A New Christianity for a New World, by John Shelby Spong

For many who share the liberal perspective, Spong certainly champions the right causes. What comes through clearly and forcibly in his most recent book is his open spirit and vision of universality. He trounces dogmatism, sterile creedalism, narrow biblicism and Christian triumphalism. Expelled from Spong's universe is the idea of a personal God existing outside of humanity and the world and demanding a sacrificial death and the subservience of the faithful. Spong opposes all forms of religious authoritarianism and exclusivism. He wants Christianity to be freed from outdated myths, made resonant with scientific knowledge and stripped of moralistic notions and enfeebling, guilt-producing beliefs and rituals.

Despite Spong's high motives, his argument unfolds with weary redundancy and culminates in a formless vision of the future church. When he condemns the church for its "imperialistic ecclesiastical violence," enjoins us to "leave the God of miracle and magic" and reminds us that "we can speak of God only in human words," he is saying things that we have all heard before. Spong echoes all the radical diatribes, both scholarly and popular, of earlier eras, going back much further than J. A. T. Robinson's Honest to God. I hear in many of these pages the beating of a dead horse to the accompaniment of the favorite trumpet calls of "prophetic preaching."

This is not to say that Spong doesn't push the envelope. His many strong denials of traditional doctrine might make some wonder, as he himself reflects, why he doesn't take one more easy step and simply declare himself totally emancipated from the body of the faithful. But even his response to his own reflection doesn't make a convincing case for staying. At the same time, he fails to make a compelling case for leaving.