A “Muslim” Note on John Shelby Spong
By Ulil Abshar-Abdalla
In the journey toward the truth, people tend to take the easy tack. The easiest way is to treat religion as an heirloom inherited from our ancient predecessors; to treat religion as a set of doctrines that have clear-cut boundaries or, more precisely, boundary (in a singular form). The easiest way to be in the way of being “religionist” is to follow the well-trodden path of the predecessors without daring to ask or challenge. To question what has been laid down as doctrines by our pious predecessors is tantamount to an act of heresy.
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I am a liberal rabbi and I too find Spong’s books very helpful in guiding me in my search for God. I think our three faiths all need to re-examine the concept of a supernatural God. It has nothing to do with God, who is beyond our comprehension and imagination, but everything to do with our limited human perceptions. Why do we believe that ideas about God, made when humanity believed the earth to be flat, remain true when all other branches of knowledge have advanced?
Is there anything written on Islam from Spong’s perspective? I’d be interested in reading more.
I too am a fan of Bishop Spong’s work and have found great inspiration in reading his books. I am not aware of any works that Bishop Spong has written that deal specifically with Islam, but I would enjoy reading about his perspective.
Thank you for highlighting one of the leading theological minds in the world today.
Advice to liberal Muslim women....DON’T UNCOVER!
Also do not accept being forced to cover to ridiculous and hysterically reactive extremes!
John Shelby Spong is a great writer, one I admire greatly yet he and I start to part ways at the topic of sex. I applaud his well-intentioned effort to rid religion of it’s body-negative, sex-negative and woman-negative biases and the fear and anger that are directed at women by men who externalize their struggle with their own sexuality and blame the object of the desires(woman) rather than themselves....yet he goes too far into accepting everything. He does not ask whether there is a good reason, or a benefit to any of the traditional teachings...all that is non-traditional becomes acceptable and even laudable.
A better writer is the Catholic Ronald Rolheiser in “Forgotten Among the Lilies”. Far from being sexuality negative he begins with, “ We are fired into life by a madness that comes from our incompleteness. We awake to life tense, aching, erotic, full of sex and restlessness.” But rather than simply advocating that people shack up, he defends the traditional moral teachings. Not by a resort to shaming and name-calling, but by noting the effects of the loss of those teachings in human terms, and social justice terms.
“The oppression of women in our culture is especially sexual. In a culture which is sexually irresponsible the inevitable losers are women. They end up suffering the most.” He goes on to note the lack of trust between men and women and even hatred between them. While there are certainly men who hold women in contempt in traditional cultures, being freed from sexual mores has not freed us from that misogyny...if anything it has simply been increased, having been freed from any artificial constraints or limits that religion placed on it. Even some of the otherwise nicest men and women I know are full of rage for the opposite sex, unable to trust, unable to do anything more than visciously tear into the very person they wish to love for belonging to that hated group.
Go into any Christian and Jewish liberal community and look where the pressure is on women, look where all the bare skin is...it’s not on the men! How many of their members have sex with people they have no commitment to, no real concern for the consequences to them? How many defend exploiting others for sexual gratification under the banner “mutual consent”? How many divorces, viscious battles over property and custody? How many beautiful, smart women, looking for marriage and children are unable to find husbands? How many men in their 30s and 40s with excellent careers are incapable of commitment, preferring to pick up women for sex or drag some hopeful woman through years of being a “roommate with benefits” while her biological clock ticks away and he neurotically ruminates about whether he is “ready”? How many men there seem reduced to an extended adolescence, locked in perpetual ambivilance and indecision? How many fatherless children? How many kids crying about their parents divorce? How many kids growing up jaded, cynical about love and marriage, expecting only betrayal and abandonment there?
Think hard and carefully before you give up your traditional morality...reform it if you must, but do NOT give it up. It is so easy to give it up and so impossible to get back once your culture starts down that slipperly slope. Do not believe the good intentions of most men who defend the freedom of women to sleep with whomever they choose...they aren’t defending her...they are defending the right of men to sexual gratification without commitment and responsibility. It is the men who are “freed” and the women who end up being “responsible” and paying the price!
the 2 reasons why i follow Christianity are the prophecies regarding Jesus in the Old Testament(Torah) before Jesus’s birth, and the miracles (supernatural healings of diseases, men seeing visions, men still being able to prophesy,etc) in the Church even today. Muslims generally believe that although God did many miracles through Moses,Jesus, etc, He is not doing miracles today and that the miracles claimed by christians today are fake. I just wanted to ask that why would God who is fully capable of performing miracles, stop performing them in today’s age for no proper reason? i think that miracles dont happen to muslims not because God has stopped performing miracles today, but because God doesnt want to misguide them. If He starts performing miracles among muslims then they would reason that since islam is correct,thats why God is giving them signs through these miracles.. I continue to see miracles in the Church in which i go to pray..
Dear Ulil Abshar-Abdalla,
Thank you for your very honest article. It is so wonderful for people of diverse faiths to share their views and learn from each other. I agree with the person who wrote about not giving up one’s morality, and I agree that we need to follow moral codes that are appropriate to our era now - I especially like Anson Laytner’s comment that knowledge on everything else has progressed, so why not our knowledge of God? I also agree that we are not able to ever understand God, but we can try to follow the teachings of the Messengers of Yaweh/Allah/God/the Great Cosmos/ Creator Spirit. I think that all of our precious faiths have a core element which is in agreement - the spiritual essence - and it is just the material side which changes according to the understanding and needs of the people of the time that Messenger comes. None of our teachings say to hate people, exploit the vulnerable, follow your own desires at the expense of others, do whatever you want! I was brought up Catholic and have recently become Baha’i, which means that I believe ALL of the religions, which is a great relief for me because I always felt uncomfortable with the idea that Christianity was the only way. Why would God create such diversity? If we look around the planet, God loves diversity, every leaf, every person, every wave is unique. But we are also all connected in our being alive and being an outcome of God’s love, we are all brothers and sisters. I look forward to learning more about faiths I know little of (especially Islam and Hinduism), so that I can feel more connected to my human spiritual heritage and love people more by understanding them more.
Andria
Australia
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