34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Challenge to Clergy and Laity Alike, February 23, 2005
This review is from: The Dishonest Church (Paperback)
THE DISHONEST CHURCH by Jack Good, Rising Star Press, 2003 was, for me, a very exciting read. The author's argument is that in today's mainline Protestant churches (Methodist, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Anglican) there exists a gap of dishonesty between the clergy and the laity that is one of the causes of these churches losing membership. The gap finds its genesis in what the clergy learn in the academy (academic Christianity) and what they preach in the church (popular Christianity). As the educational levels and world experiences of the laity who have traditionally been attracted to these churches have increased, their level of "cognitive development" has moved from the early stage ("basic duality"/a child's faith) to a later stage ("relativism"/opinion independently developed); some continue to an even later stage of cognitive development ("commitment") in which not knowing all the answers is okay, mystery is acceptable.
Clergy, for many reasons not the least of which is the fear of offending laity who are in the early stage, tend to preach what these people are comfortable in hearing even though it may be diametrically opposed to what the latest streams of thought in theology (and even science) are saying. Members who have moved beyond the early stage become disheartened-even outright angry-when they sense they are being patronized and not respected. Rather than speaking up and trying to rectify a situation they believe to be beyond their power to influence-after all, the clergy seems unwilling to address their concerns-they simply disappear.
This book is a call to what the author calls "progressive Christianity" in which the clergy and the laity both seek to live faithfully in the modern world, not by denying that world, but by learning from it and interpreting the faith in its light. This book is not for those who yearn for that "old time religion" but for those who honestly seek to understand the world in which they live.
I would recommend that every minister, denominational official, seminary professor, and layperson who wants to see Christianity continue into the future in a vibrant, meaningful way and not wither into irrelevance read this book. They should not read it if they want to remain comfortable.
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46 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Yawning Chasm - A Review by C. Avis, September 9, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: The Dishonest Church (Paperback)
When I was a youngster Jack Good was the inspiration behind 50's TV pop music programmes like 'Six Five Special' and 'O Boy!', then essential teenage viewing on flickering black and white TV screens. I was growing up in a church oriented family under a Congregational minister Dad and the surrounding traditional Christianity ethos was absorbed almost unconsciously into my developing life, where it remained unchallenged for over 40 years. Then came Jack Spong, Richard Holloway & Co, and suddenly Christianity woke me up. On a recent visit to The Centre for Progressive Christianity at www.tcpc.org I discovered a flier for 'The Dishonest Church' by Jack Good, who subsequently has proved to be as compelling for me as his 50's namesake, though for rather different reasons!
While many of the proliferating books on progressive Christianity refer to the difference between what most clergy learn through their training and what they communicate to their congregations, the 'church of the gaps' (to misquote Charles Coulson) has not had a book to itself, until now. The author has been an ordained pastor of the United Church of Christ for over 40 years, principally at churches in New York and Illinois. His book was prompted by a combination of concern for the fate of the Christian church and anger at the "..wide gap between the faith of the religious professionals and the faith of those who look to those professionals for leadership."
So much pulpit power is expended to reinforce stale dogma that Christianity is seldom seen as an arena for thoughtful creativity and a search for truths that can never be fully possessed. The result is usually stale, boring churches where the superficial intimacy between pulpit and pew is in reality a yawning chasm, in both senses.
How this situation breeds anxiety and suspicion is dramatically illustrated in the first chapter where an incident is related from an interview between a friend of the author's and the members of a prospective new pastorate. A rather hostile, conservative member asked if the applicant believed in a literal virgin birth, to which the pastor replied that his views on that matter were the same as St Paul. The member nodded approvingly and the interview moved on. The members of that church being ignorant of the fact that Paul never mentioned the birth of Christ may have handed a private 'victory' to the pastor, but demonstrates the tragic ignorance, fear and distrust that threaten the survival of the Christian church.
There are some good descriptive phrases that were new to me. People whose faith sees God in control with ultimate justice prevailing are described as "chaos intolerant" while those who can encompass the reality of cosmic messiness are "chaos tolerant". Both approaches are evident in the writings of the various biblical authors.
While there is plenty of justified criticism of church leadership here, there is much hope also. Reasons for the author's optimism include his belief that, contrary to the assumptions of most church leaders:
- more people now are ready to hear life-relevant spiritual teaching
- church members are more flexible in their scriptural attitudes
- people are being challenged more generally to surrender their superstitions.
Jack Good's ideas, communication skills and practical common sense have produced a stimulating, accessible book that should be compulsory reading for all church leaders. Surely in its truest sense that means everyone in the church.
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26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The greatest scandal of our age, April 22, 2006
This review is from: The Dishonest Church (Paperback)
If asked to name the gravest scandal in American society during the last century, most Americans, I suspect, would name the Watergate affair, which brought down a President.
They'd be wrong.
Jack Good is an ordained pastor in the United Church of Christ, retired from decades of preaching in New York and Illinois. In "The Dishonest Church," Good reveals that most of his fellow pastors in the mainstream American churches are systematically preaching from their pulpits teachings which they themselves know to be blatant lies.
Why the systematic lying?
The basic problem, Good explains, is a divergence during the last several centuries between what he calls "academic" Christianity and what he dubs "popular" Christianity. As early as the Renaissance, scholars such as Erasmus began applying the intellectual tools that were being developed in science, history, etc. to better understand, purify, and solidify their Christian faith.
By the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, an increasing number of scholars and intellectuals were coming to realize that Christianity could not actually be historically true. In the nineteenth century, the floodgates opened. From David Strauss's "Life of Jesus" to Albert Schweitzer's "The Quest of the Historical Jesus," scholarly research proved that the Bible was a crazy mish-mash of garbled history, Jewish mythology, and fantasies based on pagan stories of "virgin" births, resurrected savior gods, etc.
By the early twentieth century, F. C. Burkitt, in an introduction to Schweitzer's famous book, could confidently assert as an established fact among educated people, "Every one nowadays is aware that traditional Christian doctrine about Jesus Christ is encompassed with difficulties, and that many of the statements in the Gospels appear incredible in the light of modern views of history and nature."
How can it be that most Americans are ignorant of this?
Good opens his book with a telling anecdote:
"One of my clergy friends boasts of a comment he made in an interview with a pastoral search committee. A somewhat hostile member of the committee demanded to know if this prospective pastor believed in a literal virgin birth. My friend replied that his views on the virgin birth were the same as those of St. Paul. The committee member nodded approvingly, and the discussion went on to other matters."
As Good explains, his friend was counting on the fact that the members of the committee would be ignorant of the fact that nowhere does St. Paul make any reference at all to the virgin birth: scholars assume Paul had no acquaintance whatsoever with the doctrine. Thus, Good's friend, who did not believe in the Virgin Birth, could "honestly" claim to hold the same view as St. Paul!
Good adds, "Clergy tend to see such moments as victories over the benighted folk who occupy church pews."
So, are America's pastors and religious leaders simply pathological liars?
Much of the explanation, Good claims, is simply economic self-interest. He states that "my fellow professionals... are motivated by fear... clergy fear the loss of their jobs... These professionals... are killing the church by their lack of courage."
But Good also titles one of his sections "Pleasure in Power," declaring, "I fear that denominational officials and professional theologians perpetuate the present state of affairs because they have come to enjoy too much their role as sole owners and manipulators of the sacred symbols. Consciously or unconsciously, they leave their church members in a state of semi-darkness because otherwise they would have to share prestige and authority."
Finally, Good concedes that many of his colleagues honestly fear that the adults in their congregations simply lack the maturity to handle the truth and that telling the truth would therefore result in the destruction of Christianity.
The bulk of the book consists of Good's attempts to argue, based on his own experience, that such fears are groundless.
These attempts are unconvincing.
Good has managed to avoid lying to his own congregations, and his churches did not collapse. He concludes that his truthful form of Christianity can survive and even prosper. He argues that there are many "Christians in exile" whose orientation towards life finds "an especially luminous form in Jesus of Nazareth."
His view is short-sighted. There are certainly many Americans who suspect, or know, that the Virgin Birth and Resurrection did not actually occur but who nonetheless wish to be members of a "Christian" church. But is their desire really a result of any personal fascination or adoration for a purely human Jewish carpenter/religious reformer who lived two thousand years ago? Or is it more a matter of familial inertia and social conformity that makes it emotionally difficult for them to make a completely clean break with Christianity?
Good argues that the popular view of Jesus as "an adult equivalent of the child's invisible friend," always there to smooth over the difficulties of life, is untrue to the Gospels. On the contrary, "Jesus never intended to be an answer man. Instead of making human problems go away, he seemed intent on creating a new set of concerns. Through both words and example, he defined the requirements of discipleship... even to the point of joining him in crucifixion."
Yes, and some of us do indeed find this Jesus for grown-ups more inspiring than the Sunday-school Jesus of "Jesus loves me, this I know..."
But why make Jesus the sole or primary center of such inspiration? Why should such concern focus primarily on Jesus rather than on Socrates, Buddha, Tolstoy, the pagan martyr Hypatia (murdered by a brutal Christian mob) or scores of other thoughtful, courageous human beings throughout history?
The appeal of Christianity for rational, educated people who know the truth is simply nostalgia. If everyone comes to know the truth and there are no more "true believers," Christianity will fade away. Good's variety of "progressive" Christianity is simply a temporary rest stop on the road from orthodox Christianity to the final destination of outright atheism.
Good forthrightly declares, "The lying must stop in all Christian congregations." Yes, even if the ultimate result is the end of Christianity.
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