A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional Faith is Dying and How a New Faith is Being Born

by John Shelby Sprong

Paperback, 2003

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Genres

Religion & Spirituality

General Nonfiction

Nonfiction

All Topics

Publication

Bravo Ltd (2003), Edition: 1 Reprint, 304 pages

Description

In his bestselling book Why Christianity Must Change or Die, Bishop John Shelby Spong described the toxins that are poisoning the Church. Now he offers the antidote, calling Christians everywhere into a new and radical reformation for a new age. Spong looks beyond traditional boundaries to open new avenues and a new vocabulary into the Holy, proposing a Christianity premised upon justice, love, and the rise of a new humanity -- a vision of the power that might be.

User reviews

LibraryThing member DubiousDisciple

More than anyone else, Bishop John Shelby Spong has helped shape a new Christianity for a new world. He is a leader in liberal Christianity, and many of us have been following along, reading his books for years. If there’s any cause for frustration with Spong as an author, it’s that he never

quite seemed to dig deep enough, to answer the big questions, about where this new, practical, thinking man’s version of Christianity would carry us.

If you’ve been yearning to finally get down to the nitty gritty of all the wonderful talk, the time has come. The big questions are answered. How does Christianity survive in a post-theistic world? How does eternity fit into this dream? What about prayer?

I think the best way to present this book is just to pass on some of my favorite quotes from the first half of the book. If you find yourself nodding your head, this is the book for you, and the second half will open your eyes.

“In the face of religious hostility on one side and incredulous disdain for my unwillingness to reject my faith-tradition on the other, I continue to insist that I am a Christian.”

“The audience I seek to address is … people who feel spiritually thirsty but know that they can no longer drink from the traditional wells of the past.”

“They will rejoice that they at last have found a way to put their heads and their hearts together.”

“People no longer believe in God in a real and operative sense, even if they do continue to believe in believing in God.”

“The God who is love is slowly transformed into the love that is God.”

“I am free of the God who was deemed to be incomplete unless constantly receiving our endless praises; the God who required that we acknowledge ourselves as born in sin and therefore as helpless; the God who seemed to delight in punishing sinners; the God who, we were told, gloried in our childlike, groveling dependency. Worshiping that theistic God did not allow us to grow into the new humanity that we now claim.”

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LibraryThing member greeniezona

As you can see, I didn't find this book to be quite as earth-shattering as Why Christianity Must Change or Die. Perhaps it's because I read it with my husband, who was more critical of the way Spong built his arguments. Perhaps it was also because I was often frustrated that I wanted more detail.

Spong is taking, and asking his readers to take, a leap of faith. I want a few more straws to grasp at as I do. ;) I want a list of the hymns that he thinks still make sense with a non-theistic understanding of God. I want more solid ideas of how to have a conversation as a non-theist with a traditional believer. For me, this is a matter of spiritual survival, right now. And I was hoping for at least a few easy answers. Though still, I appreciated this book. Perhaps the ground is a little sturdier under my feet for having read it after all.

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