Spong on Family Planning and God’s Will

As I’ve often said before, on my About page and elsewhere, I was baptized and raised a member of the Lutheran church (Mount Olivet, in fact.The big kahuna of ELCA congregations in North America) but many years ago I fell away from Lutheranism, and from Christianity, and from all forms of organized religion.

I don’t think of myself as an atheist, altho maybe I should. If the defining characteristic of atheism is not believing in the existence of any entity whose existence cannot be and can never be measured or detected by any physical means and relies entirely on a human’s leap of faith, then yes, I am an atheist. What keeps me from identifying as an atheist, tho, is the atheist conviction that once we die, that’s it. The end — nothingness — kaput — that’s all folks. (Altho I don’t see how thinking an afterlife of some kind is possible makes one any less an atheist. ) I do think it’s possible that our consciousness continues in some form after death, and we just don’t yet have the means of detecting it. Maybe when we finally acquire that knowledge, and can perceive that consciousness, we’ll also be able to go there at will, rendering the discussion moot.

Still, for all my self initiated separation from Christianity, time after time I keep returning to the writings of retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong. Why?  Well, I guess it’s because for me he epitomizes the concept of a person of faith who is also rational. I don’t have to share Spong’s belief in Jesus and in the Christian concept of god in order to share a belief in a compassionate, egalitarian, inclusive moral code for humanity. I believe that if we follow that path, it can lift us — humanity — all of humanity — to a higher plane, ‘higher’ meaning more knowledgeable, more aware, less fearful, and so also ultimately (and perhaps paradoxically) more powerful. Take it or leave it, it’s whut ah bleev.

Got another Q&A with Bishop Spong in my email today, and it’s a dandy. This is how a rational, progressive, new paradigm Christianity sounds, folks:

NCSU1970, via the Internet, writes:

How do you respond to Christians who say they live their lives according to God’s plan for them, and that all the things that happen in their lives are because God wanted them to happen? My daughter-in-law is pregnant with her fifth child, which is sad considering her financial situation, as well as all the problems the world faces today in caring for its growing population. She says they are having babies because it is God’s plan for them. My husband and I wonder if they will finally take responsibility for their lives and the lives of their children and decide on a form of birth control before number six is created. They say they totally trust God and rely on God to decide everything! Isn’t this just a cop-out, an immature response by someone who can not or will not take responsibility for themselves? They say they are being faithful Christians and everyone should live the way they do. For them there is only one path.

Dear NCSU1970,

Of course it is a cop-out. It is also an expression of religious dependency that marks the person as significantly childlike and immature. Her argument, if you have presented it fully and fairly, is also quite irrational. Since God gives us hair that grows, are we correct to argue that cutting it violates God’s plan? If we take medicine when we get sick, does that violate God’s plan for us to be ill?

Sexual intercourse, not God, produces babies. Does one imagine that God wills a dozen children for some, while demanding sexual abstinence for others? Would not effective family planning that requires responsible decision making be a better alternative for everyone?

Many parts of the Christian Church like dependent, childlike members. That is why many church leaders exhort us to be “born again.” When we are born again, we become children anew. Perhaps what we need to do is not to be born again but to grow up!

Your daughter-in-law and her husband have used religion, a very juvenile version of religion I might add, to delude themselves into pretending that that passive dependency is actually a virtue. I think those who claim that their path is the only pathway to God are both arrogant and idolatrous. They have attributed to their frail, human definition of God some ultimate significance. They have made an idol out of their own creation. They have also assumed that their limited human mind can define the indefinable.

Religious words cover a great deal of neurotic and even psychotic behavior. One should not be intimidated by that, even when it occurs in the life of a loved family member.
John Shelby Spong
PS: Does your e-mail address mean you are a 1970 graduate of N.C. State University in Raleigh?

Hah. I like the little post script. That’s another thing I like about Spong: the way he never stops reaching out, never seems to stop being interested in other people and their lives. I’ve also noticed that his ongoing interest never seems to depend on whether someone’s given money to his “ministry” or not, which oughta tell you a very big something.

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