Protestant or Catholic (priests, ritual, moral, tradition, birth control)

[lilithu]

Originally Posted by doppelgänger

It's explained in his book.

So he's never claimed to be either a pantheist or a panentheist, but he explains in his book how his conceiving of "God" as akin to the ground of being ala Tillich makes him more pantheist than panentheist?

I'm just curious because I consider myself a panentheist, not a pantheist, and I love Tillich's "ground of being."

[doppelgänger]

Originally Posted by lilithu

So he's never claimed to be either a pantheist or a panentheist, but he explains in his book how his conceiving of "God" as akin to the ground of being ala Tillich makes him more pantheist than panentheist?

I'm just curious because I consider myself a panentheist, not a pantheist, and I love Tillich's "ground of being."

Spong is building on Tillich into something his own. Read the book and decide for yourself what you think his views are on "theism." I've quoted excerpts on my blog clearly indicating a non-theistic slant in my opinion. If you disagree that's certainly your prerogative, but please do yourself the favor of reading his book before you make up your mind.

[lilithu]

Originally Posted by doppelgänger

Spong is building on Tillich into something his own. Read the book and decide for yourself what you think his views are on "theism." I've quoted excerpts on my blog clearly indicating a non-theistic slant in my opinion. If you disagree that's certainly your prerogative, but please do yourself the favor of reading his book before you make up your mind.

I wasn't arguing with you that Spong is a theist. My feeling is that's a semantic argument anyway. I was asking what is it about "ground of being" that is more pantheist than panentheist.

But if you don't want to discuss it that's fine.

[doppelgänger]

Originally Posted by lilithu

I wasn't arguing with you that Spong is a theist. My feeling is that's a semantic argument anyway. I was asking what is it about "ground of being" that is more pantheist than panentheist.

But if you don't want to discuss it that's fine.

There's a conjunction in the sentence I wrote about Spong and Tillich. Check out the part before "and like Tillich." By itself, Tillich's "ground of being" is neither. In the hands of someone who thinks it's more accurate to talk about a "God-experience" as an alternative to "theism" it is part of a picture of a non-theistic Christianity.

[spiritually inclined]

I have not read his books. I need to do that. But some articles I've read by Spong indicate that he believes in an afterlife, which is to me, supernatural.

James

[lilithu]

Originally Posted by spiritually inclined

I have not read his books. I need to do that. But some articles I've read by Spong indicate that he believes in an afterlife, which is to me, supernatural.

James

Would you be able to cite some examples? I often talk about "heaven" and/or "salvation," but I don't mean an afterlife.

Also, you don't have to agree with everything he says for his thoughts to be of value to you.

[doppelgänger]

Originally Posted by spiritually inclined

I need to do that. But some articles I've read by Spong indicate that he believes in an afterlife, which is to me, supernatural.

If he does, it's not anything of a supernatural sort. More a merging back into the ground of being, maybe.

Here are Spong's 12 Theses which are stated in Christianity Must Change . . . and developed by him through A New Christianity:

A Call for a New Reformation


1. Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. God can no longer be understood with credibility as a Being, supernatural in power, dwelling above the sky and prepared to invade human history periodically to enforce the divine will. So, most theological God-talk today is meaningless unless we find a new way to speak of God.


2. Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So, the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.


3. The biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-*Darwinian nonsense.


4. The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes the divinity of Christ, as traditionally understood, impossible.


5. The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.


6. The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God that must be dismissed.


7. Resurrection is an action of God, who raised Jesus into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history..


8. The story of the ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.


9. There is no external, objective, revealed standard writ in Scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time.


10. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.


11. The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior-control mentality of reward and punishment. The church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.


12. All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for cither rejection or discrimination.


Author's Note: These theses posted for debate are inevitably stated in a negative manner. That is deliberate. Before one can hear what Christianity is one must create room for that bearing by clearing out the misconceptions of what Christianity is not. Why Christianity Must Change or Die is a manifesto calling the church to a new reformation. In that book I begin to sketch out a view of God beyond theism, an understanding of' the Christ as a God presence and a vision of the shape of both the church and its Liturgy for the future.