Honest to God

by John A.T. Robinson

Honest to God is not a textbook but rather an argument for a theological position. It is an important position, and Robinson has performed a long overdue task in presenting the position in a form which can be easily read and understood.'--Kenneth D. Freeman, The North American Review

Genres: Theology, Religion, Nonfiction, Christianity, Christian, Spirituality, Philosophy

250 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

A LAUGH, A SONG, AND A HAND GRENADE

John Robinson was a Bishop, no less, and this little hand grenade of a book was published in 1963, and can be bracketed with The Silent Spring (1962), The Feminine Mystique (1963) and Lady Chatterley's Lover (finally published in 1960) – all books which kickstarted the 1960s and made that decade what it became.

To help men through to the conviction about ultimate reality that alone finally matters we may have to discard every image of God – whether of the "one above", the one "out there", or any other.

Reading this, Christians must have been quoting Harry the Hipster Gibson to each other :

Who put the benzedrine in Bishop John's Ovaltine?

So this little book has a LOT in it. The story is a familiar one, guy becomes a bishop in the Church of England and immediately begins to doubt everything about Christianity. So he does like Frank Pembleton in that great cop show Homicide, he decides to get Christianity in the Box. It'll be just him and his religion, locked together, until he can figure out if this religion is telling him the truth. Yeah, and all that stuff about a lawyer has to be present? Forget it. This is the Bishop of Woolwich. He breaks every rule. He laughs at the rules. Ha ha ha!

THE FUNDAMENTAL THINGS APPLY
AS TIME GOES BY

He takes us back to those days when people believed in a tripartite world, heaven above us, hell below us, and earth in the middle (flat or slightly bent, as you wish). Copernicus came along and revolutionised that, other scientists put the boot in too, and that worldview died with a whimper (but not quick enough to prevent the great witchburning mania of the 17th century).

So now JR is proposing a 2nd revolution, by which he means that Christianity should now be prepared to dismantle all of its supernatural stage props, which have become embarrassments and stumbling blocks,

the entire conception of a supernatural order that invades and perforates this one must be abandoned

and reveal the reality of Christianity, its true glory which can only be seen without the wondrous miracles, without the Virgin Birth, without…. Yes, that's right, without the Resurrection. And there's more – he's not so sure we need God anymore. God – really, people – it's just so corny. Really, God has to go. John Robinson is sorry. But times have changed. Come on, it's the 60s! Beatles!

He's saying that modern people simply will not buy Genesis (the book not the group which was not formed until 1967) anymore because they know it was written before science, so you will not get anywhere if you need to convince them that the Earth is really only 4004 years old and the fossils were put there by God to test our faith. No sir, that will not do anymore.

So just as St Paul identified the (Old Testament) Law as a stumbling block for Gentiles, JR identifies religion and its adherence to the supernatural as a stumbling block for modern people. He is seeing the Church gradually declining, Britain becoming ever more faithless and he wants to rescue Christianity by means of this radical surgery. Three years later, John Lennon in the same vein said

Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now

That was a general idea around at the time.


SPEAKING OF THE BEATLES

There was some background to this radicalism. JR didn't fall from heaven, you know. (There is no Heaven - haven't you been listening??)

In the 19th century some established ideas about the Bible began to disintegrate. This was mostly true in the Protestant churches. Julius Wellhausen, for instance, published a book in 1878 demonstrating the view that Moses did not write the first five books of the Bible. Soon authorship of the gospels was challenged, debates raged, etc. It was propounded – and accepted – that the Bible was NOT literally true, and contained MYTH. And it was emphasised that THAT WAS OKAY.

In the mid-20th century you had four German Protestant heavyweights all interested in some form of what was by then called demythologisation – names were Paul Tillich, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Karl Barth and Rudolph Bultmann. John Robinson writes like a guy who has in 1963 just discovered all this stuff, or, perhaps, just realised what the real implications are. For him, Tillich and Bonhoeffer are the Lennon and Mccartney of theology. Which means Barth and Bultmann must be the George and Ringo. Maybe they played at the Star Club in Hamburg. That would have been cool.


ZING! WENT THE STRINGS OF MY BARTH


Here are some of Honest to God's zingers :

God is deliberately calling us in this twentieth century to a form of Christianity that does not depend on the premise of religion

Can God be rehabilitated or is the whole conception of that sort of a God – "up there, "out there" or however one likes to put it, a projection, an idol, that can and should be torn down?

Our concern will not be simply to substitute an immanent for a transcendent Deity

Quote from Tillich : "you must forget everything traditional that you have ever learned about God, perhaps even that word itself"

The question inevitably arises… why do we any longer need the category of God? Is it not "semantically superfluous"?

But he reigns back from these precipices :

There are depths of revelation, intimations of eternity, judgements of the holy and th sacred, awarenesses of the unconditional, the numinous and the ecstatic, which cannot be explained in purely naturalistic categories without being reduced to something else.

So there IS a supernatural. Make your mind up!!


A SONG FOR BISHOP ROBINSON

He was afraid to come out in the open
So a mask of Paul Tillich he wore
He had had so many doubts he was hopin
He could figure what Jesus was for

Two, three, four, tell the people what he saw

He saw an itsy, bitsy, teenieweenie, yellow polka-dot blue meanie
In the Bible on every page
an itsy, bitsy, teenieweenie, yellow polka-dot blue meanie
It threw him into
a tower
ing rage

WHAT WAS THAT AGAIN?

When he tries to put into words his own understanding of what a non-supernatural religionless Christianity might sound like, he runs into predictable problems – it's beyond words. So he comes out with stuff like

Jesus is 'the man for others', the one in whom Love has completely taken over, the one who is utterly open to, and united with, the Ground of his Being.

Or

To open oneself to another unconditionally in Love is to be with him in the presence of God and that is the heart of intercession

Prayer is the responsibility to meet others with all I have, to be ready to encounter the unconditional in the conditional, to expect to meet God in the way, not to turn aside from the way.

God is redefined into Tillich's phrase the Ground of our Being and this is – apparently – different from defining God as Being Itself, but the subtle difference escaped me. Also, JR is very conscious that his new Christianity could be seen to be dissolved into either mere social activism or, on the other hand, mere mystical pantheism. Oh no! Not so! I didn't say that! Wasn't me! (Bishop looks about innocently, butter not melting in his mouth.)

I'm not sure if this extreme reinterpretation had legs and if any churches today acknowledge it or if it was one of those 60s fads like be-ins, tie-dye shirts and hair ironing. Maybe it was the Church of England's version of radical chic.

So : half of this book was fascinating and the other half was pretty much gibberish for me, but it started a huge hoo-ha. There's a book called Honest to God 40 Years On which discusses what happened to JR's ideas since 1963 so I'll have to read that – one book leads to another…


MY RELIGION (IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING)


You never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth
in your vein and you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars
Til your spirit filleth the whole world
the stars are your jewels;
Til you are familiar with the ways of God
in all ages as with your walk and table;
Til you are intimately acquainted with that shady nothing
out of which the world was made;
Til you love men so as to desire their happiness,
with an equal thirst to the zeal of your own;
Til you delight in God for being good to all;
You never enjoy the world.
Yet further, you never enjoy the world aright,
til you so love the beauty of enjoying
that you are covetous and earnest
to persuade others to enjoy it.

Thomas Traherne, 1637-74

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

J. A. T. Robison's 1963 best seller is a real gem. The finest book about rethinking God and the Christian faith I've ever had the privilege to read.

Robinson's points are very simple: we must abandon the frankly unbelievable concept of a God "Out there," a supernatural person who is nothing more than a version of us writ large. Such a God is clearly no more than a psychological projection on our part. But this does NOT mean that we must abandon God.

Robinson asks to conceive of God as “the ground of being”. God, for Robinson, is reality at its ultimate depth. The infinite power that brings all into being, and holds together all things. This reality is experienced primarily when we love and our loved. In Robinson's own words;

"To assert that 'God is love’ is to believe that in love one comes into touch with the most fundamental reality in the universe, that Being itself ultimately has this character." (53).

None of this is original to Robinson. The idea that God is not an "old man in the sky," but the infinite reality present everywhere has been voiced by many theologians and philosophers. But Robinson clarifies and explains the concept with a force that these others do not.

Also interesting is Robinson's account of Jesus. Because he rejects all supernaturalism (he rejects naturalism as well), he cannot think of Jesus as essentially God in human form. The traditional idea of Jesus as a divine being with divine powers will not work for Robinson:

"the traditional supranaturalistic [point of view:]... suggests that Jesus was really God almighty walking about on earth, dressed up as a man.... He looked like a man, he talked like a man, he felt like a man, but underneath he was God." (66).

On this view Jesus becomes, Robinson tells us, a prince disguised as a beggar; the view must be rejected.

Robinson's alternative is to remind us that love is the key to the divine ground of being, and that Jesus was the "man for others" who lived that love. In his embracing the outcasts, condemning the power structures that oppress and exploit, healing the sick, and declaring that all love and forgive each other as equal children of God, Jesus shows us the divine. Jesus is, for Robinson, the decisive revelation of God in a human life. And this means that existentially an encounter with Jesus is an encounter with God.

Jesus, for Robinson is not different than us in kind, but only in degree. Jesus is fully human, totally one of us, yet he shows us God like no one else.

Robinson also has fascinating chapters on prayer on ethics, and a marvelous account of the "worldly holiness" as opposed to "leaving the world."

A great book, and I recommend it to anyone searching and questioning their spiritual life.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread (2024) - How can faith survive in a secular age? For me, I find the way forward in the work of Tillich and Bonhoeffer (as a sidenote, not the fake Bonhoeffer created by white evangelicals like Metaxas but the radical Bonhoeffer of Letter and Papers from Prison). Robinson’s book is tremendously helpful in popularizing them.

The most value is in the first half or so when he redefines God. We have long moved beyond a God above us as we embraced seeing God as beyond us. Even this is sometimes difficult to believe, as it reduces God to a deus ex machina who shows up in the gaps to save the day. Rather, following Tillich, God is the ground of being. From this, we begin to see a religionless Christianity where we live fully in the world, as Jesus did.

Rereading my review, I don’t think I got some nuances of the book the first time. It does seem to speak to where I am at now in life.


First read (2017)This book made waves in the 1960s when it was released. Bishop Robinson utlized the work of theologians like Paul Tillich, Rudolph Bultmann and Dietrich Bonhoeffer (not the Bonhoeffer of The Cost of Discipleship that everyone knows and likes, the later more edgier Bonhoeffer of Letters and Papers from Prison). In essence, he popularized their thought in an effort to reimagine God for skeptical people.

Robinson begins by recognizing that humans one had a three-tiered understanding of the universe with heaven above and hell below. For Christians, this meant God was above us somewhere. Modern science made this view obsolete, so Christians shifted to seeing God as beyond, not above. God, the theologians said, is wholly other, infinite and beyond our universe. Robinson argues that this understanding of God is also obsolete and we need an understanding of God as the ground of our being. This rethinking of how we understand God leads to a rethinking of how we approach other issues such as Christology (who is Jesus) and ethics.

This book made waves, but it is interesting to read it over 50 years later. Christianity specifically and religion in general are not dying, as many have noted Christianity is growing rapidly in the global south (Philip Jenkins, Lamin Sanneh and others). The views Robinson found unacceptable to skeptics in North America and Europe seem to be not so unacceptable to many others. Apart from that, or perhaps alongside of it, I found Robinson working with a near false dichotomy. Maybe I am simply not nuanced enough (or smart enough) but I have little trouble seeing God as beyond (wholly other) and the ground of being (or in other terms, transcendent and immanent). I think then that Robinson's book could be helpful for people struggling with certain unhelpful views of God. But those same people shouldn't stop here. In other words, if you like Robinson you would probably like Tillich's The Courage to Be. But you should also read Barth's Dogmatics in Outline.

[Nithin · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.4)

[Marc Arlt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply brilliant. Everyone should read this book.

[Jon Coutts · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's insight at the core of this book, and I appreciate its rethink of overwrought piety. Unfortunately it dilutes and misreads Bonhoeffer, whiffs on christology, and leans into Tillichian abstractions I've just never found helpful.

[Shane Wagoner · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well written basic exposition of a worldview I have often found somewhat frail. I can't avoid acknowledging his suspicious use of Bonhoeffer and questionable dichotomies but overall, he discovered a richness in what I would call Liberal Christianity that I never saw before. However, he completely avoided the problem of evil and that is just unacceptable.

[Jan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not an easy read, this is nevertheless a thoughtful exploration of how to approach faith in a "post-religious" society. Robinson assumes a level of knowledge of authors, theologians and philosophers that I don't have, but I found his arguments thought-provoking yet respectful of other's beliefs.

[Manu · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was an easy reading, though spoke of as a revolutionary book in its early years of publication, most of the ideas are already accepted by the Church and society. In a way the author fought for truth and justice in his time!!

[Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

A description of God, not as something separate from us (watching over us, listening to us) but as the ultimate reality (our own eyes, our own voice). Thanks, Dad: I enjoyed your 50+ year-old exclamation marks and comments in the margins!

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thought-provoking book still, particularly on how outdated metaphors and language about God can make that God much more difficult to believe in.

[Chris Webber · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a difficult read for me. Over the past few decades I've had to deconstruct and reconstruct the concept of God in multiple ways. Robinson covered this rather painful process in wretched detail.

He covers the difficult bridge of moving from "God above us" to "God out there" to "God being the Ground of our every being."

"He who knows about depth knows about God." (pg 22)

There are admittedly many humans who accept at face value the "God above us" and this gives them a sense of purpose and comfort. So many of us, however, have dared to question this God above us whenever our traditional senses fail in interpretation of the usefulness of this God.

"Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire Cat." (pg 38)

I think Robinson does a great job of explaining the struggle of the modern man to adapt practicality of a God whose image and symbolism has lost ground in our normal, everyday lives. He emphasizes the usefulness of prayer and the universally helpful teachings of Jesus as a grounding agent.

And above all, he emphasizes the necessity of keeping the conversation throughout this process honest and real and authentic.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where I got the book: purchased used on Amazon.

As I began reading this one because bookfriend Paul was reading it and it piqued my interest (the Goodreads effect!) I'd like to point you to Paul's review for an irreverent but fun take on this 60s "let's take on religion" classic. Like Paul, I have no clue whether this book is currently laughed at by theologians or accepted as an interesting step in the development of modern theology, so I'll just forge ahead and give you my impressions.

I spent much of this book thinking that Robinson was throwing the baby out with the bathwater. First, he wants us to consider a non-supernaturalist idea of God: let's stop thinking of God as a Being apart from ourselves, "a supreme Person, a self-existent subject of infinite goodness and power, who enters into a relationship with us comparable with that of one human personality with another." Instead, we are to view God as "in the depths" of our existence: "For the word 'God' denotes the ultimate depth of all our being, the creative ground and meaning of all our existence."

Robinson tries very hard to prove that this is not pantheism (i.e. God is in everything, everything is God) but I got the impression that he's walking a very fine tightrope here, theologically speaking. And he talks a lot about love in this chapter, giving me the impression that he was cutting two thousand years of Christian doctrine down to some nebulous form of New Age spirituality.

And then we get to the chapter about Jesus...blimey. Is Robinson actually saying that Jesus isn't God? It certainly looks like it. "Jesus never claims to be God, personally: yet he always claims to bring God, completely." Mmmmmmmmmmmkay but if you knock the claim that Jesus is God out of the Christian religion, there's not much left of it. The Incarnation is one of those litmus test thingies: if you don't believe in it, your claim to be a Christian is a bit empty.

And then JR attacks religion, the Church and prayer; you get the impression that he thinks Christianity would be so, so much better off without them and we wouldn't have to feel guilty about not going to church or not praying. At this point I'm yelling "Dude, you're a Church of England Bishop...if you find religion inconvenient you may be IN THE WRONG JOB." Look, I'm perfectly OK with people telling me they're "spiritual but not religious." But saying that and then saying you're a Christian in the same breath is like watching a giraffe give birth to something that's half antelope, half lizard. There's a point to the "rules," which is that we're really not very good at making any spiritual progress without a bit of structure and community, and Christianity, for all its faults, does supply the undergirding which allows us (ideally) to move in the right direction.

Having thus increasingly annoyed me in chapters 1-5, JR redeemed himself considerably in the last two chapters. He considers the various ethical/moralist/humanist systems that have arisen to replace the supernaturalist view and moral absolutes of traditional Christianity, and posits that "they have taken their stand, quite correctly, against any subordination of the concrete needs of the individual situation to an alien universal norm. But in the process any objective or unconditional standard has disappeared in a morass of relativism and subjectivism." He claims that there is a standard, but it is love as taught and shown by Jesus Christ, and that Christians are called to practice a "casuistry of love" in which we must judge (if judge we must) situations on the basis that "compassion for persons overrides all law." I believe that many Christians nowadays understand this form of casuistry in everyday life; accepting the Bible's teaching on moral absolutes for themselves, they nevertheless support their divorcing friends, love their gay neighbors and are tolerant, even friendly, toward other religions. They are not the ones shouting that God hates fags/Muslims/Harry Potter, and therefore go unnoticed.

And then Robinson wraps up by making some interesting observations about what the church IS and what it should be: For the last thing the Church exists to be is an organization for the religious. Its charter is to be the servant of the world." You'll get no argument from me there, JR. And I liked this: ". . .[for] authentic Christian worldliness. . .the things of this world are 'really interesting in themselves', . . .'their truth is not as it were swallowed up and destroyed by a higher reference'--for instance, by how far they can be turned to the service of the church or used as occasions for evangelism." That's thought-provoking while well within the bounds of orthodoxy, so I'll give it a think.

So, something of a parson's egg of a book--parts of it were quite good. Is it relevant? Is it necessary? Or is it just the ramblings of a disaffected clergyman looking for a feelgood religion more suited to the spirit of the 60s than the CofE in which he has climbed high? I'm rather hoping someone will come across this review and give me the low-down on how this book has survived (or not) in theological circles.

[Erin Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting book written in the 1960s about the coming changes for the church. His main premise is that we must not make idols of our view of God, hold onto Christ and love and serve others.

[Stephen Mortland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will challenge the unexamined presuppositions you hold about the nature of God. For that alone it is an invaluable book.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am sympathetic to Robinson's project to modernize Christianity as well as his critique against supernaturalism. I agree with him that supernatural theology is implausible and incoherent due to the progress made by modern science and that biblical scholarship (particularly higher criticism) which made biblical inerrancy extremely difficult to accept. However, I disagree with him that Tillich's theology would provide a satisfactory interpretation of the nature of God since it amounts to extreme theistic agnosticism. While I am sympathetic to Robinson's vision for Christianity to become part of the secular world, I think there is limited fulfillment to his vision: Both Episcopalian Church and Anglican Church are very secular-like institutions of many church members who are secular, and at least in America there are many liberal Catholics. However, mainline protestantism is on a decline while the evangelical movement is fluctuating each decade; Religious Conservatism is at least striking back really hard out of desperation while the more mainline protestants are on the decline. It appears that quite contrary to what Robinson wanted, Christianity is slowly on the decline rather than secularizing itself.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed this book but ever since I rejected theological conservatism, along with it's varieties, I have little or no hope that the constituents of any churches will change the way Robinson desires. With the Culture War going on in the United States in which almost half of this country believes in young-earth creationism, homosexuality as lifestyle choice, prudish sexual morality, and other superstitious nonsense it seems that Robinson's vision of secularized Christianity is out of touch with the reality in America. Again, I am sympathetic tot Robinson's views but I find it hard to see how his solutions are going to be actualized in a world where most people uncritically subscribe to supernatural theologies.

[Stephen Hayes · Rating 2 out of 5]

What can I say about a book that I read 50 years ago, and really have no desire to reread? It was the publishing sensation of its time, I suppose, and perhaps for the first time in decades got many people in the secular West buying and reading books about theology.

I bought the book for my mother, who had expressed an interest in reading it, and I read it too, mainly to see what the fuss was about. But I was disappointed. John A.T. Robinson seemed to be urging me to stop believing things about God I had never believed in the first place, and to replace them with things I had heard from people I regarded as religious quacks, and rejected.

Nevertheless the book did influence me quite strongly. It helped to being into focus things that I didn't like in Western bourgeois theology, and to look for African threology and liberation theology instead. But that's more about me than about the book, so it's better said on my blog than on GoodReads.

[J. Ewbank · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Robinson's book many years ago when it was first published and enjoyed it. I found it recently and read it again and enjoyed it all over again. He points out that Christian theology must find new ways of interpreting the Gospel and Christianity because we are losing members because of the way we present God as "out there" or "up there." Modern man knows better and we need to find a truer and better way of presenting the message. We may never be ab le to present the whole thing but we need better concepts to present it. He leans heavily on the insights of Tillich, especially "The Shaking of the Foundations," Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "Letters from Prison" and Rudolf Bultmann's "New Testament and Mythology." It is a fascinating, open and lovely book pointing us in the direction of ever reinterpreting the message in a way that is fresh and speaks to the time, but is always true to it's original.

J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A PATHBREAKING BOOK OF 20TH CENTURY CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

John A.T. Robinson (1919-1983) was an author and former Anglican Bishop, as well as Dean of Trinity College until his death from cancer. He first achieved fame as the author of this book, which was written in 1963 while he was still serving as a bishop in the Anglican church in Woolrich, England. He has also written books such as 'Redating the New Testament,' Can We Trust the New Testament?', 'But That I Can't Believe,' 'On Being the Church in the World,' etc. [NOTE: page numbers below refer to a 143-page paperback edition.]

He wrote in the Preface to this 1963 book, “It belongs to the office of a bishop in the Church to be a guardian and defender of its doctrine. I find myself a bishop at a moment when the discharge of this burden can seldom have demanded greater depth of divinity and quality of discernment. For 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 defense of Christian truth requires… At the same time, I believe we are being called… to far more than a restating of traditional orthodoxy in modern terms… A much more radical recasting … is demanded, in the process of which the most fundamental categories of our theology---of God, of the supernatural, and of religion itself---must go into the melting…

“For I am convinced that there is a growing gulf between the traditional orthodox supernaturalism in which our Faith has been framed and the categories which the ‘lay’ world … finds meaningful today… among one’s intelligent non-Christian friends one discovers many who are far nearer to the Kingdom of heaven than they themselves can credit. For while they imagine they have rejected the Gospel, they have in fact largely been put off by a particular way of thinking about the world which quite legitimately they find incredible.”

He begins the book with the startling statement, “The Bible speaks of a God ‘up there.’ No doubt its picture of a three-decker universe, of ‘the heaven above, the earth beneath and the waters under the earth’ [Ex 20:4] was once taken quite literally. No doubt also its more sophisticated writers, if pressed, would have been the first to regard this as symbolic language to represent and convey spiritual realities. Yet clearly they were not pressed… Even such an educated man as St. Luke can express the conviction of Christ’s ascension… in the crudest terms of being ‘lifted up’ into heaven, there to sit down at the right hand of the Most High [Acts 1:9-11]… Moreover, it is the two most mature theologians of the New Testament, St. John and the later Paul, who write most uninhibitedly of this ‘going up’ and ‘coming down.’ … For the New Testament writers the idea of a God ‘up there’ created no embarrassment---because it had not yet become a difficulty.” (Pg. 11-12)

He continues, “we do not realize how crudely spatial much of the Biblical terminology is, for we have ceased to perceive it that way… For in place of a God who is literally or physically ‘up there’ we have accepted, as part of our mental furniture, a God who is spiritually or metaphysically ‘out there.’ … But in fact the coming of the space age has destroyed this crude projection of God---and for that we should be grateful. For if God is ‘beyond,’ he is not LITERALLY beyond anything. But the idea of a God spiritually or metaphysically ‘out there’ dies very much harder.” (Pg. 13-14)

He clarifies, “the last thing I want to do is to appear to criticize from a superior position. I should like to think that it were possible to use this mythological language of the God ‘out there’ and make the same utterly natural and unselfconscious transposition as I have suggested we already do with the language of the God ‘up there.’ … But the signs are that we are reaching the point at which the whole conception of a God ‘out there’ … is itself becoming more of a hindrance than a help.” (Pg. 15-16)

He admits, “I was born into the heart of the ecclesiastical ‘establishment’… I never seriously thought of becoming anything but a parson; and however much I find myself instinctively a radical in matters theological, I belong by nature to the ‘once-born’ rather than to the ‘twice-born’ type, I never really doubted the fundamental truth of the Christian faith---though I have constantly found myself questioning its expression.” (Pg. 27)

He outlines, “it will be well to say at once that our concern will not be simply to substitute and immanent for a transcendent Deity, any more than we are implying that those who worked with the previous projection thought of him as being ONLY ‘out there’ and denied his immanence. On the contrary, the task is to validate the idea of transcendence for modern man.” (Pg. 43-44)

He argues, “The naturalist critique of supranaturalism is valid. It has torn down an idol and Christianity must not be found clinging to it. But equally Christianity must challenge the assumption of naturalism that God is merely a redundant name for nature or for humanity… The necessity for the name ‘God’ lies in the fact that our being has depths which naturalism, whether evolutionary, mechanistic, dialectical of humanistic, cannot or will not recognize.” (Pg. 54)

He asserts, “the traditional supernaturalistic way of describing the Incarnation almost inevitably suggests that Jesus was really God almighty walking about on earth, dressed up as a man… However guardedly it may be stated, the traditional view leaves the impression that God took a space-trip and arrived on this planet in the form of a man. Jesus was not really one of us; but through the miracle of the Virgin Birth he contrived to be born so as to appear one of us. Really he came from outside.” (Pg. 66) Later, he points out, “To say that Jesus had a unique experience of God, that he displayed all the qualities of God, that he was like God or that God was like him---this can never add up to saying that he was ‘of one substance’ with the Father.” (Pg. 69)

He suggests, “The ‘kenotic’ theory of Christology, based on this conception of self-emptying, is, I am persuaded, the only one that offers much hope of relating at all satisfactorily the divine and the human in Christ. Yet… this theory… represents Christ as stripping himself precisely of those attributes of transcendence which make him the revelation of God. The underlying assumption is that it is … all that makes him ‘superhuman,’ that must be shed in order for him to become truly man. On the contrary, it is as he empties himself not of his Godhead but of himself… that he reveals God.” (Pg. 74-75)

He observes, “The purpose of worship is not to retire from the secular into the department of the religious… but to open oneself to the meeting of the Christ in the common, to that which has the power to penetrate its superficiality and redeem it from its alienation. The function of worship is to make us more sensitive to these depths… Anything that fails to do this is not Christian worship, be it every so ‘religious.’” (Pg. 87-88) Later, he adds, “Prayer is openness to the ground of our being… This means… that it is impossible to compile a prayer manual comparable with the old guides to ‘the spiritual life.’” (Pg. 102)

He states, “this supranaturalistic ethic … seriously distorts the teaching of Jesus… this is to treat the Sermon on the Mount as the new Law… The moral precepts of Jesus are not to be understood legalistically… pronouncing certain courses of action universally right and others universally wrong… they are illustrations of what love may at any moment require of anyone… the parables are precisely not interesting stories of general application, but the call of the Kingdom to a specific group or individual at a particular moment.” (Pg. 110-111)

He summarizes, “It will doubtless seem to some that I have by implication abandoned the Christian faith and practice altogether. On the contrary, I believe that UNLESS we are prepared for the kind of revolution of which I have spoken it WILL COME to be abandoned. And that will be because it is molded… by a cast of thought … which, with their different emphases, Bultmann describes as mythological,’ Tillich as ‘supranaturalist,’ and Bonhoeffer as ‘religious.’” (Pg. 123) He continues, “Such a recasting will, I am convinced, leave the fundamental truth of the Gospel unaffected. But it means that we have to be prepared for EVERYTHING to go into the melting---even our most cherished religious categories and moral absolutes. And the first thing we must be ready to let go is our image of God himself.” (Pg. 124) He concludes, “as for the images of God… I am prepared to be an agnostic with the agnostic, even an atheist with the atheists. Such is the release I find in the story of St. Paul’s great encounter with the men of Athens.” (Pg. 127)

While the ‘radicality’ of this book has diminished considerably in the 50+ years since it was written, Robinson’s book retains much vigor. One might note that he became significantly more ‘conservative’ in his theology over the years; see his last few books, for instance. (Interested readers might want to also read The Honest to God Debate.)

[Scott · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this as background to a discussion with a friend. N.T. Wright does a much better review of the book than I ever could here: http://ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Doubts....

Robinson was uncomfortable with traditional British Christianity in the years after World War II. As Wright notes in his review, some of his concerns had merit. Yet the massive reductionism of Robinson's approach seems to lead to a "keep what you like, toss what you don't" approach that hasn't served the Anglican church well at all.

[Thomas Fisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Robinson asks probing, daring questions of Christianity's presuppositions about supernaturalism that would strike most as heretical. The questions are interesting, sometimes useful, rarely articulated clearly. Robinson offers few real answers but rather jabs and pokes at various assumptions.

[Paul Dubuc · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm with C. S. Lewis on this one; wondering why God can't be both immanent and transcendent. What's the problem?

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thin book, but deep in content. I had to re-read a lot of paragraphs. Wonderful content! I highlighted something on almost every page.

[Evan Kostelka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written in the 1960s, this is still as applicable and enlightening as ever.

I wrote a summary of the book, it is probably filled with typos and grammatical errors, but there was so much I wanted to summarize for myself.

Honest to God
John A. T. Robinson

1. Preface and Chapter 1: Reluctant Revolution
There is a growing gulf between the orthodox supernaturalism that the Christian faith has been framed and the categories the ‘non-church’ and ‘lay’ persons sees as meaningful. What is needed is not a restating of traditional orthodoxy in modern terms, for if that is all as seen necessary, the faith will dwindle to a small remnant.
The Scriptures use the imagery from a ‘three-tiered’ universe frequently: heaven above, earth beneath, and the waters under the earth. Jesus descended to Earth, he ascended to heaven. Nobody takes really takes this literally. There is no people sitting outside the earth’s atmosphere as the Scriptures depict. Instead, we have accepted a God who is spiritually or meta-physically ‘out there’ instead of one ‘up there.’ The picture of a God ‘out there’ coming to earth like a visitor underlies every major presentation of the Christian drama of salvation. How is this more than a sophisticated Old Man in the Sky? To re-think this (repent, metanoia) idea of God, the author looks at three other sources: Paul Tillich, who describes God as the ‘infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of all being;’ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who meditates on a ‘religionless Christianity’ where Christians are called to a form not dependent on the premise of religion (no desire for personal supernatural salvation or sense of inherent guilt); and Rudolf Bultmann, who sees the ‘mythological’ language of pre-existence, incarnation, ascent/descent, miraculous intervention, and so on as belonging to an antiquated world view. Instead, theology needs to relate to the real world.
As stated by Mike McHargue:
God is AT LEAST the natural forces that created and sustain the Universe as experienced via a psychosocial model in human brains that naturally emerges from innate biases. EVEN IF that is a comprehensive definition for God, the pursuit of this personal, subjective experience can provide meaning, peace, and empathy for others.

2. Chapter 2: End of Theism
Traditional Christianity was based on the proofs of God. The presupposition is that there is an entity or being ‘out there’ whose existence is problematic and must be proved. Rather, seeing God as ultimate reality, leads to the questions about what ultimate reality is and how we learn from it. Deists advocated a grand Architect God, who set the world in motion and let it run. The Genesis stories of Creation and the Fall are representations of the deepest truths about man and the universe in the form of myth rather than history, and are none the less valid. Currently, in the scientific world, and human affairs in general, what we call ‘God’ is being more and more edged out of life. Bonhoeffer speaks of the God of ‘religion’ as a deus ex machina (God of the gaps), who is there to provide answers and explanations where our capacities fail. But such a God is being pushed further and further back as secular studies advance. The author’s concern is not to just substitute an immanent Deity for a transcendent one, but to validate the idea of transcendence for modern man.

3. Chapter 3: Ground of our Being
Tillich proposes replacing the images of ‘height’ by those of ‘depth’ in order to express the truth of God. When Tillich speaks of God in ‘depth’ he is speaking of the ‘infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of all being’ not simply another Being somewhere ‘out there.’ God denotes the ultimate depth of being, the creative ground and meaning of all existence. This is in opposition to the Man in the Sky: “a supreme Person, a self-existent subject of infinite goodness and power, who enters into a relationship with us comparable with that of one human personality with another.” If Tillich is right, then theological statements are not a description of a ‘highest Being’, but an ‘analysis of the depths of all experiences, interpreted by love.’ Statements of God are acknowledgments of the transcendent, unconditional element in all our relationships. Love is of God. The eternal Thou is met only in, with, and under the finite Thou, whether in the encounter with other persons or in the response to the natural order. Tillich writes elsewhere that a secular world gave consecration and holiness to our daily life and work but “excluded those deep things for which religion stands: the feeling for the inexhaustible mystery of life, the grip of an ultimate meaning of existence, and the invincible power of an unconditional devotion.” The question of God is whether this depth of being is a reality or an illusion. The only way to Christ is through the ‘least of these brethren.’ As in the parable of the Sheep and Goats, an encounter with the Son of Man is through a ‘secular’ concern for food, water, housing, hospitals, and prisons, just as Jeremiah defined the knowledge of God in justice for the poor. Prayer is only meaningful insofar it relates back to common experience.

4. Chapter 4: The Man for Others
Popular religion has expressed the Incarnation as God the Son coming down to earth, living, and dying within this world as a man. From ‘out there’ God graciously entered the human scene as one ‘not of it’ and lived genuinely and completely within it. Jesus was ‘fully God and fully man.’ This view leads to God looking like a man, talking like a man, feeling like a man, but just dressed up and not really a man – like Father Christmas. As long as God and man are thought of as two ‘beings’ each with distinct natures, one from ‘the other side’ and one from ‘this side’, then it is impossible to create out of them more than a God-man, a visitant from ‘out there.’ The mythological description can survive as myth, since this gives divine depth to the history. Jesus was simply the most God-like man that ever lived, but according to this view, Kirkeegard displas the parody that “if a thing is well said, the man is genius – if it is unusually well-said, then God said it.” The New Testament does not say that Jesus was God, just like that, rather, if one looked at Jesus, one saw God. In this man, in his life, death, and resurrection they had experienced God at work. It is in Jesus the ultimate, unconditional love of God is seen. Bonhoeffer wrote: The Bible directs man to the powerlessness and suffering of God. In a life for others, through participation in the being of God, is transcendence. A perfect man and perfect God is the embodiment through obedience of ‘the beyond in our midst,’ the transcendence of love. Much of atonement doctrine is a perversion of what the New Testament says. The abyss of separation is actually the feeling of meaningless, emptiness, doubt, and cynicism which separates us from the roots and meaning of our life. Grace comes when we accept the fact we are accepted. The author ends with a quote of Bonhoeffer, who concludes “It is not some religious act which makes a Christian what he is, but participation in the suffering of God in the life of the world.”

5. Chapter 5: Worldly Holiness
‘What is the place of worship and prayer in an entire absence of religion?’ is how the chapter begins. In popular thought, worship becomes a realm to withdraw from the world to be with God. The holy place, where Christ is met, lies within the circle of the religious. However, the purpose of worship should be to make us more sensitive to Christ in the common, seeing God in more places. The test of worship is how far it makes us more sensitive to the beyond in our midst, not trying to find God in the gaps. There is necessity for withdrawal, disengagement, and standing back in our lives, however. Prayer may need to be defined in terms of penetrating through the world to God rather than withdrawal from the world to God. Wrestling though issues with others would seem to be a type of prayer. The ‘heart’ in the biblical sense is not the inward life, but the whole man in relation to God. To pray for another is to see one’s concern for him in terms of ultimate concern. It may consist in simply listening or in action. The author believes teaching on prayer should begin with taking the world, history, the diary, seriously as the locus of incarnation. The words of St. Augustine “Love God and do what you like” were never safe but they constitute the heart of Christian prayer.

6. Chapter 6: The New Morality
Prayer and ethics are simply the inside and outside of the same thing. The transition from God ‘up there’ to ‘out there’ has long since been made and ‘absolute standards’ of morality are normally presented for obedience stripped of mythological garb. In the 1950s and 60s, divorce was a hot button topic. The supernaturalist interpretation sees marriage, like all else, based upon the absolute command or law of God. The moral precepts of Jesus are not intended to be legalistic, they are parables of the Kingdom of God. Except to the man who believes in ‘the God out there’ absolute claims have no compelling sanction or self-authenticating foundation. It cannot answer the question ‘why is this wrong?’ in terms of intrinsic realities of the situation itself – only Because I said so! Ethics in a changing world must be understood as the ethics of mediating the meeting of the eternal and temporal. Love is the constitutive principle, law is at most a regulative one. Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath, compassion for persons over-rides all law. One cannot start from the position ‘sex before marriage’ or ‘divorce’ are wrong or sinful in themselves. They may be in most, but not all cases, but the only intrinsic evil is lack of love. Love’s gate is strict and narrow and its requirements infinitely deeper and more penetrating. It is much more demanding to ask and answer ‘do you love her’, ‘how much do you love her?’

7. Chapter 7: Recasting the mold
Unless we are prepared for this revolution, the faith will come to be largely abandoned. Romans 8:38 is at the heart of what it means to be Christian. Seeing Christ as the revelation, the laying bare, of the very heart and being of ultimate reality. To demythologize is not to suppose that we can dispense with all myth or symbol, or that it is needed to do so. Without the constant discipline of theological thought, asking what we really mean by the symbols, purging out dead myths, and being utterly honest before God with ourselves and the world, the Church can quickly become obscurantist and its faith and conduct and worship increasingly formal and hollow. The last thing t Church exists to be is an organization for the religious. Bonhoeffer wrote, “The Church is her true self when she exists for humanity.” He proposed clergy even having secular positions. The laity is the laos, or people of God in the world. The author continues to question whether the main function of church is to make or keep men religious. The basic commitment to Christ in the past may have been buttressed and fortified by many lesser commitments to a particular projection of God, a particular ‘myth’ of the Incarnation, a particular code of morals, or a particular pattern of religion. However, for growing numbers, these are barriers rather than supports. We have a long way to go and to begin we must be honest and go from there.

[John Martindale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Robinson seemed to have thought with Bultmann that anyone who uses a toaster and enjoys modern transportation due to the the glorious progress of science cannot believe in a miracle, or the supernatural. Naturalism is self evidently and undeniably true, miracles do not and cannot happen. Period. I personally don't have a problem with the concept of a miracle, if there is a God who can act within the material world, though invisible, surely natural laws are no more violated than when human actors manipulate the material order. If I pick up a pencil, is the pencil violating the laws of nature? If not for me picking it up, it wouldn't rise up. Now if I used smoke and mirrors so you couldn't see me, but only could see the pencil, and I raised the pencil up, would it be violating the laws of gravity? It might look it, but an active force is still lifting it up. There is a lot in our world that wouldn't happen except for the action of intelligent agents, if God is an intelligent agent, who can act, though not visible to the naked eye, then doesn't seem any different. Naturalism doesn't have the draw for me as it did for Robinson, I see no rational reason to reject the possibility of a miracle a priori, as a matter of principle. Though I have no issue with the possibility of miracles, some stories in the bible definitely have the flavor of fable, and myth, this seems undeniable and I understand being skeptical with such tales. But yeah, really my ultimate issue with miracles is tied to the problem of evil, which Robinson didn't even mention. When we consider the many vulnerable children within religious environments who despite calling out to God, are molested and sexually abused, while God does absolutely nothing, it is then that a God who can act (even in the most subtle and non-coercive) way but doesn't, seems wholly culpable. So this is the reason I am curious in Robinson's attempt to make sense of God in light of his rejection of theism—a personal and active God.
But as with modern proponents like Peter Rollins, I find this attempt at an alternative understanding of God to be extremely vague, it is so unclean. It is far too hard to answer the question “so what?”. Really why should we give this God any mind at all? It might be nice to be able to say “Yes, I still believe in God”, but it does seems this ground of all Being that cannot do anything, hear or answer prayers, isn't conscious or aware, doesn't make demands or reveal himself, is going to fade into insignificance.
In some vague way Being itself is said to be love, a love that cannot DO anything. I suppose we can say God is like the platonic form of the good. I suppose we can then try to abide in love, and when we love others, then in some way we abide in love, and thus abide in God.
Here is a long quote from Bonhoeffer which Robinson shared that I did really like, it is from some final notes on the book he was planning on writing, but never got to due to his execution. This quote is worth reading and meditating on for those who are genuinely wondering what is actually meant by 'God' in light of the deep incongruities between what God is claimed to be, and our own inescapable experience of reality.
"God allows himself to be edged out of the world and on to the cross. God is weak and powerless in the world, and that is exactly the way, the only way, in which he can be with us and help us.... 
...What do we mean by 'God'? Not in the first place an abstract belief in his omnipotence, etc. That is not a genuine experience of God, but a partial extension of the world. Encounter with Jesus Christ, implying a complete orientation of human being in the experience of Jesus as one whose only concern is for others. This concern of Jesus for others the experience of transcendence. This freedom from self, maintained to the point of death, the sole ground of his omnipotence, omniscience and ubiquity. Faith is participation in this Being of Jesus. Our relation to God, not a religious relationship to a supreme Being, absolute in power and goodness, but a new life for others, through participation in the Being of God. The transcendence consist not in tasks beyond our scope and power, but in the nearest Thou at hand. God in human form, not, as in other religions, in animal form--monstrous, chaotic, remote and terrifying--nor yet in abstract form--the absolute, metaphysical, infinite, etc.--nor yet in the Greek divine-human of autonomous man, but man existing for others, and hence the Crucified. A Life based on the transcendent."

I do want to make a side note: Concerning the discourse on the ascension. Supposing Jesus was raised from the dead, appeared to several and eventually ascended, we might in reality, with N T Wright consider this to mean Jesus moved to another overlapping dimension. He didn't go “up” to some heaven in the sky. The deal is if Jesus was to do so, how best to represent this? By descending down? By walking away, by disappearing, or by ascending up? Most likely by ascending up.

[Robert McAnally]

Honest to Pete!

     Honest to God is the work that catapulted Bishop John A. T. Robinson from the ranks of obscure Anglican scholar to theological fame in Great Britain and throughout the Anglican communion. Its shocking premise that the age-old expressions of Christian thought (as in the Bible) are outmoded and incapable of being transmitted to members of present-day Western culture are the starting point for an analysis that leads to a substantial revision of not merely the language but the content of the Christian evangel and faith. His conclusions are that these new assertions of faith must displace the old ones in the Christian church, or one risks having a religion with no adherents. The book as a whole owes much to the "demythologizing" premise suggested by Bultmann and others.
     My father read Honest to God when it was new some thirty-seven years ago (1963) and very popular, considered at the time to be a rather daring challenge to "fundamentalism" in the Anglican Church. In the course of reading it he picked out a couple of really brilliant quotations from Bishop Robinson for his notebook, suggesting to my mind that the book as a whole might be quite exciting and full of good insights. He found the only two things worth quoting in the whole book, it turns out. Very well done, Dad.
     The fact is that, for all its claims to a modern, scientific outlook, this quaint little book spends ninety percent of the time dabbling with sophistries that wouldn't stop a real thinker for a minute. Much of this centers on a critique of classical theological ideas, such as, the "three-tier universe" of what the writer terms "medieval" thought.
     For example, the notion that the phrase, "Christ's ascension", meant that He or the one who wrote the story could not understand that the world is round and that therefore His ascension was not in a definable direction (and therefore did not happen as reported) is absurd. It is true that considering a spherical earth, "up" has only a local meaning, but its meaning is perfectly definite in that context. This is just silly.
     In his attempt to represent the results of modern or scientific thought, and its supposed implications for theology, Bishop Robinson demonstrates over and over again that his grasp of scientific thought and analysis is quite superficial and often flawed.
     The arguments become increasingly deep and hard to follow as the book progresses through one skeptical reflection after another. The "doubting" argument ("the ground of our being", Tillich) of Descartes is revisited for the umpteenth time. The author struggles and writhes in his quest for a non-all-powerful god, so that he won't have to think about miracles. He flails for a non-supernatural ethic and a paradigm of religion that is not grounded in faith but in rationality, in order to escape the supposed superstition of his Victorian parents.
     Now at this point I have to admit that I am probably not fit to critique the fine points of Bishop Robinson's arguments, especially when it comes to the support he draws from such writers as Emil Brunner and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I find it troubling that Bishop Robinson can draw such humanist conclusions from writers who, in my reading, so profoundly affirm the reality, sovereignty, and authority of God, and His revelation in Jesus Christ, especially Bonhoeffer, whose book, Life Together, expresses so deep a love for Jesus. (The answer to this dilemma is, by the way, the notion that one has to read Bonhoeffer in a special way, according to Martin Marty.)
     But the good bishop has written a book that popularizes these strange views, mostly derived from Tillich and Bultmann. So, at least, I can critique the conclusion, however "popularized". And the conclusion is, that we need to throw out, discard, all our traditional thought about God, Jesus, salvation, creation, the cosmos, Christian ethics, etc., because (1) these ideas have become corrupted with medieval theological concepts, (2) the plain sense of the Scriptures are no longer credible in large part because of the progress society has made in thinking, scholarship, and science, and (3) a revolution is needed to sweep all the superstitious elements out of church doctrine and institute a new regime of free thought and more enlightened theological inquiry.
     So, my critique is as follows: pfooey. God is good (no other universe is tolerable), and He has revealed Himself to us in His Son (no other explanation of Jesus is tenable), in the light of the Holy Spirit (no other source of conviction is credible). If Bishop Robinson is so blind that God's revelation cannot penetrate him, then he should go off and invent a new religion and leave the rest of us alone to follow Christ under the leading of the Holy Spirit. C. S. Lewis was right: much of modern criticism is based on ideas so shallow and speculations so far-fetched that in real life, no one would bet a cup of coffee on them. I am reminded of G. I. Bonner, who wrote, "A certain group of scholars... has rushed to abandon positions before they were attacked, and to demythologize the Gospel message when there was no clear evidence that intelligent minds outside the Church were any more frightened by her mystery than by her morals."
     As to the main premise of Honest to God, namely, the necessity of changing the language of the Gospel, E. L. Mascall, in his book, The Secularization of Christianity, offers the following devastating critique:

     Restatement of the faith once delivered to the saints, however fresh, intelligent, and contemporary the language in which it might be expressed, has already been rejected as insufficiently radical to meet the situation. One might be pardoned for supposing that [Bishop John A. T.] Robinson had despaired of trying to convert the world to Christianity and had decided instead to try to convert Christianity to the world. And this is what, as far as I can see, he would be committing himself to doing if he saw the full implication of his words.

     Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to underestimate the importance of Honest to God: within sixteen years of its publication, the 39 Articles of the Episcopal Church in the United States had been moved from their position in the 1928 prayer book, as a definitive statement of doctrine of the church, to an appendix of historical documents, in the 1979 prayer book. While the heresy of Honest to God may have been a mere exploration, solely intended to vent the author's frustration with the outmoded expressions of orthodoxy, it is clear that it was welcomed as mother's milk by the theological liberals in America. In the long run, its "honesty" is less significant than its (lack of) truth.
     Many of the conclusions of Bishop Robinson have found their way into the writing of Bishop John Spong, whose gnostic declarations have made him notorious and popular with a certain segment of Episcopalianism. The passage of time has not ripened these ideas, and it is one of the ironies that Bishop Spong is not able to move past the foolish sophistries that Robinson expends so much effort over. It does no credit to the theological liberal cause that its most articulate representative can think of nothing new.
     Truly, this is a dismal book, and I do not recommend the reading of it for anything but background. If your taste runs to Bultmann redux or amateur relativity, be my guest, but don't say I didn't warn you.

[David Grypma · Rating 4 out of 5]

SPOILERS

Though this was written in the 1960's, it has only become more relevant to our current age. The modest quest of the author is to conceive of God in the way that we already believe about Him, rather than upholding imagery and constructs of God that we know not to be true. He then carries this line of thinking to a couple of topics, such as Christology, prayer, morality, and the role of the church.

He defines God as a middle ground between supranaturalism (three-tiered universe), and myth, that is, the "I Am" that gives depth and ground to our being. Instead of God relating to us in 'height' up there, is it more true to speak of God relating to us in 'depth' of our experience of existence?

For Christ - "what God was, the Word was". Robinson quotes Bonhoeffer: "it is not by his omnipotence that Christ helps us, but by his weakness and suffering... The Bible however directs him to the powerlessness and suffering of God; only a suffering God can help". Jesus is the 'man for others', the one in whom Love has completely taken over. The one who is utterly open to, and united with, the Ground of his being.

Prayer as not being a dichotomy between 'escaping to God' and the secular ... rather as an engagement in the world and where God is simultaneously immanent and transcendent in the world.

Morality as having Love as the ultimate source of being.

The church as being wholly devoted to the world, rather than having ulterior motives.

This book is completely heretical, but also completely orthodox, because it measures up the facets of faith that Robinson talks about against the Kingdom that is fulfilled by Jesus. "The true radical is the man who continually subjects the Church to the judgement of the Kingdom, to the claims of God in the increasingly non-religious world which the Church exists to serve".

"I would see much more hope for the Church if it was organized not to defend the interests of religion against the inroads of the state... but to equip Christians, by the quality and power of its community life, to enter with their secret strivings of our day, there to follow and to find the workings of God."

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

****½

It’s decades since I read John A. T. Robinson's book, Honest to God — so long ago that, when I picked it up recently to read again, it seemed like a completely different book! It has truly stood the test of time. Originally published in 1963, it ignited discussions about Christian beliefs and doctrines during a period of increasing secularisation. Robinson was, at the time, the Anglican Bishop of Woolwich. Robinson offers an examination of theology and presents an alternative perspective — that God is not some supernatural entity existing apart from us but rather the very essence of our existence.

This book presents a thought-provoking exploration that encourages readers to reconsider their ideas about God and religion. While it may not necessarily guide readers towards spirituality, it emphasises that religion has strayed from its intended path. Robinson's writing style is accessible, allowing readers to grasp his arguments and concepts.

At the heart of this book lies the notion that God's not an intervening being but rather an integral part of our being. Robinson suggests that we can find God in every aspect of life, enabling us to experience divinity within our existence. Furthermore, he challenges the idea that Christianity alone holds all truth and proposes that all religions offer insights.

Naturally, since its publication, this book has faced criticism. It remains a topic of controversy. Some individuals have criticised Robinson for advocating a version of Christianity that prioritises justice over doctrines. However, no matter what your opinion is about the book, it's clear that it has had an impact on theology and has influenced the beliefs of many people when it comes to God and religion.

"Honest to God" is a thought-provoking piece of literature that challenges readers to reconsider their perspectives on God and religion. Robinson's writing style can be challenging, but it is worth the challenge. And while there are those who may disagree with the book, its influence on theology cannot be ignored, as it has shaped the beliefs of individuals when it comes to God and religion. I highly recommend this book to anyone who's interested in exploring ideas about God and religion.

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Robinson's work has a solid thread of meaningful insight into the power of the Gospel for the modern age. It is a Gospel of liberation from a powerful church; a church that one joins to be respectable, because God is a respectable gentleman just like me. Instead, this “religionless God” who is crucified outside the walls of religion is the God who is profoundly and deeply the baseline of our being. Within this moment, Robinson is tapping into the profound insights of the Desert Fathers and monastic tradition. While he doesn’t seem to quote Jesus very much, he is placing Jesus Gospel message of union with him in John 15 (“I am the vine, you are the branches”), and Paul’s various expositions of this in his letters (For example, Col 1:24-29, where Paul says that the power of the Gospel in the Church is Christ’s union with all people therein: “To them God chose to make known how great among the gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory”) at the core of the Christian message. That being said, one wonders precisely which God Robinson is talking about. He quotes Paul Tillich and Bonhoeffer sufficiently, but one hardly imagines them being friends on the matter of who God reveals himself to be. Bonhoeffer speaks from a moral center of the mystery of the Triune God revealing himself in the incarnate and crucified Son of God. Tillich isn’t so sure who God is, and as far as Honest to God is concerned, neither is Robinson. God is Love, and love is the end of the law (p. 120), but one begins to wonder if there is any meaningful revelation to be had about what makes a Christian profession about Love different from the Psychologist's? Moreover, one does not help but feel that Robinson lacks any sense of self-awareness when he seeks to separate his work from his Bishopric: “I am deliberately writing only as an ordinary churchman” (pp. 26-27). One feels that Robinson protests a bit too much and lacks the self-awareness to see how paternalising his project is, that he is merely “brave enough” to speak the way layman speak, while never quoting a layman in the work and extensively citing academic theologians like Tillich and Bultmann.

[Steve Irby · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just finished "Honest to God," by John A. T. Robinson.

Robinson uses demythologization (Bultmann) symbol swapping (Tillich) for a religionless Christianity (Bonhoeffer) so that tomorrow's church appeals to the modern person via a nonsupernatural Christianity; basically attractive to the agnostic and atheist. He has two sides he's playing here and it's vague because he doesn't define "religious" or "religion" (man reaching to God as opposed to "revelation" God reaching to man).

The demythologization and symbol swapping method or achieving a religion religionless Christianity is doomed based on the above definition because God is supernatural and all revelation is supernatural. Though making religion look different and more active/proactive serving the world are good points. We have become a nested people; a pregnant woman who refuses to give birth; we are often silos turned echo chamber who speak about "them" and "us" rather than serving.

#HonestToGod #JohnATRobinson #JATRobinson #Deconstruction