Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy: A Journey into a New Christianity Through the Doorway of Matthew's Gospel

by John Shelby Spong

So this is my dilemma. At one and the same time, I have found the Bible and my study of it to be a deep resource to my life and my faith, but I have also been deeply embarrassed by the way the Bible has been used over the centuries to justify one dehumanizing attitude after another. I cannot apparently have it both ways. I must either reject the Bible to live in a modern world or I must reject the modern world in order to cling to the Bible. That is a choice I cannot and will not make. So I am driven to find a different way to read the Bible that allows me simultaneously to be both a person of faith and a person thankful for and dedicated to the century in which I am privileged to live. For anyone to call the Bible the “Word of God” or to treat the words of the Bible as if they were words spoken by the mouth of God is to me not just irresponsible, it is also to be illiterate. To read from this book in a Sunday worship service and then to end that reading with some version of the phrase “this is the Word of the Lord” is, to me, little more than the perpetuation of religious ignorance and religious prejudice.