's Best of 2001
Christianity will not be a viable belief system for honest people in the contemporary world, writes John Shelby Spong, until it drops a few outmoded ideas--for instance, belief in a supernatural God who reveals Himself from outside creation. A New Christianity for a New World continues the work begun in Spong's bestselling Why Christianity Must Change or Die, in which the former Episcopalian bishop diagnosed Christianity's major problems. Here, he offers a vision of what authentic Christian belief might look like today, stripped of theism and all its corollaries (doctrines such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Atonement). Christians may come to believe that "God is beyond Jesus, but Jesus participated in the Being of God and Jesus is my way into God." Readers inspired by Dietrich Bonhoeffer's tantalizing writings on "religionless Christianity" in Letters and Papers from Prison and by John A.T. Robinson's Honest to God will find much challenge and comfort in Spong's New Christianity, his most mature and most radical book. --Michael Joseph Gross


From Publishers Weekly
Religious reformer Spong builds upon the program he initiated in Why Christianity Must Change or Die as he outlines what he believes is an authentic faith for a new millennium. Taking cues from the works of John A.T. Robinson, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Rudolf Bultmann, Spong proclaims that theism the view that a supernatural deity creates and provides for humanity is merely a "human coping device, created by traumatized self-conscious creatures to enable them to deal with the anxiety of self-awareness." The theistic God, for Spong as for Freud and Feuerbach before him, is nothing but a projection of our own desires and wishes. Since the theistic God was a construct that helped humans cope with their anxieties, the hysteria and trauma rampant in our society today is proof, says Spong, that the theistic God has died. But once theism is extinct, many of the central ideas of conventional Christianity, such as original sin, the incarnation and the Resurrection, tumble into uselessness. Spong's "new Christianity" is rather old, though. Just as in 19th-century theological liberalism, Jesus is god-presence and god is the ground of all being. Moreover, Spong recycles the central ideas of his previous nine books. At worst, this is an uninspiring and unoriginal tract for a formless and meandering quasi-spiritual life. At best, however, Spong openly reveals his honest struggles to fashion a living faith that transcends what he sees as the sterility of the Christianity in which he was formed. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
In what he claims to be his parting manifesto, Spong, the former Episcopal bishop of Newark, NJ, saves his sharpest salvos for organized religion in general and Christianity in particular. Arguing for the full humanity of women, gays, and other disenfranchised groups, Spong continues arguments begun in earlier works (e.g., Why Christianity Must Change or Die), striving to improve upon his previously vilified or misunderstood ideas, such as the figurative nature of the Passion, the death of theism, and various dogmas and creeds that fall under the "theistic firewall of [religious] hysteria." Still, he doesn't anticipate much clerical support; he speaks instead to "the ordinary people whose name is legion" and is somewhat defensive in tone. As with his previous works, faithful folk will struggle with the radical nature of his vision, laboring to see what is fundamentally Christian in his Christianity. Loyal Spongians will welcome the conversation, but foes will be further infuriated. Purchase accordingly. Sandra Collins, Duquesne Univ. Lib., PittsburghCopyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Retired Episcopal bishop Spong says this may be his last big statement on how Christianity must become nontheistic. Educated people, he avers, can't believe in God the Father anymore, and sustaining such a faith for others by institutional means validates hierarchical, male-centered systems of authority that oppress rather than free believers to live in the fundamentally egalitarian realm--not kingdom--of God that Jesus preached. God as Supreme Being, Jesus as the incarnation of God, and miracles as evidence of divinity are old notions that were imposed on Jesus' original teaching. God is, Spong says, adopting Paul Tillich's phrase, the ground of being. Furthermore, humanity participates in divinity by the fact of being, original sin is a misconception, and no religion is the one true faith. This is all, if hardly new, heretical stuff in the eyes of the church. But then, Spong believes the church is largely apostate, for it is based on the desires of church hierarchy rather than human needs. Bracing stuff, though, as usual for Spong, rather prolix. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Robert W. Funk, author of The Five Gospels
Bishop Spong's new book is filled with trenchant insights, searing honesty, and boundless hope.


Book Description
The Antidote to Toxic Christianity In his bestselling book Why Christianity Must Change or Die, Bishop John Shelby Spong described the toxins that are poisoning the Church. Now he offers the antidote, calling Christians everywhere into a new and radical reformation for a new age. Spong looks beyond traditional boundaries to open new avenues and a new vocabulary into the Holy, proposing a Christianity premised upon justice, love, and the rise of a new humanity -- a vision of the power that might be.


About the Author
John Shelby Spong was the Episcopal Bishop of Newark, New Jersey for twenty-four years before his retirement in 2000. He is one of the leading spokespersons for liberal Christianity and has been featured on 60 Minutes, Good Morning America, FOX News Live, and Extra. This book is based on the William Belden Noble lectures Spong delivered at Harvard.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The message trumpeted in the subtitle is radical: Why Traditional Faith Is Dying & How a New Faith Is Being Born. John Shelby Spong, the liberal activist Episcopal Bishop of Newark, continues to champion positions he advocated in Why Christianity Must Change or Die.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In his bestselling Why Christianity Must Change or Die, Bishop Spong described the toxins that are poisoning the Church. Now in his newest work, he offers the antidote. Spong explains why the traditional understandings of God, Christ, the Church, and their rules and dogmas are wrong and dangerous. He spells out his contemporary vision of God, Jesus, prayer, worship, evil, the afterlife, and the Church as a community of love, equality, and truth.

In offering his vision of that which might be for the Church, Spong has poured his heart, soul, and mind into this book as the ultimate legacy of his struggle to discover and promote a Christianity that makes sense today.

FROM THE CRITICS

Robert W. Funk

Bishop Spong's new book is filled with trenchant insights, searing honesty, and boundless hope.

Publishers Weekly

Religious reformer Spong builds upon the program he initiated in Why Christianity Must Change or Die as he outlines what he believes is an authentic faith for a new millennium. Taking cues from the works of John A.T. Robinson, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Rudolf Bultmann, Spong proclaims that theism the view that a supernatural deity creates and provides for humanity is merely a "human coping device, created by traumatized self-conscious creatures to enable them to deal with the anxiety of self-awareness." The theistic God, for Spong as for Freud and Feuerbach before him, is nothing but a projection of our own desires and wishes. Since the theistic God was a construct that helped humans cope with their anxieties, the hysteria and trauma rampant in our society today is proof, says Spong, that the theistic God has died. But once theism is extinct, many of the central ideas of conventional Christianity, such as original sin, the incarnation and the Resurrection, tumble into uselessness. Spong's "new Christianity" is rather old, though. Just as in 19th-century theological liberalism, Jesus is god-presence and god is the ground of all being. Moreover, Spong recycles the central ideas of his previous nine books. At worst, this is an uninspiring and unoriginal tract for a formless and meandering quasi-spiritual life. At best, however, Spong openly reveals his honest struggles to fashion a living faith that transcends what he sees as the sterility of the Christianity in which he was formed. (Sept.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal