Unbelievable: Why Neither Ancient Creeds Nor the Reformation Can Produce a Living Faith Today

by John Shelby Spong

So walk with me now slowly as I seek to find my way through this human thicket. Earlier in this book I stated that there is a difference between an experience and an explanation. That distinction is critical for theological thinking. An experience can be real, even timeless, but in order for that experience to be shared with another, it must be explained. Every explanation of an experience, however, is inevitably bound up in the limitations of human experience. Explanations are couched in the language of, the level of knowledge possessed by and the presuppositions embraced by the explainer. They are thus reflective of the subjectivity in which the explainer lives. God, I believe, is an experience that is real. Creeds are, however, nothing more than attempted explanations of that God experience. Theology thus represents little more than human attempts to organize the explanations. Doctrine then becomes only the attempt to enforce the theology arrived at in those creeds. Finally, dogma develops, which is doctrine literalized and turned into idolatry! All theological systems are, therefore, finally nothing but coercive human creations. Religion is not and never has been based on a divine revelation. No religious system escapes this inevitable pathway that it must walk. The idolatrous nature of all religion, however, should not be used to hide from us the fact that the experience behind the idolatrous religious system can still be real. That forms a new place to begin. The rea...