Bishop Shelby Spong speaks on the evils of fundamentalism in a recent article on his site:
I want to examine the claim that the Bible is the "inerrant Word of God" from a different angle. I do this not only because that idea in and of itself is irrational, but because biblical literalism has been the source of so much overt evil in human history. Anti-Semitism, the conflict between science and religion, the debilitating prejudices of racism, sexism and homophobia are all rooted in the literal Bible. Biblical inerrancy is not a benign pious claim of "conservative Christians," it is an expression of ignorance, the evil of which should not be underestimated. The stakes of this debate are, thus, very high.
An inerrant Bible attributes to God behavior that by any contemporary standard is nothing other than immoral. It feeds the kind of religious bigotry that lies behind religious wars, religious persecutions and even the Inquisition. It encourages people in their tribal needs to rejoice in the suffering of their enemies. It reveals a deep and radical inconsistency in the way the Bible is understood. It is surprising, even discouraging, that inconsistency never seems to be a problem for fundamentalists who employ the most convoluted thinking imaginable to keep their minds from seeing what is obvious to everyone else.
Bishop Spong points out some of the great difficulties caused by the adherence of a great deal of humanity to a fundamentalist view of humanity. Their's is not a rational approach in what is supposed to be a rational age. Their approach is summed up by the common quote "the Bible says it; I believe it" . As a group, fundamentalists know very little of how the Bible came to be. Deep inspection would not be welcome in many of their congregations. Those, who do value inspection of the Bible's formation should become knowledgeable of Bishop Spong's work.
Tags: Bishop Spong, Fundamentalism, Archbishop of Canterbury, Anglican Church, Episcopal Church
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