Fwd: New book by Spong

Liberal Bible-Thumping
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Even aside from his arguments that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married an=
d
that St. Paul was a self-hating gay, the new book by a former Episcopal
bishop of Newark is explosive.

John Shelby Spong, the former bishop, tosses a hand grenade into the
cultural wars with "The Sins of Scripture," which examines why the Bible -
for all its message of love and charity - has often been used through
history to oppose democracy and women's rights, to justify slavery and even
mass murder.

It's a provocative question, and Bishop Spong approaches it with gusto. His
mission, he says, is "to force the Christian Church to face its own
terrifying history that so often has been justified by quotations from 'the
Scriptures.' "

This book is long overdue, because one of the biggest mistakes liberals hav=
e
made has been to forfeit battles in which faith plays a crucial role.
Religion has always been a central current of American life, and it is
becoming more important in politics because of the new Great Awakening
unfolding across the United States.

Yet liberals have tended to stay apart from the fray rather than engaging i=
n
it. In fact, when conservatives quote from the Bible to make moral points,
they tend to quote very selectively. After all, while Leviticus bans gay
sex, it also forbids touching anything made of pigskin (is playing football
banned?) - and some biblical passages seem not so much morally uplifting as
genocidal.

"Can we really worship the God found in the Bible who sent the angel of
death across the land of Egypt to murder the firstborn males in every
Egyptian household?" Bishop Spong asks. Or what about 1 Samuel 15, in which
God is quoted as issuing orders to wipe out all the Amalekites: "Kill both
man and woman, child and infant." Hmmm. Tough love, or war crimes? As for
the New Testament, Revelation 19:17 has an angel handing out invitations to
a divine dinner of "the flesh of all people."

Bishop Spong, who has also taught at Harvard Divinity School, argues that
while Christianity historically tried to block advances by women, Jesus
himself treated women with unusual dignity and was probably married to Mary
Magdalene.

Christianity may have become unfriendly to women's rights partly because, i=
n
its early years, it absorbed an antipathy for sexuality from the
Neoplatonists. That led to an emphasis on the perpetual virginity of Mary,
with some early Christian thinkers even trying to preserve the Virgin Mary'=
s
honor by raising the possibility that Jesus had been born through her ear.

The squeamishness about sexuality led the church into such absurdities as a
debate about "prelapsarian sex": the question of whether Adam and Eve might
have slept together in the Garden of Eden, at least if they had stayed
longer. St. Augustine's dour answer was: Maybe, but they wouldn't have
enjoyed it. In modern times, this same discomfort with sex has led some
conservative Christians to a hatred of gays and a hostility toward condoms,
even to fight AIDS.

Bishop Spong particularly denounces preachers who selectively quote
Scripture against homosexuality. He also cites various textual reasons for
concluding (not very persuasively) that St. Paul was "a frightened gay man
condemning other gay people so that he can keep his own homosexuality insid=
e
the rigid discipline of his faith."

The bishop also tries to cast doubt on the idea that Judas betrayed Jesus.
He notes that the earliest New Testament writings, of Paul and the source
known as Q, don't mention a betrayal by Judas. Bishop Spong contends that
after the destruction of Jewish Jerusalem in A.D. 70, early Christians
curried favor with Roman gentiles by blaming the Crucifixion on Jewish
authorities - nurturing two millennia of anti-Semitism that bigots insisted
was biblically sanctioned.

Some of the bishop's ideas strike me as more provocative than persuasive,
but at least he's engaged in the debate. When liberals take on conservative
Christians, it tends to be with insults - by deriding them as jihadists and
fleeing the field. That's a mistake. It's entirely possible to honor
Christian conservatives for their first-rate humanitarian work treating the
sick in Africa or fighting sex trafficking in Asia, and still do battle wit=
h
them over issues like gay rights.

Liberals can and should confront Bible-thumping preachers on their own
terms, for the scriptural emphasis on justice and compassion gives the left
plenty of ammunition. After all, the Bible depicts Jesus as healing lepers,
not slashing Medicaid.

E-mail: nicholas@nytimes.com