So I went to the library today and found a book by Spong called Resurrection: Myth or Reality? This book looks at the origins and development of Christianity, asking if Jesus ever had a bodily resurrection.
And that reminded me of why the “progressive” church today is hard for an evangelical or fundamentalist to grasp. (I know I’m using the “progressive” term rather crudely; I would drop that word because of its ambiguity, but this is the word Patheos has chosen to use for their progressive Christian channel, and I feel its a word that is more familiar to people than “neo-orthodoxy,” “dialectic theology,” etc). Evangelicals stick to very concrete terms for God, believing God can be known through human language, and that the New Testament gives an accurate testimony. As one of my evangelical friends told me a couple of nights ago, “If Jesus is not born of a virgin, I’d quite Christianity.” Progressives don’t generally care.
Liberal and neo-orthodox theologians have wrestled with historical dilemmas. The Bible, for many of these theologians, is said not to be a collection of actual statements. Instead its an “anthology”; it’s a book about people’s beliefs and feelings about who God is and who were are, all within history and culture. Did the miracles happen? Did Jesus raise from the dead? Was Jesus born of a virgin? These are all questions that 19th century theologians asked, and oddly, the church survived anyway. These theologians believed in God despite believing that the Bible is a huge mess.
But see, the progressive church is more than just history; it’s also a clash of philosophy itself. As I wrote in my last post, not only has the resurrection of Jesus been called into question (or the age of the earth, etc), but also many theologians have come along and said that historical accuracy is irrelevant to the post-modern (then existential) generation. “To do so,” says Bultmann speaking of calling out the cosmology in literal terms, “is senseless and impossible.” Linguistics changed whether we can talk about God in specific language. Christian existentialism came along and said there is no rational defense of God anyway (<–I’m still wrestling through where I stand here).
For me, I was able to survive the historical crisis, but when we strip God of all meaningful language, that’s when they lose me.
Anyway, I wanted to clarify these two two clashed between ideas and history before I move onto Tillich. These definitely overlap (Spong was influenced by the philosopher and theologian Tillich).
Which part of progressive Christian thinking do you believe or wrestle with? Definitely contribute to this conversation.