I've got to hand it to
Bishop Spong. I don't always agree with him--in fact, I have often disagreed with him, both theological issues and political ones. He was, for anyone who didn't know this, an early endorser of John Kerry for the Democratic nomination. I was surprised and disappointed to hear someone who always seemed so willing to take on the status-quo mouthing the usual popular wisdom that the right could never question Kerry's courage and patriotism, because he was a
war hero. I disagreed. Now, I don't take any pleasure at being proven right about that. Okay, maybe a little. But it's a
guilty pleasure.
But here is where he has my admiration. The man is willing to go where many dare not tread. He has appeared on the O'Reilly Factor. More than once, even. When someone as liberal as Spong goes on Bill "Shut up!" "Cut-his-mike!" O'Reilly's program, you have to figure that person is either very brave or very stupid. Spong is clearly the former, and has proven able to hold his own. Better yet, he returns from the belly of the beast with some insights about what makes such people tick. And we do need to know this stuff, so I'm glad somebody's willing to do the dirty work for us.
A man from my church gets Bishop Spong's column via email, and I'd like to share some excerpts from the most recent one:
I began my Harper-Collins book tour to introduce The Sins of Scripture on Fox News' with Bill O'Reilly. It was my seventh appearance on the program and, I find that though we share little in common, I like the man. Behind his bluster and constant interruptions, I believe there is a person who cares more deeply than we might suspect from watching his program. Harper-Collins sent him my book seeking his endorsement and to my surprise it appears on the back cover. That endorsement brought a cancellation notice from one of my readers. I did suggest to O'Reilly that his endorsement would probably damage both his reputation and mine.
Funny. And most likely true.
In a previous column, I took O'Reilly to task when he demanded that Al Sharpton answer "yes" or "no" to his question as to whether African-Americans, are better off today than they would have been if their ancestors had not been forcibly removed from Africa. It was, I believe, an attempt to suggest that in the final analysis slavery has been good for African-Americans. That question constituted, I suggested blatant but unadmitted racism. O'Reilly invited me to his program to defend himself against that charge.
Here is the transcript of that show, which ran in 2002.
Spong goes on to share some insights about the man--many of which are also true of his listeners.
Bill O'Reilly is at least 6 feet five inches tall. His television audience hardly ever sees him standing so they are surprised to meet him in person. He was raised a Roman Catholic and still practices his faith though, he says not to the satisfaction of those who are zealous. Like many who define themselves as conservatives, O'Reilly tends to see the world in stark contrast between good and evil. Inevitably he sees himself as on the side of the angels. There is, however, a revealing harshness about his rhetoric that projects anything but certainty. He speaks of both willingness and a desire to kill anyone who threatens his worldview, whether it is terrorists or burglars. He refers to Muslim fundamentalists as "villainous Islamic fascists," a designation that surely resonates with his listeners. He appears, however, to have little understanding of what motivates people to seek the annihilation of their enemies. There is little room in his world for examining the causes of hatred or attempting to understand the subjective relativity of his perspective. For example, in the Galilean War fought between 66 and 73 CE, Jewish guerilla warriors carried out hit and run attacks against Roman soldiers. The Romans called them "terrorists" but to the Jews they were "Freedom Fighters." The Crusaders of the 11th and 12th centuries were to the Muslims of the Middle East "invading terrorists," but to the Vatican who sponsored them, they were the bearers of the truth of the Gospel. If the British had defeated the American revolutionaries in the late 18th century, George Washington would have been hanged as a traitor and Benedict Arnold would have been appointed Governor General of the defeated colonies. Right wing ideologues think they see things objectively, without the relativising aspect of their self-oriented perspective. They don't. Theirs is not a 'no spin zone.'
He also describes their discussion about prayer, highlighting the fact that both Spong and O'Reilly pray, but they seem to have very different views of why we pray and what it accomplishes.
Since his reading of my book suggested to him that I did not believe in a God understood as a supernatural being above the sky ready to intervene, he inquired as to whether I really believe in God or if I pray. "Of course I pray," I responded to his query. I have a member of my family in the armed forces, who has just returned from a second tour of duty in the Iraqi war. I pray for this person daily, I said, because I love this person deeply. If what you are really asking, I continued, is do I believe that my prayers will stop bullets or defuse car bombs so that my loved one's life is miraculously saved, then I must say no I do not believe that. I tried to explain that this would mean that those who have died in this dreadful war were either so evil that they deserved to die or that their loved ones did not pray sufficiently for them. Both ideas present me with a God so capricious that I would never be drawn to worship such a Being. I learned that a seven-minute television segment is not the best format for developing theological understanding.
Somehow the worship of the God of Life, Love and Being that I experience at the heart of the Christian story lifts me out of a radical self-centeredness and allows me to view the world from a very different perspective. God is not in my employ, eager to do my will. God does not reward goodness and punish evil. God does not abandon the laws by which the universe operates to serve my agenda. I do not believe for one minute that God stopped the sun in the sky at the time of Joshua, creating the first instance of daylight-saving time, for the immoral purpose of allowing Joshua more time to kill more of his enemies. Indeed, what a strange view of God that would be if accurate. Yet that is the image that many people have of God while still in their theological immaturity. Bill O'Reilly is the television poster child for this mentality.
One of the things that impressed me most about this column was the way Spong ended it. So many of us laugh at or dismiss people like Bill O'Reilly. It's easy, and the "bad wolf" in me sometimes thinks it's a lot of fun. But it may not be the most wise or productive approach in the long run.
I have met many people like Bill O'Reilly, though most have not been as smart or articulate. They are not evil people, but righteousness hardly ever translates into being loving. I like this man and would love to spend an hour with him one on one in an in-depth discussion with no one playing to an audience. That is unlikely so I must be content with an occasional appearance that affords me the opportunity to speak maybe one line that one listener might find life-giving.