The Christian faith has a long and convoluted history of anti-Semitism. This has always been strange to me, since our faith was born from Judaism. I have, in more recent months, tried to understand the Jewish approach to God (which has started to lead me out of Calvinist theology and into a more Arminian perspective). I think that Judaism has a lot to teach us about the roots of our faith, and we should shed the anti-Semitism that too often accompanies our faith.

As for Bishop John Shelby Spong, in his book The Sins of Scripture, he relates a very similar point of view. The biggest difference between us is that he doubts the historicity of Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed Jesus. Spong’s point of contention is that the earliest Christian writings, Paul’s epistles, bear no reference to a betrayal. The gospels, in Spong’s view, came much later (a.d. 75 or later) and therefore are not accurate representations of history.

Paul alludes to the night that Jesus was betrayed in 1 Corinthians 11:23, but Spong says that the Greek is “handed over,” which carries no connotation of betrayal. This isn’t correct according to Strong’s Greek Dictionary. That aside, Spong apparently doesn’t think that people read carefully nowadays. Later, he refers to the story of Joseph and his brothers, and tells us that the exact same phrase is used when describing what Joseph’s brother Judah did to Joseph! That phrase has the connotation of betrayal.

Because of the connection between Judah and Judas, as well as numerous other connections to Old Testament stories, Spong has concluded that the Judas Iscariot story is not real history. The early Christians made it up based on several stories of Scripture. I suppose Spong has never heard of “fulfilled prophecy.”

Although based on the dates he gives for authorship of the New Testament, I would suppose not. Liberal dating of the New Testament is based on the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by the Romans in a.d. 70. The assumption is that since Jesus accurately predicts things that take place in a.d. 70, the gospels must have been written after a.d. 70. This is nonsense; the gospels date from the a.d. 50s, with Mark perhaps even earlier than that. Conservative scholars, ones that I doubt Spong would consider consulting, put the dates of every NT document as prior to a.d. 70, although that might be stretching it. The gospel of John and Revelation almost certainly came in the a.d. 90s.

Spong and I, while we see eye-to-eye on the issue of anti-Semitism in Christianity, do not meet each other anywhere else in this issue. Anti-Semitism must surely be dealt with, and I believe the way to do that is to realize that the Jewish people did God’s will in putting Jesus to death. His death and subsequent resurrection means victory over death for all who believe in him. That was God’s will all along. Now the Jewish people have only to accept Jesus as their Messiah and they, too, can enjoy eternal life with the Father in heaven.

In his book The Sins of Scripture, John Shelby Spong echoes almost every sentiment of detractors of Christianity in his own beliefs, and gives them credence by declaring himself to be a committed Christian. He believes that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ wife according to Scripture, and that her place at Jesus’ side is his model for the new place that women should occupy in church leadership. I believe that women have been mistreated not by a literal reading of Scripture (as Spong believes), but by a misreading of Scripture.

Women share with men the distinction of being made in the image of God (according to Gen 1:27), despite Spong’s claim that the Bible subordinates women to men. This was never the original intent. That came after the Fall, which distorts the original intent of God’s creation. Women are now functionally subordinate to men, but they are still made of the same stuff and therefore ontologically equal to men.

Women were not the source of sin, as Spong proclaims. The Bible teaches that it was man who was that source: “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rom 5:12, emphasis added). It was no sin for Eve to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, it was only a sin when Adam ate the fruit, since God gave the command not to Eve but to Adam.

I am not going to dispute Spong that there is a history of sexism in the church, nor am I going to dispute him that some of the Mosaic laws make no sense in regard to women. But we are not bound to the law anymore; we are free in Christ. Spong hits on the one verse that is very important for this discussion–Galatians 3:28. This verse means that the arguments over gender and sex roles are worthless, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.

It isn’t necessary to cast Scripture aside in order to arrive at these conclusions; instead one only has to read the Scriptures for what they say. Spong isn’t doing that. But one wonders why Spong attempts to recast Scripture at all since he is on record as believing that it is not the Word of God.

John Shelby Spong’s first sin of Scripture is the environmental havoc that we have wrecked on this planet. I agree with him here that it is a tragedy how we have treated our fragile environment, and share with him a desire to see humans correct this awful behavior. What I don’t share with Spong is a conviction that the Bible as it stands encourages this sort of behavior, nor do I believe that an entirely new concept of God is necessary to effect this change.

Spong believes that the Bible’s command to be fruitful and multiply is at the heart of the overpopulation. I think not. I think that the heart of the problem is irresponsible sexual behavior, a thing which Spong shows no desire to curb in human beings. Instead, he’d rather throw birth control at the problem.

Now don’t get me wrong. Birth control is a part of the solution in my point of view. But only when combined with solid morality. That means that sex is reserved for marriage. Spong seems to join critics of Christianity in believing that the only solution to this problem is to surrender to our urges because of better available birth control technology.

Spong wrongly believes that a solution to the pollution problem lies in reinventing God. As commenter Bradford pointed out:

To him [Spong] the bible is sexist and homophobic, and we should not judge sin or reprove the sinner; no, we shouldn’t judge at all just love and tolerate and never say sin is wrong especially if it disagrees with anything a woman wants to do with her body or any alternative lifestyle one wants to live.

Spong has already created an idol for himself; a deity who doesn’t judge anyone and for whom sin is not a problem. Reinventing God is Spong’s solution for every problem. So what sort of deity does Spong conceive of? The answer is a nature deity, or rather, Nature Itself. Spong would worship Nature Itself as a deity rather than a deity outside of nature. In Spong’s mind, a deity outside of nature–in whose image we are made–creates the impression that we are somehow above or around nature. That we owe the environment no allegiance since we are above it.

This is a wholly false picture of Christianity. True, we are created in teh image of God, and therefore outside of nature. But God owns everything; ultimately we are just stewards. Therefore, in that frame of mind, we should be responsible stewards and turn the planet over to him in the same condition that he gave it to us.

It isn’t necessary to invent an entirely new concept of God that denigrates him to become part of his own creation. He transcends creation according to his Word, and we should revere him that way. It is only necessary to properly frame our understanding of God’s relationship to man–that we are stewards over his creation, and that he is coming back and expects to find it in the same condition it was left in.

With Spong’s weak and judgment-impaired deity, it is no wonder that he needs to create a new concept of God to give us incentive to control the environment. They say that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of both knowledge and wisdom (Ps 111:10; Prv 1:7). Since no one can fear Spong’s “god,” it is no wonder that Spong has neither knowledge nor wisdom.