Had another thought regarding my last post after I shutdown the blog last night. I was wondering how I could have recognized John Shelby Spong's theology for the rubbish it is even when I was pretty firmly entrenched in a Unitarian Universalist congregation. I said in yesterday's post that I had started to read the New Testament again, and even believe it. Coming from a liberal background, why didn't Spong's work as a member of the Jesus Seminar have any influence on me?
The choice is black and white if you consider that the authors of the New Testament, even disregarding who they are, claim to be eyewitnesses of Jesus' life and Resurrection. When looked at this way, the authors are either telling the truth or they are lying.
If they were telling the truth, then the Gospel is the greatest news known to man, and is of utmost importance to everyone.
If they were lying, then Christianity is just an elaborate con game worthy of scorn and disrespect. Embrace any of the world's other religions, even atheism, and shun the Christians for their dishonest ways, and say all manner of ill-things about them, but by no means say you are a Christian while believing a made-up reinterpretation of that Gospel message. The apostles did not leave that option to us.