ISBN: 0060762055
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 5
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Summary: I hope many read this book
In this period of travail and anquish over the great divide in America, between fundamentalism and secularism. One thing really stands out that is the interpretation of woman's rights, homosexuality and anti-semticism as mentioned in the Bible.
If one believes that God was a Christian how could the fundamental approach to these words be what Jesus said or beieved in?
The Bishop makes a very strong case for human rights. I plan to give this book for Christmas.
Michael Butler
Summary: Spong redux; fine book that restates earlier work too much
As with Bishop Spong's previous efforts, "The Sins of Scripture" is a thoughtful, well-documented survey of the ways that the Bible has been used to justify some thoroughly immoral attitudes and behavior. Specifically, the authority of the Bible to underwrite selfish abuse of the environment, the repression of women, the condemnation of homosexuals as somehow subhuman, pious anti-Semitism, the violence meted out to children and to people treated as children, and the destructive divisiveness of creeds are exposed for what they are: an appeal to the authority of God to justify evil. Spong builds his case quite convincingly yet I was left a bit unsatisfied by the book as a whole.
Anyone who has studied the history of Western civilization knows of the appalling "sins" of the Christian establishment. The Bible has been used as a weapon countless times in attempts to destroy freedom of conscience and belief, at the cost of human lives and the aggregate human progress in knowledge. For that matter, anyone who keeps reasonably informed of current events, particularly in the United States, has seen how a certain view of the Bible is used to damage people, to repress scientific inquiry, and to subvert the interests of democracy and freedom. This book serves quite well as an examination of how the message of the Bible has been corrupted, both in its writing and its application, to serve provincial bias and to support otherwise untenable positions.
Thus, to refer to the subtitle of this book, the "Bible's Texts of Hate" have been exposed for what they are: the prejudices of people in a particular place and time, elevated through time and tradition to become, amazingly, the inerrant Word of God. In that effort, Bishop Spong has succeeded admirably. However, I must say that, in my opinion, the book is somewhat disappointing in revealing the "God of Love".
Much of the depiction of the "God of Love" in this book is accomplished by describing what God is not. I was already well convinced of those propositions, even before having read earlier books by this author. Clearly, if God is seen as the creator, the designer, the ground of being in which humans exist, or any other such conception, the idea that somehow God is capable of hating and condemning any portion of humanity is absurd. Equally absurd is the notion that God wishes some part of humanity to hate, abuse or oppress any other part. God is, by definition, the *Higher* Power, and doesn't indulge in the base emotions which would be attributed to God by those ideas. Rather, God calls humanity to "come as [they] are in order to become all [they] can be", to use an apt phrasing from the book (p. 274).
Spong, unfortunately, does too little to describe the "God of Love" affirmatively. It is primarily in the final two sections of the book that this is attempted, and not particularly coherently. As with the book "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism", he has succeeded in exposing the nonsense but stating little of the sense found in the Bible. In chapter 20 of the present book, he asks whether there is any role for Jesus in the new view of reality he has explained, which sees humanity not as "fallen" from some state of grace in the misty past, but rather as an incomplete creation which is growing toward a perhaps impossible perfection. His answer is an endnote which states that he will address the question more completely in his next book, tentatively titled "Jesus for the Nonreligious". I find myself wishing that he had written that book now, since "Sins of Scripture" covers much of the same ground his earlier books had already examined. This book does lay out his thesis somewhat more completely, but it leaves me questioning, as I was when I first opened the book, what can be salvaged from the Bible to further a healthy, humane spiritual growth. Perhaps that is the point; after all, affirmative statements of belief have the disturbing propensity to become creeds, which by their very nature are exclusionary and divisive.
To summarize, this is overall a fine work. Those already familiar with Spong's writings will find it a bit repetitive of previous books; those who are not will find it challenging and illuminating. Being of the former description myself, I wavered a bit over rating the book '5 stars'. After reading other reviews here, many of which gave very low ratings based apparently on either the publisher's blurb rather than actually reading the book and/or the reviewer's own contempt toward anyone who questions dogma, I felt compelled to give an additional star over my initial four simply to help push the average toward a realistic rating.
Summary: Not For True Christians
I'm sorry I purchased this book and wasted my money as well as the limited amount of time I spent reading it...no, I didn't finish it, I didn't have to. The author starts out saying that the last thing he wanted to do was write a book that would essentially come across as a Bible-bashing book then proceeds to betray his own promise.
From the first few pages it becomes obvious that the author has a bone to pick with Christianity in general and the Church and the Bible in particular. Though he professes to be a life long scholarly student of the Bible his words leap off the page full of anger and contempt for the Bible itself as well as those who "foolishly" believe in its contents.
It became immediately apparent that the author's intent was to offend and outrage because he himself is offended and outraged. Coming from one of the minorities who has personally suffered from misuse of Scripture I did not take the author's stance of blaming the source for those who abused it. And while the author is certainly entitled to his personal beliefs and opinons as an author claiming to approach the subject matter from a learned stance instead I felt tricked into buying a book that is nothing more than a personal soapbox. Vehement, angry, and full of personal resentment gives the real overview and flavor of the author's approach to the subject matter.
If you're looking for an angry outpouring against the Bible and Christians you'll be satisfied, if you're seriously looking for an intelligent treatment of the texts in question you'll be sadly disappointed.
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