(from "Reclaiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World" by John Shelby Spong,
©2011 John Shelby Spong)
". . . As post-Darwinians we now know that there never was a perfect creation. All life has evolved from a single cell into our present self-conscious, enormously complex human life, which is, for the time being at least, at the top of the evolutionary ladder. Since there was no perfect creation, then there could not have been a "fall" from perfection. One cannot fall from a status one has never possessed. If we have not fallen from perfection, we do not need to be saved, redeemed or rescued. So the way Jesus has traditionally been interpreted vanishes into irrelevance. One can artificially resuscitate a dying form only as long as the presuppositions undergirding that form are still believable. The human experience, however, still cries out for some other explanation of this experience. What is it?
We are self-conscious creatures. All living things are survival-oriented. Plants stretch to receive the light of the sun in order to live. Animals fight for life or flee danger in order to survive. Neither plant life nor animal life, however, is aware of its survival drive. Human beings are. When self-conscious creatures make their own survival their highest goal, they then organize their world around that need.
Paul's experience of human life was correct. His explanation was wrong. His experience of Christ as life-giving love was correct. His explanation of how that love was manifested in Jesus' life was wrong.
Can one find salvation by being rescued from this fatal flaw in our humanity, as Paul seemed to believe? I do not think so. We can, however, find wholeness in the experience of being lifted beyond these boundaries. I am now convinced that this experience of being lifted into a new consciousness was the heart of what the Jesus experience was and it is this experience alone to which Christians must witness. . . "
What do YOU think?
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