Customer Reviews

Honest to God

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I read this book thirty years ago, and ran across it the other day and decided to reread it. It remains as "honest and refreshingly revealing" today as it did thirty years ago. I was hoping to pick up several copies for friends but have discovered much to my dismay that the publisher is out of stock. Please publish it again, and soon. Robinson, who was Bishop of Woolwich, England in 1963 at the time of first publication, explores his personal faith concepts and convictions about God, the supernatureal, religion, prayer and the like. He draws on the writings of such men as Paul Tillich and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. At the time of first publication it was deemed very controversial by clerics as well as lay people. I suspect that controvery would still exist. However, it demands to be read and reread, as the issues of God, and the presence of God, remain provoking to both believers and non-believers. To quote Robinson, in his Preface, ..."I suspect that we stand on the brink of a period in which it is going to become increasingly difficult to know what the true defence of Christian truth requires...I believe we are being called, over the years ahead, to far more than a restating of traditional orthodoxy in modern terms. Indeed, if our defence of the Faith is limited to this, we shall find in all likelihood that we have lost out to all but a tiny religious remnant...I am convinced that there is a growing gulf between the traditional orthodox suspernaturalism in which our Faith has been framed and the categories which the 'lay' world finds meaningful today. And by that I do not mean there is an increasing gap between Christianity and pagan society...but...many who are Christians find themselves on the same side as those who are not. And among one's intelligent non-Christian friends one discovers many who are far nearer to the Kindom of heaven than they themselves can credit...What dismays me is the vehemence--and at bottom the insecurity--of those who feel that the Faith can only be defended by branding as enemies within the camp those who do not. (find the traditional framework of metaphysics and morals entirely acceptable)."

In Honest to God, John A.T. Robinson sets forth a short volume to explain in detailed but non-obscure terms the tenets of his form of liberal Christianity. He sets out to take the ideas of 20th Century theologians, and explain them in an accessible but not patronizing tone. In so doing, he manages to avoid the pitfall of many works of modern theology, in that Robinson writes a book about faith for people of faith and people without faith, rather than a mere academic exercise for other theologians.

In its day, Honest to God was considered quite controversial, as Robinson directly addressed his view of the non-literal nature of the Bible, his interpretation of the supernatural aspects of the Christian faith, and a muted but not hidden view that social mores have evolved from the days of earliest Christianity.

Although the book is now decades old, the book arguably deserves readers more today than it did upon its release in an era of liberal Christian works. Robinson does not shy from the complexities of modern theologians, but he uses the direct, workable language of the popular religious writer to show the reader that "liberal Christianity" is not merely a set of complex theories and redefinitions, but instead a real-world attempt to make sense of both the legacy of faith and the evolution of thinking brought on by science.

If you've always associated Christianity with the charismatic theology of televangelists, this book is an excellent read to understand a different, vital form of the faith. Although Robinson in his day Robinson attracted critics and controversy, this book is nothing more (nor less) than a short, good read about a way of experiencing the Christian faith. This was a watershed work of popular theology when it first appeared, and remains important today, when people mistake "liberal religion" for "liberal politics" and imagine that theologians are all trapped in the ivory tower.

Honest to God is a simple, good read, about ultimate things. It may not "convert" you, but its refreshing candor makes it worth the read.

The "Smoke and mirrors" reviewer misses the whole point of this marvelous book, that Christ himself got beyond the strictures of rules and law and admonishes all of us to do the same. Bishop Robinson reminds us that Jesus' message is love, not ritual, and that by loving all and everything we do not OBEY God, we express Him profoundly in the world and EXPERIENCE Him by living His essence (God is love).

I was so amazed to discover a Christian Bishop encouraging us to go beyond being Christian, Jew, or whatever, beckoning to an end of "theism" simply by living lives of love----be we monk, mogul, or movie star. It is so liberating and fulfilling to love; how odd that some of us could not want this fulfillment, hungering instead for strictures of do's and don'ts, for ecclesiastical structures of power and authority, for form over substance.

As the Bishop understands so well, love integrates, enlarging and completing anyone who will love. On the other hand, hatred, and the divisiveness of sect, cult, nationalism, and every other sort of "ism" isolate one into smaller and smaller corners of reality. We cannot fully know God or His creation if we are not willing to extend love to every person, indeed everything our life presents to us.

Thank you Bishop Robinson for so eloquent and loving a book.

A.T. Robinson wrote the book "Honest To God" in 1963. The books is both a critique of traditional Christian theology and an advocation of reforming the theology into something that resembles that of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Paul Tillich. A.T. Robinson criticized the "supernatural theology", being maintained by the church of his time, because it no longer holds significant influence over modern society that is progressing through science and social justice. It is not only the lack of influence of the church in the face of secularization that Robinson was worried about but that the church no longer became an establishment that appealed to the people's ordinary needs anymore.

The practicality of the "Supernatural theology" is not the only aspect that is problematic for Robinson but also that the "supernatural theology" is inherently flawed and out-dated cosmological historicity and morality. Robinson is also pessimistic about the chances supernatural theology has against science and biblical scholarship motivated by purely scientific pursuits through archeology, hermeneutics, exegesis, history, etc, since no evidence is found to support any of the fundamental points of its doctrine. He clearly believed that the notion of "incarnation" lacked strong biblical evidence, especially when he was skeptical if the bible ever supported the doctrine that Jesus was both God and Man. He accurately assessed that many people misunderstand the doctrine of "incarnation" because most of them interpret it such that it almost resembles Docetism.

The most problematic theological concept for A.T. Robinson is the anthropomorphism of the concept of the God "out there" who is looking out for people, having human emotions and human features. In a philosophical point of view this notion is problematic since there is nothing in this world that would resemble a transcendent being. Also the progress of scientific endeavors that shaped the modern mind has rendered the pre-modern idea of God out-dated and incredulous (at the time). A.T. Robinson believes that this concept of God is idolatary, and should be replaced with a new notion of God.

Through these criticisms A.T. Robinson is convinced that Christianity of his time needs to be reformed to survive and actively participate in a secular world by becoming secular itself. A.T. Robinson seems to imply the abandonment of attitudes and practices that constitutes "religious" norms that alienates people from the church and the church from the people. Instead, A.T. Robinson promoted the "new morality" where Love constitutes moral action. In this regard A.T. Robinson is certainly agreeing with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. A.T. Robinson also called for replacing "Supernatural theology" not with naturalism but with Tillich's existential theology that interprets God as the "depth-of-being" or "being-itself" or "Ground of Being" which we are all dependent on. Tillich's existential theology, for Robinson, seemed to be the most appropriate form of theology that conceives of God much more in-depth with sophisticated non-anthropomorphic understanding of God that any modern person might agree with.

In my personal opinion, I agree with A.T. Robinson's criticism against "supernatural theology" in both practical and theoretical levels. "Supernatural Theology" in its conservative form promotes religious norms of morality, that does not even seem to be relevant to ethics(Gender, Homosexuality, Sexuality, and other practices). It's divine-command theory (that you do what God commands you to do) does not seem only absurd but philosophically problematic (Is something good because God commands it or does God command it because it is good?). Furthermore, not many people really understand incarnation adequately, and misunderstands it to resemble God putting on human disguise when in actuality it's God becoming both God and human, which is a philosophically problematic doctrine (Can God be both Incorporeal and Corporeal? Immaterial and Material? Transcendent and wholly immanent?). The attitude and conception of God is also problematic on the grounds that people treat it in such anthropomorphic ways that it seems to make the concept of God false and profane. Incarnation, Trinity, and other doctrines have no biblical evidences as Robinson pointed out, and the supernatural theology no longer seems to fit into the modern cosmology anymore.

However where I draw the line with A.T. Robinson is when he contended that Tillich's notion of God would be suitable for the purpose of modernizing the church. Tillich's notion of God as "ground of being", "being-itself" and "depth of being" is poetically profound but metaphysically elusive, vague, and unintelligible. As Kai Nielsen, an Atheist philosopher, pointed out, such conception of God says pretty much nothing at all. In some ways I think that classical theistic notion of God is much more well-defined and delineated than Tillich's notion of God because at least the Scholastic philosophers such as Aquinas enumerated the attributes of God; I would even go so far as to insist that Spinoza's God is much more intelligible than Tillich's, if anyone cares to give themselves the time to understand him. The theological and philosophical problems of Tillich's notion of God tantamount to Extreme Agnostic Theism which denies any access to knowledge of the nature of God at all, while simultaneously believing such a God, which is the implication I find hard to accept, since that is only admitting we have no reasonable basis to believe there is a God.

Robinson also seems to be enthusiastic in adopting Bonhoeffers' secular christianity, in which a true Christian tries to be like Christ who lives among other human beings in the world; that to be holy is to love and interact with other human beings. I am personally some-what fond of this secular theology (I'd rather drink beer with Bonhoeffer's secular christian than Pat Robertson's fanatic), but A.T. Robinson seems to naively and optimistically believe that Dietrich Bonehoeffers' vision of secular Christianity is possible, but in my opinion I personally think it is a significant failure. Mainline Protestant Christianity, which is one of the most liberal strand of Christianity, is losing thousands of members every year, and it is the Mainline Protestant Christianity that the modern (or post-modern) world no longer takes seriously. Right now it is the Evangelical movement that is the fastest growing trans-denominational movement than any of the mainline protestant denominations. Fundamentalism still has its influence in the United States, since 41% of Americans still believe in Young-Earth Creationism. While in A.T. Robinson's time when traditional Christianity seems to be waning, it is rising in correlation to increasing activities of Globalization.

While Bonhoeffer has a more secular attitude in which he stoically decides to accept the rise of modernity as an opportunity to reshape christianity as the life of immanence rather than that of transcendence, the average evangelical christian would most likely prerfer to live by the traditional lifestyle that understands livelihood of earthly life as a vessel that prepares for the heavenly realms (transcendence); this expresses itself very obviously when born-again Christians generally (though not all of them) like to be with other like-minded Christians, and try to advertise their sectarian-like lifestyle to other people. The obsession with the rapture is also another phenomena among evangelical americans that shows how many Christians desire transcendence over Bonhoeffer's holy secular immanence.I guess what I am trying to say here is that the kind of christianity that both Bonhoeffer and Robinson advocated, is probably the least popular theological attitude among Christians (at least in the United States) since it is easily misinterpreted by fundamentalists and evangelicals as deficient spiritual self-complacency.

Robinson's conception of morality (or called "New Morality") in my opinion is paradoxically profound and shallow. It is profound because Robinson is advocating the Agape Ethics that emphasizes the importance of unconditional love in relation to humanity. However, it is shallow because Robinson does not really say why Agape Ethics is any better than Kantian Ethics, which he inadequately criticized (he was also critical of Kant's Moral Argument for the Existence of God as another form of Deus Ex Machina, which doesn't relate very well with the existential condition of human suffering). As a philosophy major exposed to many theories of ethics, I don't think Robinson expounded on his Agape ethics further enough to make it an interesting thesis. I know that he isn't a philosopher, but any reasonable man should know that merely promoting a form of ethics won't do. Robinson never defined "love" or "unconditional love" in intelligible ways that makes his ethics coherent and clear. In my opinion Love is merely a kind of human emotional intimacy in response to persons or things they find to be valuable, but this does not explain why love itself has any moral value as opposed to other emotions. It would seem that even love requires objective moral evaluation to decide the moral value of love itself.

I am not a Christian, but I do occasionally enjoy reading a little bit of Theology (Tillich is my favorite), and despite that I agree with A.T. Robinson's criticism I do not agree with him in terms of what those criticisms imply and his solutions. From observation, both of the solutions (adopting tillich's theology and Bonhoeffer's secular christianity) are a failure because majority of the Christians do not believe in them today. Majority of them still believe in the Supernatural Theology that A.T. Robinson reasonably criticized with futility.In my opinion, this is to be expected because most of the 2 billion Christians around the world are poor and uneducated people who genuinely feel the need for a supernatural being who is there for them and promises eternal life. I believe A.T. Robinson underestimated not only the popularity and symbolic influence of the Supernatural Theology but also the persistent appeal it has to many people, especially the poor. Given that there is an issue with abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, contraception and other cultural wars, I hardly think Dietrich Bonhoeffer's solution would ever work since many people still believe in "The soul" and in traditional pre-modern conception of morality (i.e. homosexuality is a sin, subservience of women), and other nonsense.

I think this is a valuable literature today, and I would be glad if more people read it, but so far I think the project to modernize (or post-modernize) Christianity is a failure because most people do not want to give up their attachments to the Supernatural Theology, and maybe they'll remain that way for a very long time (if not forever), so to be Honest to Robinson I don't think he's really successful, even though I enjoyed the book and agreed with his critique on supernatural theology.

I first read this book in the mid-70s after a few semesters at Bob Jones University and it confirmed the rightness of my decision to move on from fundamentalist and conventional Christianity, including the parochial Catholicism I grew up with. Robinson's book helped me in the personal journey from Sunday school and catechism piety to an authentic adult spirituality. Adults everywhere have been making the same move over the past thirty years and it is helping our religions to grow up as well. Read this book and join the movement from the pious pablum of traditional religion to the savory sustenance of adult spirituality

****
"If Bonhoeffer's radicalism is a trifle suspect, there can be no doubt about that of the bishop of Woolwich. Even so it was a radicalism that came fully into the open only relatively late." Colin Brown



Honest to God, still alive!
Whatever the late Bishop of Woolwich intended, it was in true honesty to the Church he served, and the audience he came to address, even if it was not clear then, how faithful was he to traditional ways of expression when thinking about the Lord he was honest to. If there is anything to be said, in retrospective, about this book rests with the fact that it is still controversial, in these postmodern days of applying deconstruction tools to redefine faith.
Recently Gretta Vosper of the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity said, "Over forty years of scholarship and argument later, we cannot shrink from Robinson's vision. We, too, must look at it directly and rise to his challenge, recasting our understanding of Christianity, examining the structures that have supported it, clearing away those things that would keep us from seeing it clearly; for it's time to step more and more boldly into the realities of this world as we experience them, to open ourselves to an honest critique of our Christian heritage, and to expose ourselves to the light of new understandings that so many have placed before us. It's time."

Inspiration into Honesty:
The bishop, wrote his radical thesis while confined to his house due to a back injury that stranded for some weeks. His book was inspired by the same thinkers who were favorite to both and most mid century generation of theologians: Barth, Tillich, and Bonhoeffer. Although what Robinson wrote came fully into the open causing a turmoil, it was preceded by the then recently published 'Beyond Religion,' written by D. Jenkins. Robinson further enriched the clash with supporting quotations from Catholic liberation leaders of 'La Nouvelle Theologie,' De Lubac, and Congar, in addition to his favorite existential Jewish philosopher M. Buber.

Robinson's Radical theology:
Within the postmodern worldview, there is no secure place for institutional religion, the ground on which the concept of God prevailed has gradually eroded. With the explosion of scientific discoveries, and their dominant secular interpretation, the Bishop's inquiry on the "place does God have in my life or in society today?" urging for a radical new methodology in Christian thinking, caused a lot of uncertainty. "Admittedly, the Bishop did not say much that was new. Much of it was straightforward nineteenth century radicalism, brought up to date by the language of Bultmann, Tillich and Bonhoeffer who are treated as the three wise men of twentieth century theology. the novelty lay partly in the fact that here someone bringing the three together for the first time, and trying to make a synthesis out of them,"(Philosophy & the Christian Faith)

A Controversial Theology Book:
No-one ever imagined a thin paperback written by an unassuming English bishop while recovering from illness would become one of the most talked about theological books of the turbulent 1960s. ... But why did the book generate so much public interest and what are we to make of its impact after forty years? Perhaps more than anything else, Honest to God was a product of its time: traditions were questioned, orthodoxy was challenged and norms of behavior disregarded. 1963 marked the beginning of declining church attendance and widespread religious indifference. It was this trend to which Robinson and like-minded theologians sought to respond. They launched what was dubbed the "Death of God" movement with the popular success of Honest to God elevating Robinson to its leadership. (Tom Frame)

Theology and the Public:
The independent minded biblical interpreter that was liberal in his 'Study in Pauline theology' and 'Jesus and his coming,' his radicalism was only evident in retrospect. He took his readable theology in plain English to the lay Sunday newspaper audience. The Bishop has created a tsunami wave of debates. Robinson wanted to relocate God deep in the human conscience rather than "above and beyond the world," claiming that God was not resided elsewhere, He is still indeed radically transcendent.
Soon after, that slim book was being discussed everywhere, by all the Byzantine minded lay theologians, while members of the organized religious institutions took the case to condemn or few times support the Bishop, who by definition of his office was discerns the truth of faith statements to the Church. These articles were gathered, edited, and printed in a book entitled, "The Honest to God Debate, including the Church of England, C S Lewis, R P Hanson, and R. Bultmann. Robinson commented, complementing the positive reaction, under the subheading: Theology and the public, "It is a safe assumption that a best seller tells one more about the state of the market than the quality of the product!"

John A. T. Robinson
The author was an outstanding thinker who wrote 25 books, of which honest to God was one of his early writings. He came to the lime light when he disagreed to a ban on lady Chatterley's Lover in Britain. He quotes D.H. Lawrence, 'The plumed serpent' in ch.6; (The new Morality). The greatest impact of this slim book which revealed no breaking discoveries, was only its promotion of the essential tension in religious thinking between tradition and change, (Ch.1: Reluctant Revolution) .

This book must be read about 5 times to get a lot out of it. Not only is it a excellent book in its own right, and just as pertinent today as when it was written (if not more so), it is also a great introduction to 3 of the most influential Christian thinkers of this century: Tillich, Bonhoeffer, and Bultmann. Robinson has been criticized for not including Barth, and perhaps rightly so, but even without his influence, the book is substantial, especially for one of such brevity. Every chapter is full of insightful observations and important questions which demand to be grappled with. This author does a brilliant job tackling them, inviting the reader to honestly think through them with him. A MUST READ!!!

In 1972 I was some kind of atheist and vulgar materialist. I was almost afraid of all religious views, and I tried to convince anyone I met that all religions were primitive superstition. Then I got in contact with some active Christian women, who at the same time were engaged in leftwing politics. I had quite intense discussions with them in some months, and I finally realized that my views were a bit oversimplified. One of them borrowed me a book, John Robinson's "Honest to God". I guess this book had a very deep impression on me. He presented a view on God, which finally broke up my materialist worldview and I began to become open-minded to religious, and even Christian, ideas. His intelligent, warm, and sympathetic discussion in this book did indeed play an important part when my worldview totally changed in 1973..

I read this book when it first came out decades ago. It was of seminal importance for me in the struggle to own my own soul. It gave me the language to escape, ever so gently at first, the confines of a literal, incongruous, and stifling christianity.

At that time, I had such youthfully conceived hopes for the triumph of a mixture of rational thought and metaphysical understanding. What has happened in these intervening years? Why has Western (American?) culture retreated into such a literal, defensive shell where none of the nuances of a struggler such as Robinson seem to gain any traction -- culturally, politically, religiously? Why do I think that Robinson would feel so terribly alone and chagrined today, at least if he set foot in the US and observed the interplay between religion and culture?

Are you out there, young people? Are you constrained by, wish to rise above your literal, concretized religious and social upbringing; but, in doing so, hope to find something other than rampant self indulgence, narcissism, or nihilism? If so, this is a fine place to begin to challenge yourself. You may move well beyond Robinson and decide that history has passed him by, that his refusal to remove his feet from the circle of his tradition is either useless, self-defeating, or hypocritical. If so, well and good. That does not diminish the fact that this book is a good place to begin a journey where you -- just as the knights on the grail quest -- seek to find your own individual path into the forest of life, experience, and personal integrity. However the world may have passed him by, Robinson has left still useful signposts in the open plain leading to the forest of true engagement with the world and yourself -- signposts that may still serve you well.

This book is very intense. It is written on a college level, by a man who served as Dean of a College at one time. This book has been dubbed controversial and disturbing. At the time the book was published (1963) John A. T. Robinson was Bishop of Woolwich, England, and had formerly served as Dean of Clare College, Cambridge and as Chaplain of Wells Theological College. Mr. Robinson believes the church in our time is now being called to nothing less than a revolution that will question many of the basic assumptions which Christians have held in the past. This book will be enticing to people who loves challanges for deeper thinking.