Century England as much as ancient
Palestine. But there is something behind the Bible
more consequential than the changing fashions of
theology and ritual.
For gays and others who find themselves lorn
between their own direct experience of God and the
ridiculous pronouncements of those who claim they
speak in God's place, Spong’s book is a good starting
point enabling us to make own own decisions. ▼
Bishop Comes Out
SAN FRANCISCO (AP)—A retired Episcopal
bishop who has announced he is gay is moving to
San Francisco to be near relatives and join the city’s
thriving gay community.
“My choice of San Francisco was to be close to
my grandchildren and to live in a city with an active
and articulate gay community,” said former Utah
Bishop Otis Charles Thursday.
Charles, 67,' a grandfather with five grown
children, told the San Francisco Chronicle he plans
to live with a community of Episcopal Franciscans
and pursue a ministry emphasizing spirituality and
ritual.
“1 will not remain silent, invisible, unknown.
The choice for me is not whether or not 1 am a gay
man, but whether or not 1 am honest about who 1
am with myself and others,” he wrote in a letter to
his fellow Episcopal bishops
Charles, believed to be the first bishop of a.
mainstream American church to publicly declare'
he is gay, recently retired as the dean of the
Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass. He
led the Utah diocese of the church from 1971 to
1986. T
PA Episcopalians
Ordain First Gay Deacon
BALACYNWYD, Pa. (AP)—The state’s first openly
gay Episcopal deacon was ordained despite the
protests of a dozen people who said the ceremony
would split liberal and conservative Episcopalians.
Supporters of Robertson called the protest unfair.
“It’s silly and outrageous,” said Rev. Rene Graves,
a deacon at St. John’s Church in Lower Merion.
“God calls us all to ministry, and l believe He has
called Jim Robertson.”
Father Robertson completed the Diocese of
Pennsylvania’s School for the Diaconate in 1991
but was refused ordination while church leaders
considered whether the church could ordain a gay
deacon.
“There were times when 1 was angry,” Robertson
told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “But it was very
prayerfully done and in God’s time. The anger goes
away."
The Episcopal Church does not specifically bar
gays from the priesthood. Robertson’s assignment
at Holy Apostle Church in Penn Wynn will include
responsibilities like baptism and marriage. Dea
cons do not bless bread and wine for communion
or to grant absolution at confession. ▼
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