WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.940 Welcome ladies and gentlemen on this rather wet and wintry Adelaide morning. You're doing well 2 00:00:04.940 --> 00:00:08.740 to get up so early on a Sunday morning I think or perhaps you were meaning to be at church, 3 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:16.360 I'm not sure. Either way it's my pleasure to introduce for this morning's session Bishop 4 00:00:16.360 --> 00:00:25.460 John Shelby Spong. As the size of this audience indicates this is no whispering Jack. Jack's 5 00:00:25.460 --> 00:00:31.660 voice has been heard loud and clear on his visit to Australia and his message has been welcomed and 6 00:00:32.920 --> 00:00:39.100 lampooned variously by different people. But he needs no full introduction from me and so 7 00:00:39.100 --> 00:00:44.500 without any further ado I'd invite you to welcome and listen to Jack Spong. Thank you. 8 00:00:47.300 --> 00:00:48.500 Thank you. 9 00:00:48.500 --> 00:00:55.380 Thank you. 10 00:00:55.460 --> 00:01:02.280 Thank you very much and thank you for being here. This is our last day in Australia and I must say we 11 00:01:02.280 --> 00:01:11.260 think this is a wonderful country. I speak today out of two books. One is my autobiography, 12 00:01:11.440 --> 00:01:18.940 Here I Stand, My Struggle for a Christianity of Integrity, Love and Equality. It's a personal 13 00:01:18.940 --> 00:01:23.240 chronicle of how I emerged out of an evangelical Anglican church 14 00:01:24.320 --> 00:01:25.200 to call 15 00:01:25.460 --> 00:01:33.140 the church of today into being something new. The other book is Why Christianity Must Change or Die. 16 00:01:34.420 --> 00:01:41.900 It is a manifesto calling the church to a new reformation without which I do not believe 17 00:01:41.900 --> 00:01:49.880 Christianity will grace our future. I launched that reformation by nailing in Luther-like fashion 18 00:01:49.880 --> 00:01:55.220 my 12 theses on the doors of the great chapel at Mansfield 19 00:01:55.460 --> 00:02:02.920 College in Oxford University. I will leave a copy of those 12 theses in the bookstore if anybody is 20 00:02:02.920 --> 00:02:10.120 interested in having one. Perhaps they can reproduce that for you. I mention this not to be 21 00:02:10.120 --> 00:02:16.360 self-aggrandizing but because I am aware that I have such a little time today and that I will only 22 00:02:16.360 --> 00:02:25.440 scratch the surface, perhaps leaving far more questions than answers, and I do not want you to think that what I say today is a 23 00:02:25.460 --> 00:02:25.640 ! 24 00:02:25.640 --> 00:02:33.840 all that there is to say on these great subjects. I want to place before you today a new faith perspective. 25 00:02:36.160 --> 00:02:42.840 Not only will it be intensely personal, but I hope it will also have authenticity and integrity. 26 00:02:44.860 --> 00:02:53.680 I also hope it will constitute a vision that both engages and compels my listeners. So let me begin. 27 00:02:55.460 --> 00:03:02.700 The most important thing you need to know about me is that I am a Christian, a deeply committed, unashamed Christian. 28 00:03:03.580 --> 00:03:12.000 I call Jesus my Lord. I stand inside the faith tradition that counts Jesus as its center. 29 00:03:13.140 --> 00:03:24.360 I cannot recall a time in my life when Jesus was not a sacred presence to me. I was even born in an Anglican hospital, baptized as an infant, 30 00:03:24.360 --> 00:03:41.240 nurtured and educated in my parish church, confirmed as a young adolescent, active in my teenage years in my church's youth group, and in my young adult years in my university's student nationwide 31 00:03:51.100 --> 00:03:54.440 and I served in those capacities for 21 years. 32 00:03:55.680 --> 00:03:57.560 I must have served well, 33 00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:02.220 for this church elected me to be one of its bishops at age 44. 34 00:04:03.320 --> 00:04:06.320 I served in that role for 24 years, 35 00:04:07.380 --> 00:04:09.040 retiring just recently 36 00:04:09.040 --> 00:04:13.520 as the senior sitting Anglican bishop in the United States. 37 00:04:15.580 --> 00:04:17.520 During that Episcopal career, 38 00:04:17.680 --> 00:04:19.160 I authored books and articles, 39 00:04:19.160 --> 00:04:21.400 all of which sought to explore the life 40 00:04:21.400 --> 00:04:24.940 and the implications of this Jesus for my generation. 41 00:04:26.340 --> 00:04:30.980 I made no attempt to avoid controversy in my career. 42 00:04:31.960 --> 00:04:34.860 I placed my devotion to the truth of God 43 00:04:34.860 --> 00:04:38.260 before my yearning to have my church avoid controversy 44 00:04:38.260 --> 00:04:39.980 or even pain 45 00:04:39.980 --> 00:04:43.700 by remaining in a pattern that is shallow for most 46 00:04:43.700 --> 00:04:46.240 and killing for some. 47 00:04:47.440 --> 00:04:49.060 So the first thing I want, 48 00:04:49.160 --> 00:04:51.580 I want you to hear is that I speak as a believer, 49 00:04:52.220 --> 00:04:54.200 as a devoted Christian, 50 00:04:55.040 --> 00:04:58.080 and that I take that commitment quite seriously. 51 00:04:59.900 --> 00:05:02.800 But there is a second reality that you must know. 52 00:05:03.820 --> 00:05:06.980 I am also a child of the 21st century, 53 00:05:08.520 --> 00:05:11.320 and that makes my Christian commitment difficult. 54 00:05:12.580 --> 00:05:14.980 I live in a world that is vastly different 55 00:05:14.980 --> 00:05:17.160 from the one in which Christianity was born. 56 00:05:18.280 --> 00:05:18.300 Indeed, 57 00:05:19.160 --> 00:05:21.340 the knowledge that is available to those of us 58 00:05:21.340 --> 00:05:22.660 who live in this century 59 00:05:22.660 --> 00:05:25.220 renders so much of the content 60 00:05:25.220 --> 00:05:28.120 with which Christianity has traditionally been associated 61 00:05:28.120 --> 00:05:30.380 to be not just irrelevant, 62 00:05:31.320 --> 00:05:32.840 but actually unbelievable. 63 00:05:34.680 --> 00:05:38.440 I cannot pretend that the first century mythological framework 64 00:05:38.440 --> 00:05:40.820 in which Jesus was historically wrapped 65 00:05:40.820 --> 00:05:43.140 is still an option for me 66 00:05:43.140 --> 00:05:46.140 or for the people of my generation. 67 00:05:47.940 --> 00:05:49.140 So these are the things that I want you to know. 68 00:05:49.140 --> 00:05:50.040 I accept all the twin realities 69 00:05:50.040 --> 00:05:52.460 that frequently threaten to tear me apart. 70 00:05:53.560 --> 00:05:57.020 I accept the reality of the Christ experience. 71 00:05:58.720 --> 00:06:00.300 I dismiss the explanations 72 00:06:00.300 --> 00:06:03.380 that have traditionally carried that experience. 73 00:06:05.160 --> 00:06:08.660 Explanations, even pious and sacred explanations, 74 00:06:09.720 --> 00:06:10.960 time-honored explanations, 75 00:06:11.200 --> 00:06:13.200 always die eventually. 76 00:06:14.420 --> 00:06:16.740 So here I stand. 77 00:06:16.960 --> 00:06:19.120 And if I do not take this, 78 00:06:19.140 --> 00:06:20.600 the Christ experience, seriously, 79 00:06:21.420 --> 00:06:23.900 then all that Christianity has given to our world 80 00:06:23.900 --> 00:06:24.660 will disappear. 81 00:06:25.960 --> 00:06:29.160 If I do not take my time in history seriously, 82 00:06:29.980 --> 00:06:32.520 then I discover that my religious convictions 83 00:06:32.520 --> 00:06:34.600 are empty and vapid. 84 00:06:35.840 --> 00:06:39.000 I am not willing to continue to worship God 85 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:41.720 or even to claim my Christian heritage 86 00:06:41.720 --> 00:06:44.960 at the expense of my 21st century mind. 87 00:06:45.840 --> 00:06:48.860 I am not willing to abandon my faith experience 88 00:06:49.140 --> 00:06:51.360 in order to live in this postmodern world. 89 00:06:52.480 --> 00:06:54.360 So these are the polarities 90 00:06:54.360 --> 00:06:56.520 that mark everything I do, 91 00:06:56.660 --> 00:06:58.020 everything I say, 92 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:00.500 and everything I write. 93 00:07:02.360 --> 00:07:05.020 I suspect that these tensions are also present 94 00:07:05.020 --> 00:07:07.560 in the lives of modern men and women. 95 00:07:09.360 --> 00:07:11.360 And yet these tensions did not arise overnight. 96 00:07:12.480 --> 00:07:15.700 They began to develop actually hundreds of years ago. 97 00:07:16.540 --> 00:07:18.900 First, as a disturbing trickle, 98 00:07:19.140 --> 00:07:20.780 they were broken nationwide. 99 00:07:21.940 --> 00:07:22.660 Photos nationwide were broken nationwide. 100 00:07:26.500 --> 00:07:30.040 Photos nationwide were broken nationwide. 101 00:07:30.320 --> 00:07:36.200 Photos nationwide were broken nationwide. 102 00:07:36.960 --> 00:07:39.340 Photos nationwide were broken nationwide. 103 00:07:41.420 --> 00:07:47.880 Photos nationwide were broken nationwide nationwide. 104 00:07:47.880 --> 00:07:50.980 and stretching through Kepler and Galileo. 105 00:07:52.560 --> 00:07:57.780 This revolution means that the comfortable three-tiered structure of early Christianity 106 00:07:57.780 --> 00:08:01.640 that posited the earth as the center of the universe, 107 00:08:02.600 --> 00:08:06.280 basking in the direct attention of the theistic deity 108 00:08:06.280 --> 00:08:09.740 who sat on a throne just beyond the sky 109 00:08:09.740 --> 00:08:14.240 and who periodically invaded the world in miraculous ways, 110 00:08:14.240 --> 00:08:20.320 has become inoperative for me and for countless others. 111 00:08:21.280 --> 00:08:23.900 I live in a universe of vast proportions. 112 00:08:24.580 --> 00:08:28.740 I know that my sun is a middle-class star in a galaxy 113 00:08:28.740 --> 00:08:31.880 which includes over 100 billion stars. 114 00:08:33.560 --> 00:08:40.060 My galaxy is only one of more than 125 billion galaxies in the visible universe. 115 00:08:41.080 --> 00:08:44.220 A theistic god who reigns beyond a universe 116 00:08:44.220 --> 00:08:48.580 of these dimensions appears to be distant indeed, 117 00:08:50.080 --> 00:08:54.860 rendering so many of the details of our faith story to be literally absurd. 118 00:08:56.400 --> 00:08:58.580 Could the attention of such a god 119 00:09:00.300 --> 00:09:05.700 be seen as focused on this tiny planet? 120 00:09:07.480 --> 00:09:10.160 Could this deity actually, as the Bible suggests, 121 00:09:10.480 --> 00:09:13.920 choose a tribe of this earth's people? 122 00:09:14.220 --> 00:09:15.740 To be God's own? 123 00:09:16.720 --> 00:09:21.520 Worry like a good Jewish matchmaker about finding a wife for Isaac, 124 00:09:21.640 --> 00:09:23.840 one of the patriarchs of this tribe? 125 00:09:24.800 --> 00:09:29.160 Sin plagues and destruction upon this tribe's earthly enemies? 126 00:09:30.240 --> 00:09:33.900 Dictate the rules for these chosen people to obey? 127 00:09:35.180 --> 00:09:38.420 Could this god who lives beyond such a universe 128 00:09:38.420 --> 00:09:43.180 actually hang a star in the ceiling of the earth 129 00:09:43.180 --> 00:09:44.200 which is building a new world? 130 00:09:44.200 --> 00:09:45.740 Could he take millions of light years away 131 00:09:45.740 --> 00:09:49.560 to announce the birth of a divine sun? 132 00:09:50.560 --> 00:09:54.140 Could one of God's angels drag this star across the ceiling 133 00:09:54.900 --> 00:09:58.360 slowly enough that wise men could actually follow it? 134 00:09:59.400 --> 00:10:02.960 Could that star stop over a particular house in Bethlehem 135 00:10:04.060 --> 00:10:06.320 and bathe that house in its starlight 136 00:10:07.480 --> 00:10:10.820 until those wise men had dismounted and entered it? 137 00:10:12.220 --> 00:10:14.180 Could this divine life, who should be the first to know, 138 00:10:14.180 --> 00:10:15.380 be the first to know? 139 00:10:16.040 --> 00:10:16.840 Could this divine life, who should be the first to know, 140 00:10:16.840 --> 00:10:18.800 at the end of his earthly career, 141 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:22.040 return to heaven in a cosmic ascension, 142 00:10:23.140 --> 00:10:26.300 a heaven located just above the visible sky? 143 00:10:27.780 --> 00:10:30.500 The revolution begun with Copernicus 144 00:10:30.500 --> 00:10:34.920 renders all of these concepts no longer possible to believe. 145 00:10:35.980 --> 00:10:40.680 It is no wonder that church leaders resisted this revolution 146 00:10:40.680 --> 00:10:43.160 in consciousness with killing fury. 147 00:10:44.820 --> 00:10:45.900 Photos of nationwide nationwide nationwide 148 00:10:51.900 --> 00:10:52.060 ! 149 00:10:58.780 --> 00:10:58.980 Photos of nationwide 150 00:11:02.300 --> 00:11:11.260 ! 151 00:11:03.720 --> 00:11:07.580 a paper saying, we now believe that Galileo is right. 152 00:11:10.080 --> 00:11:17.540 The church started on a path of adopting defensive adjustments, marking the beginning of a slow 153 00:11:17.540 --> 00:11:24.200 but steady retreat of the Christian faith from the center of the life of the world to 154 00:11:24.200 --> 00:11:27.060 the periphery of the life of the world. 155 00:11:28.260 --> 00:11:31.900 So I live first on the other side of Copernicus. 156 00:11:33.720 --> 00:11:39.700 I also live on the other side of Sir Isaac Newton, who as a mathematician and a physicist 157 00:11:40.520 --> 00:11:47.760 charted the laws by which the physical universe operates, showing cause and effect and precise 158 00:11:47.760 --> 00:11:48.420 order. 159 00:11:49.800 --> 00:11:55.020 His work also caused the shrinking of the arenas in which we once thought miracle and 160 00:11:55.020 --> 00:11:56.280 magic could occur. 161 00:11:57.540 --> 00:12:03.180 Suddenly, many of the details of the biblical story, written at a time when whatever was 162 00:12:03.180 --> 00:12:03.700 not unknowable. 163 00:12:03.720 --> 00:12:07.980 understood was attributed to God's miraculous and invasive power. 164 00:12:09.400 --> 00:12:12.400 These insights were rendered null and void. 165 00:12:14.180 --> 00:12:19.920 Today, almost everything we once thought of as a miracle is explained with no appeal at 166 00:12:19.920 --> 00:12:22.680 all to a supernatural or theistic deity. 167 00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:31.180 So gone from our tradition is a literal understanding of such stories as the stilling of the storm, 168 00:12:32.040 --> 00:12:33.480 walking on the water. 169 00:12:34.480 --> 00:12:37.340 Expanding loaves and fishes to feed a multitude. 170 00:12:38.100 --> 00:12:44.720 And all counts in which physical blindness, deafness, lameness, or even death are overcome 171 00:12:45.260 --> 00:12:47.100 in some miraculous fashion. 172 00:12:48.520 --> 00:12:54.760 When the work of Isaac Newton was complete, the parameters within which my faith story 173 00:12:54.760 --> 00:13:01.860 had traditionally been told were seen to narrow perceptively before our eyes. 174 00:13:03.720 --> 00:13:07.520 I also live on the other side of the year, 1724. 175 00:13:08.820 --> 00:13:10.580 That was an interesting year. 176 00:13:11.440 --> 00:13:15.480 For that was the year in which the world of science and medicine finally demonstrated 177 00:13:15.480 --> 00:13:23.380 with empirical data what they had long before come to accept, namely that women had an egg 178 00:13:23.380 --> 00:13:23.740 cell. 179 00:13:24.760 --> 00:13:30.800 And that egg cell contributed 50% of the genetic code of every life that has ever been 180 00:13:30.800 --> 00:13:31.140 born. 181 00:13:32.580 --> 00:13:33.700 Women were thus born. 182 00:13:33.700 --> 00:13:40.540 Thus no longer passive receptacles and helpmates to men, as the Bible had suggested. 183 00:13:42.080 --> 00:13:48.340 They were newly defined by this discovery as the co-creators of life, equal in every 184 00:13:48.340 --> 00:13:51.260 way, equal partners in life. 185 00:13:52.940 --> 00:13:54.480 Two things accompanied this insight. 186 00:13:56.120 --> 00:14:03.500 First, women began their march into equality, fighting and defeating the church with which a spouse did 187 00:14:03.500 --> 00:14:03.940 her best. 188 00:14:17.200 --> 00:14:19.400 nationwide 189 00:14:23.420 --> 00:14:24.300 ! 190 00:14:24.300 --> 00:14:26.440 a woman will be the Pope in Rome. 191 00:14:28.080 --> 00:14:31.600 That is as certain as the fact that I am standing here. 192 00:14:34.800 --> 00:14:36.980 And just to be fully ecumenical, 193 00:14:37.740 --> 00:14:40.760 a woman will even be the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney. 194 00:14:48.020 --> 00:14:50.820 Please remember where you first heard it. 195 00:14:54.300 --> 00:14:56.340 The second result of that new insight 196 00:14:56.340 --> 00:14:59.420 was that the understanding of the virgin birth of Jesus 197 00:14:59.420 --> 00:15:01.820 as literal biology died. 198 00:15:03.860 --> 00:15:07.500 Jesus now had to have 50% of his human mother's genetic code. 199 00:15:08.980 --> 00:15:12.120 He was then, if the virgin birth is to be literalized, 200 00:15:12.880 --> 00:15:15.240 half human and half divine. 201 00:15:16.220 --> 00:15:18.440 He became something like a mermaid, 202 00:15:19.680 --> 00:15:22.000 half human, half something else. 203 00:15:23.480 --> 00:15:24.280 Incarnation was, 204 00:15:24.300 --> 00:15:24.680 in the traditional language, 205 00:15:25.380 --> 00:15:29.320 designed to capture the fact that in the fullness of his humanity, 206 00:15:29.660 --> 00:15:32.600 a full experience of God had been met, 207 00:15:33.600 --> 00:15:36.800 that incarnational language using the miraculous birth 208 00:15:36.800 --> 00:15:41.020 as the point of divine entry was no longer operative. 209 00:15:42.480 --> 00:15:46.200 The traditional foundations of Christianity tottered. 210 00:15:47.980 --> 00:15:50.780 I live on the other side of Charles Darwin, 211 00:15:51.740 --> 00:15:54.280 whose understanding of the origins of life, 212 00:15:54.300 --> 00:15:58.300 not only challenged the biblical account of the seven-day creation story, 213 00:15:59.620 --> 00:16:03.540 but also the whole biblical myth of creation and fall, 214 00:16:04.640 --> 00:16:08.440 against which Christian theology had been erected. 215 00:16:09.200 --> 00:16:14.500 There was, said Darwin, no finished, perfect, or original creation. 216 00:16:15.580 --> 00:16:21.360 There was only an ongoing process of a still-expanding universe. 217 00:16:21.420 --> 00:16:23.600 In this universe, galaxies are at this moment 218 00:16:23.600 --> 00:16:24.280 being formed. 219 00:16:24.300 --> 00:16:26.760 The universe is still expanding. 220 00:16:26.760 --> 00:16:28.680 Creation is not finished. 221 00:16:29.980 --> 00:16:33.060 The conclusion thus became inevitable, 222 00:16:33.300 --> 00:16:38.040 that there never was a time, either literally or metaphorically, 223 00:16:38.160 --> 00:16:43.120 when life was created perfect only to fall into sin, 224 00:16:43.360 --> 00:16:47.620 as the traditional Christian myth had proclaimed. 225 00:16:48.660 --> 00:16:53.280 There has been only an emerging four-billion-year process, 226 00:16:53.280 --> 00:16:58.460 that move from single cells in the midst of the sea, 227 00:16:59.600 --> 00:17:05.440 to cellular complexity, and finally, even to self-consciousness. 228 00:17:06.920 --> 00:17:11.600 Humanity as we know it, with self-consciousness and the ability to use language, 229 00:17:12.600 --> 00:17:16.800 is probably no more than fifty to a hundred thousand years old. 230 00:17:18.600 --> 00:17:23.260 We are not fallen sinners needing to be rescued, as we are, from the dead. 231 00:17:23.260 --> 00:17:28.780 As the Church has always proclaimed, we are incomplete human beings, 232 00:17:30.140 --> 00:17:33.020 still evolving, waiting to be finished. 233 00:17:34.020 --> 00:17:38.380 And suddenly the story of Jesus, who was said to have died for our sins, 234 00:17:38.660 --> 00:17:42.780 whose sacrifice on the cross paid the price of the original sin 235 00:17:42.780 --> 00:17:48.800 which marked the human creature's fall, that story became nonsensical. 236 00:17:49.980 --> 00:17:53.240 With that realization, baptism, the process of the resurrection, the resurrection, the 237 00:17:53.240 --> 00:17:57.180 baptism, which was originally designed to wash away our original sin, 238 00:17:57.380 --> 00:18:03.540 and the Eucharist, which was originally designed to reenact the sacrifice of Jesus 239 00:18:03.540 --> 00:18:08.700 that overcame the sin of the world, became suddenly the Church's cures 240 00:18:09.620 --> 00:18:12.100 for which no actual diseases existed. 241 00:18:14.240 --> 00:18:21.880 A good creation that was distorted by a fall into sin at the dawn of human history is revealed 242 00:18:21.880 --> 00:18:23.220 as mythological. 243 00:18:23.240 --> 00:18:28.580 A mythology that is not either literally true or metaphorically true. 244 00:18:30.500 --> 00:18:35.880 Thus the traditional way of telling the Christian story is now seen to be directed toward a 245 00:18:35.880 --> 00:18:38.560 human situation that is simply not accurate. 246 00:18:38.880 --> 00:18:40.720 It never has been accurate. 247 00:18:41.020 --> 00:18:42.780 It never will be accurate. 248 00:18:43.700 --> 00:18:46.720 Jesus did not die for our sins. 249 00:18:47.520 --> 00:18:51.540 We are not saved by the shedding of his blood. 250 00:18:51.540 --> 00:18:56.700 He did not rescue us from a fall that never occurred. 251 00:18:57.960 --> 00:19:01.120 Nor can he restore us to something we have never been. 252 00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:08.240 The old story no longer translates into reality in a post-Darwinian world. 253 00:19:09.420 --> 00:19:15.760 Faith trembles as its traditional content continues to fall away. 254 00:19:18.040 --> 00:19:19.980 I live on the other side of Sigmund Freud. 255 00:19:20.560 --> 00:19:21.520 He wrote a book called The 256 00:19:21.540 --> 00:19:22.540 Theist. 257 00:19:26.060 --> 00:19:26.680 He wrote a book called The Theist. 258 00:19:26.680 --> 00:19:27.580 He wrote a book called The Theist. 259 00:19:27.700 --> 00:19:33.740 He wrote a book called The Theist. 260 00:19:33.740 --> 00:19:35.640 He wrote a book called The Theist. 261 00:19:35.640 --> 00:19:36.100 He wrote a book called The Theist. 262 00:19:36.100 --> 00:19:36.120 He wrote a book called The Theist. 263 00:19:36.120 --> 00:19:36.320 He wrote a book called The Theist. 264 00:19:36.340 --> 00:19:37.280 He wrote a book called The Theist. 265 00:19:37.280 --> 00:19:37.480 He wrote a book called The Theist. 266 00:19:37.480 --> 00:19:38.440 He wrote a book called The Theist. 267 00:19:39.300 --> 00:19:40.540 He wrote a book called The Theist. 268 00:19:40.640 --> 00:19:41.740 He wrote a book called The Theist. 269 00:19:41.740 --> 00:19:41.900 He wrote a book called The Theist. 270 00:19:42.400 --> 00:19:46.840 He wrote a book called The Theist. 271 00:19:46.840 --> 00:19:49.360 He wrote a book called The Theist. 272 00:19:49.800 --> 00:19:51.520 He wrote a book called The Theist. 273 00:19:51.520 --> 00:19:55.060 He wrote a book called The Theist. 274 00:19:57.740 --> 00:19:58.340 He wrote a book called The Theist. 275 00:19:58.340 --> 00:20:01.440 He wrote a book called The Theist. 276 00:20:02.520 --> 00:20:04.980 He wrote a book called The Theist. 277 00:20:04.980 --> 00:20:05.760 He wrote a book called The Theist. 278 00:20:05.800 --> 00:20:07.620 He wrote a book called The Theist. 279 00:20:07.680 --> 00:20:08.020 He wrote a book called The Theist. 280 00:20:08.020 --> 00:20:08.040 He wrote a book called The Theist. 281 00:20:08.040 --> 00:20:08.060 He wrote a book called The Theist. 282 00:20:08.060 --> 00:20:08.080 He wrote a book called The Theist. 283 00:20:08.320 --> 00:20:09.820 He wrote a book called The Theist. 284 00:20:09.900 --> 00:20:10.680 He wrote a book called The Theist. 285 00:20:11.960 --> 00:20:13.520 He wrote a book called The Theist. 286 00:20:13.520 --> 00:20:15.280 He wrote a book called The Theist. 287 00:20:15.280 --> 00:20:16.320 He wrote a book called The Theist. 288 00:20:16.360 --> 00:20:21.400 He wrote a book called The Theist. 289 00:20:21.400 --> 00:20:22.400 He wrote a book called The Theist. 290 00:20:26.640 --> 00:20:29.820 He wrote a book called The Theist. 291 00:20:29.820 --> 00:20:30.420 He wrote a book called The Theist. 292 00:20:31.440 --> 00:20:32.720 He wrote a book called The Theist. 293 00:20:32.880 --> 00:20:33.820 He wrote a book called The Theist. 294 00:20:33.820 --> 00:20:34.620 He wrote a book called The Theist. 295 00:20:35.160 --> 00:20:36.860 He wrote a book called The Theist. 296 00:20:36.860 --> 00:20:37.280 He wrote a book called The Theist. 297 00:20:37.280 --> 00:20:37.400 He wrote a book called The Theist. 298 00:20:37.400 --> 00:20:37.420 He wrote a book called The Theist. 299 00:20:37.420 --> 00:20:37.520 He wrote a book called The Theist. 300 00:20:37.800 --> 00:20:39.340 He wrote a book called The Theist. 301 00:20:39.400 --> 00:20:40.120 He wrote a book called The Theist. 302 00:20:41.260 --> 00:20:41.840 He wrote a book called The Theist. 303 00:20:41.840 --> 00:20:42.500 He wrote a book called The Theist. 304 00:20:42.500 --> 00:20:42.820 He wrote a book called The Theist. 305 00:20:42.980 --> 00:20:43.900 He wrote a book called The Theist. 306 00:20:44.400 --> 00:20:46.020 He wrote a book called The Theist. 307 00:20:48.260 --> 00:20:51.380 He wrote a book called The Theist. 308 00:20:51.380 --> 00:21:00.840 mentality made slavery possible, as well as segregation, apartheid, male chauvinism, 309 00:21:01.700 --> 00:21:08.960 anti-Semitism, and homophobia. This God encouraged human beings to live in fear, 310 00:21:09.980 --> 00:21:14.880 to know guilt, and thus to seek reconciliation and atonement. 311 00:21:16.120 --> 00:21:21.420 Sigmund Freud showed me how deeply my faith compromised my humanity. 312 00:21:23.520 --> 00:21:31.980 Human maturity and the way my faith story was traditionally told became incompatible goals 313 00:21:31.980 --> 00:21:40.320 that I could no longer seek together. One of them would have to go. I have chosen to make 314 00:21:40.320 --> 00:21:43.060 human maturity my goal. 315 00:21:43.760 --> 00:21:44.860 So much so that I have chosen to make human maturity my goal. 316 00:21:44.860 --> 00:21:51.040 Much of my traditional religious practice and all of my defining prejudices have to be abandoned. 317 00:21:52.520 --> 00:21:58.260 Christianity becomes almost naked, looking for a place to hide. 318 00:21:59.740 --> 00:22:06.220 I live today on the other side of Albert Einstein, who forced me to embrace relativity, 319 00:22:06.960 --> 00:22:14.740 not just in time and space, but in all things. I cannot find security in any propositional 320 00:22:14.740 --> 00:22:14.840 situation. I cannot find security in any propositional situation. I cannot find security 321 00:22:14.840 --> 00:22:22.700 in any propositional statement because I cannot place timeless truth inside my time-bound vocabulary. 322 00:22:23.400 --> 00:22:31.820 And I have no other vocabulary to use. I therefore cannot ever possess certainty. 323 00:22:32.680 --> 00:22:38.880 I cannot claim to be the recipient of a divine and therefore eternal revelation. 324 00:22:39.880 --> 00:22:44.580 I cannot find inerrancy in my scriptures, infallibility, 325 00:22:44.840 --> 00:22:51.500 or the quality of unchangeableness in my sacred traditions. 326 00:22:53.160 --> 00:22:56.680 I become like that person about whom it has been said, 327 00:22:56.880 --> 00:23:01.180 if you can keep your head while everyone around you is losing theirs, 328 00:23:01.400 --> 00:23:03.460 you probably don't understand the issues. 329 00:23:06.140 --> 00:23:14.820 My humanity requires me to embrace uncertainty, insecurity, and the reality of constant uncertainty. 330 00:23:14.840 --> 00:23:18.060 I am aware of the constant change as the very marks of my maturity. 331 00:23:19.680 --> 00:23:23.440 They are the realities of the time and the place in which I live. 332 00:23:24.480 --> 00:23:31.680 And any God who is said to remove these things from me has to be recognized as an idol, 333 00:23:32.620 --> 00:23:41.460 perhaps even a demon of my own creation. I must therefore dismiss such a deity from my pantheon. 334 00:23:42.280 --> 00:23:44.760 I must therefore dismiss such a deity from my pantheon. 335 00:23:44.760 --> 00:23:50.240 If you are a young man or a young woman of faith, it is a scary time to be a Christian. 336 00:23:50.940 --> 00:23:51.480 If you are a young man or a young woman of faith, it is a scary time to be a Christian. 337 00:23:51.480 --> 00:23:51.700 If you are a young man or a young woman of faith, it is a scary time to be a Christian. 338 00:23:51.700 --> 00:23:53.900 But one cannot deny reality. 339 00:23:54.620 --> 00:23:55.240 But one cannot deny reality. 340 00:23:55.860 --> 00:23:58.840 There are other barriers that I have been forced to cross 341 00:23:58.840 --> 00:23:58.940 There are other barriers that I have been forced to cross 342 00:23:58.940 --> 00:23:59.080 There are other barriers that I have been forced to cross 343 00:23:59.080 --> 00:23:59.900 There are other barriers that I have been forced to cross 344 00:23:59.900 --> 00:24:03.900 That time simply do not permit me to do more than mention in this address. 345 00:24:05.060 --> 00:24:08.680 That time simply do not permit me to do more than mention in this address. 346 00:24:09.060 --> 00:24:14.240 That time simply do not permit me to do more than mention in this address. 347 00:24:14.240 --> 00:24:16.740 of life's cosmic forces. 348 00:24:18.260 --> 00:24:22.200 Others are barriers like those crossed in the world of subatomic physics, 349 00:24:23.560 --> 00:24:28.020 the realm of quantum weirdness, quarks, leptons, 350 00:24:28.880 --> 00:24:31.500 the debate about the role of the observer in determining 351 00:24:31.500 --> 00:24:35.700 whether the basic structure of matter is a wave or a particle, 352 00:24:35.880 --> 00:24:41.540 and the strange determinancy that a pair of photons 353 00:24:41.540 --> 00:24:47.000 appear to have for each other even after having been widely separated. 354 00:24:48.360 --> 00:24:54.420 Then there is that relatively new biological frontier of brain science 355 00:24:54.420 --> 00:24:58.980 with its probe into identity, into consciousness, 356 00:24:59.320 --> 00:25:05.720 and into the energy of the brain which may transcend all physical limits. 357 00:25:07.520 --> 00:25:11.520 All of these things and many more make up my citizenry, 358 00:25:11.540 --> 00:25:13.700 my citizenship in the 21st century. 359 00:25:14.680 --> 00:25:20.820 It is in this world with these challenges that I must live as a Christian. 360 00:25:21.740 --> 00:25:26.740 I have no other world that I can claim to inhabit with integrity. 361 00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:31.880 If my faith cannot live here, it can no longer live at all. 362 00:25:32.760 --> 00:25:36.300 One wonders if there has ever been a crisis of the spirit 363 00:25:36.300 --> 00:25:38.820 that would equal the crisis of our generation. 364 00:25:39.960 --> 00:25:40.900 Perhaps not. 365 00:25:41.780 --> 00:25:44.500 But there certainly have been analogous times. 366 00:25:45.240 --> 00:25:47.560 Let me describe just one of them. 367 00:25:48.940 --> 00:25:51.840 There was an episode in the history of the Jewish people, 368 00:25:51.980 --> 00:25:53.360 our ancestors in faith, 369 00:25:54.020 --> 00:25:56.920 where they faced something that was at least similar. 370 00:25:58.220 --> 00:26:00.700 In that particular moment of Jewish history, 371 00:26:00.780 --> 00:26:05.140 the Babylonian army had fallen upon the land of Judah with devastating power. 372 00:26:06.380 --> 00:26:07.960 Judah was laid waste. 373 00:26:08.940 --> 00:26:11.380 Jerusalem was conquered and destroyed. 374 00:26:12.120 --> 00:26:15.220 The temple and the priesthood were dismissed. 375 00:26:16.120 --> 00:26:19.420 The people were marched into a Babylonian captivity. 376 00:26:20.540 --> 00:26:23.940 They were removed from the land where their God reigned supreme. 377 00:26:24.100 --> 00:26:27.620 They were exiled to a land that their God did not know 378 00:26:27.620 --> 00:26:31.020 and in which they did not believe their God could be served. 379 00:26:32.300 --> 00:26:35.740 These Jews were physically removed from their temple, 380 00:26:35.800 --> 00:26:39.360 their priesthood, and the sacred liturgies of their tradition, 381 00:26:39.520 --> 00:26:41.280 which had always been the way of the world. 382 00:26:41.280 --> 00:26:41.520 which had always been the way of the world. 383 00:26:41.540 --> 00:26:45.220 The Jews in the past ordered and interpreted both God and their life. 384 00:26:46.900 --> 00:26:49.900 They were uprooted from all that they had been taught was holy. 385 00:26:51.200 --> 00:26:52.920 On their journey into Babylon, 386 00:26:53.120 --> 00:26:55.900 from which these pilgrims would never again return, 387 00:26:56.720 --> 00:26:59.200 one of the conquering Babylonian soldiers 388 00:26:59.200 --> 00:27:01.520 taunted them with this invitation. 389 00:27:02.640 --> 00:27:05.860 Come now, sing us one of the songs of Zion, 390 00:27:06.120 --> 00:27:08.100 one of your holy songs. 391 00:27:09.320 --> 00:27:11.340 But these hurting Jewish people, 392 00:27:11.340 --> 00:27:11.820 they were not the only ones who were 393 00:27:12.100 --> 00:27:17.340 how can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? 394 00:27:18.660 --> 00:27:19.800 How indeed. 395 00:27:20.860 --> 00:27:25.000 How can one sing God's song when all of the presuppositions 396 00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:28.060 of that sacred song have been ripped away? 397 00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:31.020 How can they sing the Lord's song 398 00:27:31.020 --> 00:27:33.440 when the old words no longer work? 399 00:27:34.120 --> 00:27:37.560 When the old context is no longer alive? 400 00:27:38.520 --> 00:27:40.240 How can they sing it all? 401 00:27:40.240 --> 00:27:43.280