Some reflections on "Religious Experience and Truth": For once there have been some "reviews" of something I have written. Three so far. Maybe there will only be three when all is said, but there are three actual replies to reflect upon now. The following article is not directly related to my essay but there is an indirect relationship inasmuch as it deals explicitly with a theme that is part of the substance of the essay, the slow-motion implosion of the "mainline" Protestant churches. The mainline is committing suicide and the worse that things get the more that its adherents hunker down and persist in their own destruction. None of them seem capable of finally saying, "You know what? We have made all kinds of serious mistakes and it is time to rethink many things we are doing before there is nothing left except empty church buildings." Those people are, it seems to me, utterly hopeless. Alas, one of my reviews was from a fundamentalist believer of whom I had thought much better until today. The memory had grown hazy with the passage of time but now I remember, like it was yesterday, why I walked away from the "fundamentalism" of my youth and never looked back. Not to give the wrong impression, the man is a kind and good and decent individual, and he is tireless in doing what he considers to be the tasks that the Lord has asked him to carry out. In that sense, the world needs more people like him, as many as might be found. However, there also were comments that reflect the most narrow-minded interpretation of Christian faith that exist, a time warp that goes back to the halcyon years when the Scopes trial was in full flower and a whole corps of religious believers seemed to be motivated by the sole purpose of making themselves look like idiots before the rest of humanity. I honestly tried to be thoughtful in every line I wrote, and to write with clarity, making every allowance possible for both "true believers" and the most committed Atheists you can think of . And at least the "Christian" took the time to reply with 10 minutes or so of typing. Which I cannot say for an Atheist who also replied, with an investment of maybe 2 minutes, saying essentially, "I don't have time for this, if you can't write it out in a few paragraphs I'm not interested." I do understand that reading page after page of "nothing new here, why bother?" deserves to be dismissed as not worth the effort. And I have reviewed various manuscripts over the years that did waste my time despite the good intentions of their writers. My head still aches from the hours I spent in the early 2000s at one point, reading a book MS about Mesopotamia that, while it made some good observations, was utterly spoiled by its repeated references to a charlatan name Stichin, who's understanding of the subject is based on credulity about UFOs, etc, of the worst sort. However, I don't think that what I write is remotely in that kind of category. Nor remotely in any category except that of a professional writer who does his homework and is thorough about everything. Not a good feeling, in other words, to be disrespected by someone who should know much better than that. And hence my respect for him is falling and could go over the cliff if there is even one more episode like this. The third review was very different and was filled with unexpected insights and a couple of very good questions that, as soon as I have a logical reply to give, it would be smart to work with and develop into something worthwhile as a follow-up, some day in the future. But this was the worst of it: "The way to be saved is very simple -- just change your mind about what you think (repent) and receive Jesus Christ, who is the Word of God and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ and then seek God until He fills you with the Holy Ghost (Acts. 2:38). After that we read His word and obey it all."
Translation: Don't think at all, your brain should be turned off, just believe, and obey. To me that has little or nothing to do with Christian faith. It is a parody of Christian faith, and a path to nowhere I would ever want to go. This was his reply to a sincere profession of faith that was the result of years of soul searching? I know the man, he was not in any way seeking to be insulting. In many ways he has a heart made of gold. However, that is exactly what he did, respond with insult, and all because of extreme narrow-mindedness. Well, even these reviews have been a learning experience. Billy ================================ Bishop Spong’s Unintended Consequence By _Mark Tooley_ (http://spectator.org/people/mark-tooley) on 10.14.13 His reinterpretations have sped the decline of Protestant institutions. A recent Religion News Service _article_ (http://www.religionnews.com/2013/10/10/aging-maverick-episcopal-bishop-john-shelby-spong-regrets/) on infamous Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong celebrates him as an aging maverick whose provocative sexual and theological stances supposedly are no longer controversial. At age 82, the former Bishop of Newark, New Jersey, is writing his 24th book. In the 1980s and 1990s his works infamously speculated that the Virgin Mary was impregnated by a Roman soldier, that St. Paul was a self-hating homosexual, and that Jesus’ unresurrected body was torn asunder by wild dogs. A former Southern segregationist, Spong celebrated his spiritual maturity away from racism into more enlightened religion, which also rejected Christian orthodoxy. He later joined the then publicity savvy Jesus Seminar, whose liberal scholars once made headlines by voting with marbles over which Gospel stories were not true. Spong always claimed to speak for a new generation who could not believe in traditional beliefs and who craved a new interpretation of Christianity. His new interpretation never flew. Unmentioned in the RNS report, Spong’s diocese lost 43 percent of its membership during his 21 years as bishop. Since he retired in 2000, the Episcopal Diocese of Newark has lost another 25 percent. In 1978, the diocese had over 64,000. Last year it was down to just over 27,000, about a 60 percent loss. There are evidently no regrets from Spong. RNS reports: Through it all, Spong never retreated an inch. By the time he retired in 2000, his own diocese had 35 openly gay and lesbian clergy, and he also helped promote a new generation of church leaders who can carry his progressive torch: 11 clerics from his tenure are now bishops, more than from any other diocese, he says. Since Spong became a bishop, the Episcopal Church nationally, whose elites often aligned with Spong, has lost 25 percent of its membership. Although Americans remain about as church-going as ever, the 50 year exodus from and demographic implosion of liberal oldline Protestant denominations continues unabated. Fifty years ago, one of every 6 Americans belonged to the largest “Seven Sister” Mainline denominations. Today, it’s less than one of every 16 and falling. Hardline liberal church activists like Spong, of whatever age, seem largely indifferent. For them, their liberationist ideology is more important than the institutional or spiritual health of their denominations. And for them, every cause du jour is supposedly just like fighting segregation 50 years ago. Never mind that universal Christian teaching never countenanced racism and was in fact the basis for opposing it. Yet today, the mostly white, North American church liberationists remain at war with, and are increasingly besieged by, growing global Christianity and its historic teachings. Another recent RNS _article_ (http://www.religionnews.com/2013/10/04/make-pick-mainline-protestants-need-new-name/) pondered what no longer Mainline Protestants should be called. Its tongue-in-cheek cited options are “Old Line,” “Liberal Church,” “Grandma’s Church,” “ Christians-Formerly-Known-As-Mainline,” and “New Coke.” In the article, liberal Episcopal writer Diane Butler Bass, who insists these denominations retain “vitality,” warned against calling former Mainliners “sidelined” and “deadlined” as “tired slurs.” Perhaps, but the slurs are mostly accurate. Next year a new book from Catholic thinker Jody Bottum comes called _An Anxious Age_ (http://www.imagecatholicbooks.com/2013/08/21/press-release-an-anxious-age/) , which laments the disappearance of Mainline Protestant institutions and ethos. Its promotional brochure notes: >From its Puritan beginning, the nation has always been shaped by its essential Protestantism, Bottum notes. But the most significant fact about modern American Protestantism — the most significant and underappreciated fact about all of contemporary America — is the collapse of the Mainline Protestant churches over the last fifty years. Where those churches once defined the liberal consensus of the nation, they have nearly disappeared from public life, and in their place have risen strange new beings: social and political feelings elevated to supernatural entities that repopulate the depleted metaphysical realm. As Bottum has written earlier, Mainline Protestantism created the civil culture and language that guided American political and cultural discourse, colonial and republican, across most of four centuries. As not just Mainline Protestant institutions but also memories of them recede, what cohesive spiritual forces will guide American thought and action? The answer is unclear. In his 1990 book, The Catholic Moment, former Lutheran turned Catholic thinker Richard Neuhaus wondered if Catholicism could not replace the cultural void left by collapsing Mainline Protestantism. But nearly a quarter century later, his hope seems unfulfilled. As New York Times columnist and religion pundit Ross Douthat has commented, “America is as religious as ever but less institutionally religious.” Religious individualism has accelerated. And in the absence of once great Protestant denominations, publishing houses, universities and missions agencies, religious Americans have resorted to a plethora of autonomous congregations that inter-pollinate with parachurch groups and independent evangelical schools, further undergirded by the growing trend of home schooling, and educated by bestselling books from independent evangelical authors. The explosion of evangelical entrepreneurship was hardly the goal of Bishop John Shelby Spong and his kindred spirits, who presumed that oldline Protestant denominational dominance in America was permanent. They are largely unaware or contemptuous of the independent-minded religious ethos that has supplanted their receding universe. That Bishop Spong’s turgid revisionism is now largely inconsequential is good news. That America no longer has great mediating religious institutions that bind us together is not so good. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
