Whenever I read one of John Spong’s books, I get the image of a fire truck—siren screaming, bells clanging, lights flashing, horn sounding—racing at breakneck speed to save victims from the fiery terror that surrounds them. At the scene, a lone firefighter scurries about shouting orders and plugging hoses into hydrants. Slinging a ladder over his shoulder, he races to the inferno. He leans the ladder against the wall of the building, tests it for strength and stability, and then begins to climb. He gets to the top so that he can rescue those who are only moments away from perishing! There, with a heroic shout, he cries, "Hold onto me! I’ll save you!" The problem is that he has not yet noticed he has his ladder leaning against the wrong building! The latest book by John Shelby Spong, The Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible’s Texts of Hate to Reveal the God of Love, is yet another earnest appeal for the Christian Church to change to its way of believing or perish. Given the fact Spong takes himself so seriously, we, who find his arguments theologically thin, historically questionable and pastorally stiff and unforgiving, must do the same.

The book is divided into eight sections, each of which deals with scriptural texts Spong judges to be evil. These texts have led the Church to become any or all of the following: earth destroying (Genesis 1:28); misogynist (Genesis 2:18-23); "homophobic" (Leviticus 18:22); abusive of children (Proverbs 23: 13-14); anti-Semitic (Matthew 27: 24-25) and religiously bigoted (John 14:6) Granted the Church has had (and still does have) a lot to answer for in our sometimes sorry history. Some of the points Spong raises are valid.

However, the way in which he presents these texts as sources of sin is overly doctrinaire. For example, in chapter 19, entitled "God as Divine Child Abuser; the Sadomasochism in the Heart of Christianity", Spong argues that the idea of human sinfulness, which doctrine leads necessarily to abuse, is wrong-headed and not life-giving. He sees that our radical self-centredness ... " is not the result of original sin. It is a sign of emerging consciousness. It should not be a source of guilt. It is a source of blessing." (p. 174) I only hope the families of the victims of Jeffrey Dahmer and Paul Bernardo don’t get wind of this!

Spong speaks about the status of human beings by saying, "The Psalmist got it wrong: we were not created a little lower than angels‚ (Ps. 8:5 KJV) Rather, we have evolved into a status that we judge to be only a little higher than the ape’s." It is this kind of linear, modern thinking that puts Spong’s ideas about 40 to 50 years of date. These ideas might have flown well in the 1950’s; but the postmodern society in which we now live is light years beyond where Spong is.

In this and his other works, Spong says over and over that the world he lives in cannot abide miracles, virgin births and resurrected bodies. This Age of Enlightenment thinking, in which Spong dwells most comfortably, has long ago shown itself both sterile and bankrupt. True, the Enlightenment has given us many good things for which we are truly thankful. It has given us industry as well as the resulting air and water pollution, ozone depletion and smog warnings. It has given us the idea of the modern political state as well as the Holocaust where politics became a cover for hatred and prejudice gone mad. Modern linear deduction has ultimately shown itself to be bankrupt because it has no peripheral vision—no sense of consequences; no sense of its impact on the amazing web that makes up society and the world. Linear deduction is dead and no amount of CPR will revive it. Spong bases his arguments on a mindset that is long since out of date. Today quantum physics, nonequilibrium physics, the Chaos Theory and the Superstring Theory have all pushed modern physics and the Enlightenment off the map. Unfortunately, John Spong hasn’t heard the news.

He repeats his mantra: "I do not live in a world of miracles, like the world in which the biblical stories were created." (p. 282) Perhaps he has been so busy studying the Bible and learning about God that he hasn’t had the time to spend humbly with the Creator of all that is (Micah 6:8) Even his beloved Bible, the book he loves the most, must be downgraded. "This book must be removed from its position of power, a lofty position that has allowed irrational ignorance to flow from its religious pipelines into the corporate life of our society, where the damage it has caused is still beyond measure." (p. 100)

Spong’s latest work is simply more of the same, only more so. His grasp of the depth of any Christian theology outside the North American/European context is simply non-existent. Where are the eastern Orthodox, the Coptic or the Roman Catholic voices that also make up an important part of this wondrous thing called the Christian Church? His mindset is somewhere in the mid-20th century. His arguments reflect questions no one is asking.

In his frantic attempt to "save" the Church, he truly has leaned his ladder against the wrong building. Spong is a man who seems desperate to build a new religion based on his own insights. This is what heresy is — the anxious defence of only half the truth at the expense of the other half. It matters not whether you are "liberal" or "conservative" — half the truth is not better than none at all.