Eternal Life: Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell [Paperback]

OK, let's set the record straight: I'm a progressive Christian - I've read (and enjoyed) even Gretta Vosper's book (With or Without God) - and I've read most of Spong's bestsellers. I've always LOVED Jack Spong as a preacher and have been privileged to hear him speak in person a half a dozen times. As an author, I would have to say that he has his moments (Here I Stand, Why Christianity Must Change or Die and A New Christianity for a New World are excellent) but, in general, if I rate his speaking as an A+, some of his books get an A but often only a B or C.

The very cool thing about Spong's books is that they track his own personal growth in knowledge and, dare I say, enlightenment (for lack of a better term). This gives his books a personal touch which, for me, allows me to see the depth dimension of his being - something which many authors keep well hidden. Recent books by folks like Elaine Pagels (Beyond Belief) and Bart Ehrman (Misquoting Jesus) reveal the personal spiritual sides of the authors and I appreciate that greatly. It's not like you're reading some dispassionate objective dissertation - it makes the material live and breathe.

With that as background, if you're still reading, here's the review:

In his latest book, Eternal Life: A New Vision, Jack Spong's life work dedicated to finding meaning in the Christian tradition blossoms fully and completely by transcending it (but not abandoning it). In some of his early books, he shows the flaws apparent (should I say "obvious") in human-made Christian institutions and doctrine, yet, offers little to give us hope or meaning in their absence. Eventually, in other books, Spong leads us into the understanding that to be fully human (live fully, love wastefully, be all that you can be) is to catch a glimpse of what it means to be divine. In ETERNAL LIFE, he finally (as if the universe was waiting for him to figure it out - wink) pulls it all together and offers a vision which transcends religion itself and encourages us to enter into a new way of being - in relationship with each other and the universe - thereby experiencing eternity NOW.

You'll have to read the book to get the details, but I was VERY impressed with the way he tied together all his previous thinking and made this leap to, what I consider, a new level of consciousness and awareness. Don't let this talk about transcendence, consciousness and awareness make you think that Spong has gone "NEW AGE". LOL. Far from it. It's a personal, well-reasoned and easy to understand story of his own emerging thought and how we might do something similar in our lives.

One thing which surprised me about the book is that he ends up in a place that Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme are at as well, WITHOUT referring to them at all. I have great respect for all three authors and am glad that they are reaching a sort of conjunction in their thinking.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for anyone interested in Spong, progressive Christianity and the emerging universal consciousness.

I am a great fan of Bishop John Shelby Spong, retired Episcopal Bishop of Newark. I have read four of his books and have been receiving his weekly essay via the Internet for years. Although I am not a Christian, I find it inspiring to read his idea of transforming Christianity to make it wholly conform to scientific knowledge. Spong is all but a humanist, as he describes himself as "God-intoxicated," with a completely different idea of God from the usual father figure.

I confess that I have been puzzled by Spong's repeated definition of God as "the source of life, the source of love, and 'the ground of all being,' which he adopted from his spiritual guide, Paul Tillich. I had hoped that this book would shed further light on this definition. Here, Spong finally reveals that he is a mystic, and that this hallowed tradition of mysticism has seen God through inner experience, not external revelation. He asserts that God is not the theistic, creative, all-controlling deity of the Bible, but rather a divine aspect of our own nature as human beings. Jesus, he says, was fully human, and did not come down to earth as an incarnate God to "save" humankind from original sin (which does not exist, because of evolution). Spong disavows all the miraculous and supernatural explanations of God and Jesus, and believes that the Gospel writers were not trying to be literal in their descriptions of the life of
Jesus. Instead, they were explaining in their limited vocabulary the God-experience like-minded people saw in Jesus.

Spong's main thesis is that human self-consciousness, superseding the consciousness of other animals, left us with fear and anxiety when it was experienced by early man. Because of the knowledge of his frailty and impending mortality, man invented religion to allay these fears. Spong recounts the steps through which religion has grown, starting with animism, going through goddess worship for fertility, ascending to multiple gods of both sexes, and finally resulting in the one patriarchal God of Judaism, Chrisitanity, and Islam. Spong goes "beyond religion," asserting that this form of worship was suitable for the childhood of the human species. Now, the contributions of Galileo, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein have rendered the theistic God obsolete.

Bishop Spong's description of the evolution of religion, interspersed with his own life experiences, make up the most informative part of the book. But when he starts to describe his own view that he and other human beings will live eternally "beyond heaven and hell," he loses me. I think it is just another delusion manufactured by Spong, through his relentless study of the important aspects of science and human nature, and his boundless love of spirituality. He says that there is no present, only the current moment becoming an endless future. Because we can imagine things outside time and space, both the past and the future, we are really timeless beings. Our consciousness will become the consciousness of all the universe, just as Jesus modeled for us.

Spong tells us that the love he has given and received from his family, friends, and acquaintances is the most cherished aspect of his personal "divinity." Most of all, the love of both his wives was the greatest gift he has received. Since God is "the source of love," he is assured that his consciousness will live forever, and he welcomes death when it must come. In his last chapter, Spong says that we human beings are entitled to choose euthanasia when death becomes inevitable, because of the medical prolongation of life not available to previous generations.

The book is eloquent and beautiful, if not wholly rational,and is typical of Spong and his enormous life achievements.

If you are looking for indisputable proof that humans survive their death, you will not find it here. If you are seeking support for the traditional viewpoints of institutional religion, especially fundamentalist Christianity, don't look here either. What John Spong does offer his readers is what he has offered throughout all his books, an often deeply personal, totally honest, thoroughly researched, exploration of the subject from how he now sees it on his own journey. Although it will undoubtedly make some angry, and disappoint others, this is a haunting, breautiful book that penetrates to the deepest depths of that ultimate question, if we die shall we live again. It is a book that draws you in and invites you to experience in your own time and way at least some of what the author has experienced. Spong has wrestled with the ultimate questions much the way Jacob wrestled with the angel. He searches, he challenges, and he offers no easy answers. Like Jacob, readers may come away with a dislocated hip, but they will be blessed, and in the words of Albert Schweitzer, "In their own way they will come to know who He is."

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