Eternal Life: A New Vision: Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell

by John Shelby Spong

Drawing on a lifetime of wisdom, New York Times bestselling author and controversial religious leader John Shelby Spong continues to challenge traditional Christian theology in Eternal A New Vision . In this remarkable spiritual autobiography about his lifelong struggle with the questions of God and death, he reveals how he ultimately came to believe in eternal life.

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

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

John Shelby Spong was the Episcopal bishop of Newark before his retirement in 2000. As a leading spokesperson for an open, scholarly, and progressive Christianity, Bishop Spong has taught at Harvard and at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. He has also lectured at universities, conference centers, and churches in North America, Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific. His books include: A New Christianity for a New World, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Resurrection: Myth or Reality? Why Christianity Must Change or Die, and his autobiography, Here I Stand.

Reviews

[Brian Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spong's perspective on religion in general is nearly as broad as Joseph Campbell’s. His personal journey from total believer, to scholarly critic of simplistic traditions, to seeker of mystical insight, resembles that of Reza Aslan. I enjoyed his reflections a lot, and took a pile of notes. Many of his lines are almost unforgettable.

[Fatima · Rating 4 out of 5]

the book as the writer menrioned is his internal autobiography"spirtual" and journey to answer the Q:is there a life after death?he answered with Yes!
let us go through his specualtions..
Second chapter composed on the idea that life is product of "chance" this part creats the consequence of "life & death" as if its small experience of the "life & deceasds" of the univers is if its "apart" parts,then reaching the conclusion of this chapter that human life moved from being coiencedence to Consciousness to a mature self consciousness which reflects the Univers Cycle also...
dancing with death from early ages until having a complete vision bout what it means to die,and realization that religious explanation not meant to answer Q's rather than to repress reality, turning to Church...
"coz i was reading without msking any updates will continou randomly"...
there was reflection on God's creations plants ,animals and its roles in life and survival,also the writer reflected on human being and its delevlopment frim being nomad to agriculture, development of life until it became trible and also the religion and the change from faminine to masculine...

[Andrew Skretvedt · Rating 3 out of 5]

An imperfect book with some valuable insights.


Two stars for the introductory chapters on death. These are awesome perspective! Life gets meaning because it's finite.

One star for Spong's atheistic argument against religion. One of priesthood makes the case that some of the things we do in the name of The Lord, are just plain silly when you get right down to it. Worse, they cause harm. Unlike some other fabulous books from the atheist perspective (The God Delusion, Breaking the Spell, The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, etc.), this one _actually_ has a chance of being picked up by the religious and not thrown immediately down in a big huff.

Spong loses two stars for the remaining 1/3rd of the book, where he goes right off the rails by coming back to religion (while simultaneously rejecting it...he gets very confusing), only a clumsily bastardized form of it that's one shake spiritualism and one shake Gospel (only, properly, as he interprets it). He totally falls down here by failing to recognize (or give up) that you don't need religion for some of the underlying ideas in that last portion to be valid.

By rejiggering religion and holding up the taped remains of the Bible he'd previously shredded, he's only succeeding in giving the same kind of vapid indefensible backing to ideas that just _might_ deserve some real, honest consideration. By re-invoking religion in support of his grand spiritualist vision, he leaves adherents vulnerable to the same types of coercion and defrauding to which they were just previously vulnerable before they tossed aside their Bibles. I got the distinct sense here that Spong didn't have a coherent sense of where he was going or what he was doing with his ideas. He was thinking about it fresh on paper (maybe he wanted to write it out fast lest it not be written at all, he is a rather elderly man, after all).

In the end, I don't buy his concepts. Eternal Life: TRUE!*

* eternal life = experience of the unique one-ness of the universal ground of all being which surrounds us and penetrates us and binds us to the tree, the rock, the land, the ship. Use what you've learned, save you it can. (Okay, I jest here, but what claptrap!)

The required redefinition of life and eternity become almost a joke just to make the book's title work. I get the sense Spong himself doesn't really even buy it completely or it'd be easier for him to communicate.

What I do buy is the notion that we are eternal in the sense that while we live, we produce impacts that affect others, no matter what our station in life. We are affected, have the lives we have, in part do to the actions of long dead humanity, mostly nameless and faceless and totally unknown, some known to history, some select few personally close friends and relatives. We in turn each create ripples through our lives that impact others, starting with the people who are close to us, and via strings of impacts one person to the next, our impact is felt directly or indirectly, large or infinitesimal, upon the rest of humanity.

So our eternal life is the lasting impact we have by striving to live as best we are able. It's not really a mystery. You can think deeply and think about how our self-conscious experience, emerging from the same basic matter that makes up the rest of the universe, might be one way for the universe to "know" about itself. Yeah, that has a certain satisfaction, a certain aesthetic to it.

We don't need a carefully rehashed version of Christian dogma to support it. It's self evident, once you've experienced enough life and gained enough knowledge.

Kudos (but no stars) for the epilogue, where Spong deals with the question of euthanasia and the right to die. In addition to being an atheist, I'm also a libertarian. I believe I own myself. My consciousness lives here in this body. It homesteads it, it's the only thing that can. Therefore, my body is its rightful property. I can choose to use my property any way I see fit, barring interference with the rights of others to use their property.

I can sell it, I can lease it out, I can conserve it, I can remodel and fortify it. I can choose to dispose of it as well, when it becomes obvious that it can no longer suit me, and no more good can come from its continued operation.

If a government interferes with your ability to use your property as you desire, then it's really not yours, it's theirs, and they're just letting you have some conditional access. Of all the things people choose to be offended by, for me, it's this notion that the Government is the real owner of things and even ourselves, that is truly offensive.

On the right to choose to end one's life then, my characterization is stark. Spong's is beautiful and proper.

I feel like I have traveled beyond this book. Even it's atheistic arguments are primitive compared to others I've read or have just now started reading about.

However, for anyone dealing right now with death, it's opening chapters lend very comforting perspective from someone who has seen and experienced so much death. I highly recommend them.

For others, principally religious individuals who have been trained or otherwise learned to reject anything atheistic, Spong's words may have gentle authority enough to get you to let your guard down a bit, without comedown or condescension, just long enough to let you do some serious thinking.

You might be surprised at your reaction. You might be further surprised to realize that casting aside some or all of that religion won't cause the world to end, or demons to enrapture you, or evil to enter your heart. You might be surprised to realize your life become suddenly all the more valuable to you, once you know fully well how wonderful a gift you have, and what you can loose out on by squandering it.

[Lee Harmon · Rating 5 out of 5]

For all you Spong fans who were beginning to grow frustrated at his vagueness, this book tackles an important subject head on. What are liberal Christians (at least those in the Spong mold) supposed to make of the Bible's promise of eternal life?

We needn't depend upon the supernatural in order to grasp eternal life, for all life is deeply linked. Spong quotes Einstein's provocative claim to explain: "I feel myself so much a part of everything living that I am not the least concerned with the beginning or ending of the concrete existence of any one person in this eternal flow." Spong wants us to "embrace infinity," to "transcend time." But he hopes for us to discover the eternal in a very practical way. Eternity is within us, it is what it means to be human.

Spong writes, "The power of love flows through all forms of life, but it ceases to be instinctual and comes to self-consciousness only in human beings. That power of love is also part of who God is for me. This means that the more deeply I am able to love, the more God becomes a part of me. This is why no religion can in the last analysis ever really be about proper beliefs and proper practices ... Religion has to be about the enhancement of life through love." You've probably heard this before if you're a Spong fan, but it doesn't hurt to be reminded. Love is, after all, the key to finding life eternal.

But what about reward? Spong is quite happy to rid religion of both heaven and hell, having never been a fan of either. "The fact is that if you and I live our lives motivated by our desire to gain paradise or to avoid eternal punishment, then we have not escaped the basic self-centeredness of life that is so natural to survival-oriented, self-conscious creatures." In other words, eternal reward only gets in the way of the true Christian message.

Uplifting and timely, this is a book worth reading twice. I have.

[Joe Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I have been a big Spong fan for years; his intellectual integrity and courageous faith are an inspiration to me. Often, when reading his stuff, I have the realization, "Yes! That really resonates with and well expresses my thoughts/feelings." The two occasions when I have heard him in person and his writings have been a big blessing in my life.

That said, my initial reaction to this book was that somehow it does not seem as solidly supported and developed as his work that I had previously read. There are plenty of references to an impressively wide range of scientific, historical, literary, and religious material, as usual; but somehow a significant amount of what he had to say seemed just rather subjective and perhaps unconvincing to those of different persuasions and at "different places" in their journey. However, when he described this book as a spiritual autobiography, his approach and style made much more sense to me; it is, perhaps one could say, a much more personal work. It might also be subtitled: "Life and Death As I See It So Far."

It is notable that just as there were multiple times when he thought a given project would be his last book, again here he states his expectation that this will be his last book. As he says, this is his 5th "final book." But, this time given his advanced years (79 when book came out), I could believe he feels it more urgently, and at times it feels like he is trying get everything said. Nevertheless, "hope springs eternal in the human breast," so I would not be totally shocked to see yet another new Spong book at some point. I hope so.

[Csmccormk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought provoking! Great for those who are in a seeking mode!

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spong calls the format of this book a spiritual autobiography. He infuses his own experience with non-personal observations about life, reality, and the scriptures. Some of his beliefs and conclusions will seem very surprising, given that he was a bishop in the Episcopal Church. Three cheers for heresy?


Big Ideas:

+ The universe is mysterious and life seems to have arisen by accident (i.e. not with humans in mind)
- Most species that ever existed are now extinct
- Humans have only been around for a fraction of universal time


+ Humans’ unique self-consciousness gives rise to awareness of and anxiety about death. All human cultures developed religious ideas
- Religion was an effective way to understand reality and helped early humans deal with death
- Animism as a religion makes sense in hunter-gatherer cultures that depend on a wide variety of forces for life
- Feminine deities make sense in early agricultural societies as food comes from the earth like children come from the womb
- Masculine deities make sense as we began to understand the man’s role in reproduction and the role of other forces on agricultural production (sun, rain, and seeds being like semen, creating life inside the womb of the earth)
- Eventually religion became a way for human institutions to maintain power and control
- “Religion in the past was a search for security, but security is something that I no longer recognize as a virtue. I must seek to embrace insecurity as one of the essential marks of our humanity and strive to help people understand that it is no longer a vice, but a doorway into a new understanding of our humanity. The religion of the past sought to locate meaning and purpose in an external deity. That effort succeeded only in robbing life here and now of its own intrinsic worth, meaning and purpose. The religion of the past sought an answer to the unique human awareness of death by postulating a realm in which death is overcome. I seek to find a doorway into the eternal by going deeply into this life.”


+ Modern science creates problems for our primitive understanding of God
- God was thought of as being in the sky (the heavens), but where is God when you have traveled beyond the sky and understand the vastness and shape of the universe?
- “Religion is not a journey into an external deity, but a journey into the heart of our humanity, where we break out of our separation fears and enter the meaning of transcendence, oneness, timelessness and, finally, eternity. Perhaps God is that presence in whom, to use another personal word, or in which, to stretch our language substantially, ‘we live and move and have our being,’ as Paul is made to say in a sermon in the book of Acts (17:28).”
- “The power of love flows through all forms of life, but it ceases to be instinctual and comes to self-consciousness only in human beings. That power of love is also part of who God is for me. This means that the more deeply I am able to love, the more God becomes part of me. This is why no religion can in the last analysis ever really be about proper beliefs and proper practices. Those are only the artifacts of religious power. Religion has to be about the enhancement of life through love. Religious rules are sacred only if they serve to enhance life. That is the point Jesus was depicted as making when he declared that human life was not made to fit into the Sabbath day rules, but that the Sabbath day rules were created to enhance human life.”
- “We will never achieve human maturity until we let go and take leave of this parent substitute. Jesus is not to God what Clark Kent was to Superman. Jesus was a human life so deeply lived, a human life through which love flowed without barrier or interception, a being so courageously present that he was open to the ultimate ground of all being. He had stepped from self-consciousness into a universal consciousness that brings us into a profound oneness with all there is. He had become one with God.”
- “God is not a being external to life that we must woo and flatter to gain divine protection and ultimate triumph over the demons that beset us as we seek meaning, purpose and a stake in eternity. Running counter to this principle of our dying religious past is the mystical perception, more experienced than believed, more intuitive than doctrinal, that God is the ultimate being in which our being shares.”


+ Humans participate in eternity through our ability to remember the past, conceptualize the start of time, and project into an imagined future.
- We can also travel beyond physical space in our minds, so there is a very real way in which we are not limited like other beings
- The unique type of self-consciousness we have seems to unite us to a whole that is bigger than our individual selves. It can be hoped that we will participate in this whole in some way after our physical death
- “I feel myself so much a part of everything living that I am not the least concerned with the beginning or ending of the concrete existence of any one person in this eternal flow.” Albert Einstein
- “It appears increasingly clear that we are now awakening to a sense of oneness with all that is; indeed, we are more connected than our minds can yet embrace. Self-consciousness begins to look like just one more stage in our development that will finally bring us to an awareness of our essential oneness with the universe, a oneness that binds together the material and immaterial things, and even our bodies and our minds, perhaps as a universal consciousness.”
- “How do we move beyond this separation that appears to have come with and be a mark of self-consciousness? Can we understand selfhood without the kind of separation that in self-consciousness brought to us all of the anxieties that still plague human life?”
- “Individuation is just another step in the creation of a wholeness that enables the individuated one to be unique and part of the whole simultaneously. It is our recognition of the fact that only through the process of the individuation of the separated whole can that whole even be perceived.”
- “‘God’ is not an external being apart from us, to which we must relate as powerless ones to the all-powerful one. ‘God’ is more a glimpse into the meaning of the totality of human experiences, where we recognize that we are part of an ultimate grasping after a universal consciousness with which we are one and in which we are whole.”
- “John’s mystical approach to Jesus shouts the reality that we share in the life of God, just as Jesus did. We share in the being of God, just as Jesus did. Does that mean that our consciousness shares in the consciousness of God? I think it does, and as we become more deeply and fully conscious, we move from the being of survival to the being of love and we participate in and reveal the reality of God.”
- “The human quest for life after death is thus not based in any sense on the claim that my life or anyone else’s is immortal; it is based on a new awareness that self-conscious human life shares in the eternity of God and that, to the degree that I am in communion with that ever-expanding life force, that life-enhancing power of love and that inexhaustible Ground of Being, I will live, love and be a part of who God is, bound not by my mortality but by God’s eternity.”



Potent Quotables:

“People never think their way into new ways of acting, they always act their way into new ways of thinking.” Erich Fromm

“The church is like a swimming pool. Most of the noise comes from the shallow end.” Often attributed to John Shelby Spong, but originally from William H. Vanstone

“God” is present whenever a person transcends human boundaries and sees the portrait of unity, not separation.

The task of religion is not to turn us into proper believers; it is to deepen the personal within us, to embrace the power of life, to expand our consciousness, in order that we might see things that eyes do not normally see. It is to seek a humanity that is not governed by the need for security, but is expressed in the ability to give ourselves away. It is to live not frightened by death, but rather called by the reality of death to go into our humanity so deeply and so passionately that even death is transcended. That is the call of the fully human one, the Jesus of the transformed consciousness. To walk the Christ-path will take us beyond theism, but not beyond God; beyond incarnation, but not beyond discovering the divine at the heart of the human; beyond the death of every particular living thing, but not beyond meaning and purpose, because eternity has entered the particular in the self-conscious ones.

Ethics are always designed to assist in the expansion of life. Every act, whether it be individual or corporate, must be judged as right or wrong based solely on whether it enhances or diminishes the life of another. If my action diminishes another, it also diminishes me. A diminished life is never the place where holiness will be found. Diminished lives will never be loving lives.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, Spong critiques Christian fundamentalism and believes that instead of fundamentalism satisfying a desire for truth, it instead is geared toward satisfying a need for security and helping to quench the existential anxieties buried within us. This is perhaps why hypocrisy, bigotry, and prejudice are hidden from the conscious minds of those who require dogmatic certainty. Furthermore, according to Spong, this cannot be the path to freedom, wholeness, and the participation of love. He offers another alternative and that is the way of the mystics...a path more experienced than believed, more intuitive than doctrinal. A process of becoming.

Spong views the Garden of Eden as a myth (a description of some phenomenon of nature) representing the birth of human consciousness. With this birth comes existential anxiety and the creation of tribal type religions. Within the collective consciousness of the "tribe", it is very difficult to step outside and view the underlying characteristics of one's religion. But if we want to become fully human, we must recognize the dark side of religion and not keep these realities hidden from the conscious mind. Only then can we move beyond the ego to the transpersonal...to love.

Most of religion is fueled by fear, not love. "the church is like a swimming pool. Most of the noise comes from the shallow end." Spong believes that most of religion is really a projection of our own psychopathology. But there is good news. After these elements are recognized, we can move beyond religion, which is the only place God can really be found.

[Craig Bergland · Rating 5 out of 5]

While the book tends to bog down early on, and Spong recounts at some length the development of human life and consciousness from the big bang on (perhaps my perception was colored by the fact that I have heard that story so many times before), the book definitely turns a corner at about the halfway point and still earns five stars from me. He accurately describes what I believe is the essential evolutionary spiritual task of our day - moving from an understanding of God as an external, interventionist God who never seems to intervene to understanding God was dwelling within everything that is while affording humanity personal responsibility - and paints a picture of eternal life that is intellectually and spiritually satisfying. His epilogue about the right to die is very well done, too. This book will make you think, and unless your mind is hopelessly closed (in which case you would probably never consider reading anything by Bishop Spong) it will make you consider your own beliefs in a new light. With this book, Spong returns to the form and quality of his early works - which he had in my opinion lost in his more recent, deconstructionist books. Highly recommended!

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are comfortable with your religious faith, this isn't the book for you. If you have always been troubled by things the church told you to believe or ways your religion told you to behave, this is a thoughtful journey that explores looking at life by going through religion and coming out the other side. There are enough parallels to my own life's path for it to speak to me. If I ever still consider myself a "Christian" it is because of the writings of John Shelby Spong.

[Jessica Fraser]

for Adult Forum at church

[Jim Lavis · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Religion is dead.” Wow, this is a bold statement. John Shelby is certainly a scholar when it comes to Contemporary Theology, and I’ve never read anything so blatantly simple in my 30 years of studying world religions. I respect his work and hold him in the highest of esteem, but I’m not sure that I would have presented these views and beliefs in the way that he does in this book.

For example, in the fourth chapter, John reflects back to his childhood mindset to explain how he as a child processed death and what that meant to him. He continues to illustrate how a child thinks about heaven and hell through the whole chapter to make his point, and I felt this could have been properly captured within a few paragraphs. I don’t mind if he refers to an experience he had as a child to make a point, but dedicating a whole chapter to how a child understands and processes death didn’t work for me. It’s way too long.

Now don’t get me wrong, I would recommend this book in a minute, but the level of writing wasn’t what I expected. I know this was his last book before he passed, and if I’m not mistaken I believe he was in his 80’s when he wrote this book, so maybe his writing prowess wasn’t as sharp as it once was, but still the message and content within this book are incredible. He’s truly a scholar.

Now the simplicity of his message was that he doesn’t believe in heaven and hell or God as most major religions present them, and he did a fantastic job explaining what he meant by this, and he cited all his sources like any good scholar would.

Everything he shared in this book makes a lot of sense, and I believe it could replace the way we view God and the teaching of Jesus altogether for many people.

[Becca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the way Spong was able to weave together his personal narrative, the historical and biological origins of humanity, and the religious journey. He is certainly a learned man, given he spent 24 years reading 80 some books a year. The framework he lays out for his and many others’ religious journey was really helpful: hiding, thinking, and being. It echoes the “construction, deconstruction, reconstruction” model I’ve known for years. Or Richard Rohr’s “order, disorder, reorder.” In fact, I found Spong’s message to be quite reminiscent of Rohr, which is interesting because neither cite one another. Yet, they are inspired by many of the same thinkers, like Eckhart and Tillich. The middle of this book, much like the intermediate stage of the spiritual journey - thinking, deconstruction, disorder (or whatever you want to call it) - scattered my thoughts and made me feel heavy. But I was brought out of that chasm by the end of it.

“The time has come, I believe, for us to turn our spiritual telescopes around so that we no longer look outward for meaning or God, but begin to look forward. That is not to walk away from God, as the fearful will scream; it is, I now believe, to walk into God. The path is internal not external, for it is identical with a walk into ourselves, and that is a journey we must never refuse to take.”

[Holly McIntyre · Rating 3 out of 5]

For years I have heard about the “heretical” Bishop Spong — how daring, how different, how radical were his writings. I have looked forward to reading what he had to say. Frankly, I’m a bit disappointed.

Decades ago I taught the 9-11 year old Sunday School class at my small Episcopal Church. There were only five children, three boys, two girls. One Sunday the boys seized upon some Biblical detail and began to debate whether it “really” happened, until one of the girls (daughter of a lawyer and an English teacher) sighed and said with some exasperation, “ It’s METAPHOR!” and proceeded to explain the concept to the class. At age ten she knew what it took Spong a lifetime to discover: while the specifics of the New Testament likely are not true, they point towards something that is bigger and truer.

Like my long ago student, I have never expected the Bible to be literally true, so I found Spong’s book neither heretical, nor particularly exciting. While it urges people to step beyond literal belief in a sky God who punishes and rewards, it does not delve deep into the more important questions of how to conceive of Life and Death in a world where one’s guideposts are metaphorical. He gets as far as asserting “God IS”, “we ARE”, therefore “we and God are ONE.” But what on God’s Green Earth does that mean for how we live our lives?!

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Death is a powerful and painful reality that hovers over life almost constantly either in memory or anticipation. Humans contemplate death, but other creatures do not.

Religious traditions attempt to explain death, to transform it and finally to transcend it.
God was created to help us cope, to make sense of things we can not understand.
God is a word we use to give a concept that is not bound by time or space.

Reincarnation, Heaven and Hell all answer the fairness question with reward and punishment. To control behavior in this life but not to instruct concerning the nature of eternity.

God is a supernatural being who can do for me things that I can not do for myself.
I am alienated from this assistance, yet some form of atonement is necessary.
An afterlife is not bound by time and space.

Galileo rendered God homeless and Newton rendered God unemployed.

God has the power to intervene but does not in natural disasters.
Does this make God immoral?

It is more a search for security rather than a search for truth.
Our investment in this life must be purposeful without any promises of a life beyond the grave.

I prepare for death by living.
I enter infinity by embracing the finite

[Ernie Sherretta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thinking outside the box

Much of what John Shelby Spong believes and writes about is believed by many but kept to themselves for fear of rejection or even antagonism. He had the insight and courage to communicate what I believe to be the most sacred, his conscience. His deep faith or confidence in Jesus Christ enabled him to allow the message and love that Jesus shared to inform and strengthen his consciousness of the Divinity. Doing so, he then expressed his profound thoughts and new found beliefs in lectures and books such as this one. I've listened to many of his lectures and read many of his books and I can truly say he provided me with a new way of understanding my faith in the Divinity that was manifested by Jesus and how we can live according to it. This book is one that everyone who wants to understand the Christian faith and how to live it must read. You will have a deeper appreciation for a Christian life, a more practical understanding of death and a profoundly new vision of eternity after reading it. I give it 5 stars!

[Evie Shaffer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The premise of this book explores the thought that Religion is a human creation designed to cover the threat of mortality which our world has been organized emotionally to avoid. It was created to cope with the pain of being human and the fear of what happens to us after we die. Spong argues that Truth is not the ultimate agenda behind religion, Security is. Throughout history, religious systems have adapted in direct response to the changes in the way human life is organized. It's a tool of survival.

Spong asks the question, "Does religion transform reality or enable us to hide from reality?"

Spong sees future humanity abandoning the myths and outdated constructs of Christianity and organizing under a new mission: not to convert people, but to transform the world. The task of the church is to make us human, to make us whole, and to free us.

[Mikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book which challenges us to think beyond the confines of the 'box' called Religion, whatever that belief system may be. Letting go of the fear of dying, embracing life and living well, is the key to going through the physical into the mystical, something I've long known to be true - and therefore working towards a 'good death' through a life well-lived, death which is simply the doorway to the Eternal Life. If this seems a bit nebulous or 'woo-woo' it's not, but I'll leave other readers to draw their own conclusions about John Shelby Spong's journey - which very much mirrors mine and, I surmise, many other people's from life and passing through the doorway into never-ending eternity.

[Dkoonce · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ll give this book for stars because it was a challenging read. I found that I could only read a few pages at the time in order to digest the content. I did like the book. I did like the ideas that Spong presented. His main premise is that a Christian should begin their eternal life mode in their earthly being. He also says that we probably have no concept of what life after death means so, the Christian should live life on earth to its fullest.
I was very interested in his comments on what or who God is. He believes that people have tried to box God into a being, while God is a presence. I did like that concept because I think many people do try to create limited parameters regarding a higher being.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as two other of Spong's books: "Why Christianity Must Change or Die" and "The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic". Eternal Life presents Spong's personal views on literal theism and death/loss as well as the possibility of life after death. The book is engaging, if somewhat repetitive, but after reading it I realized why sages like Christ and Buddha didn't speak about what happens after we die: no one knows and no one can know. I prefer Spong's scholarly works rather than one that is entirely subjective - though I admit this topic truly lies outside of human knowledge! Those who enjoy Spong's books, however, may find this book of interest.

[Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first Spong book and it was okay. I could only recommend it to a post Christian who has gone through deconstruction. He spends significant ink in articulating (not arguing for) his nonorthodox beliefs. While I shared most of his conclusions hearing him assert them didn't do much for me. I wanted to hear more about how he understands the meaning of death and the after life. He says that he believes he will exist eternally (not in the traditional sense) but he didn't deliver here for me. He offers a good discussion of choice in death at the end which may appeal to some of his readers.

[BeeZee · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is in dying that we are born to eternal life

This quote from St Francis pretty well sums it up for me. This life is probably all we get and dying is part of it. Dying well is part of living well. If there is anything after this there is no way to know it. And even if we did we have no words or images to express it. So live fully, love generously and let your "being" point to the divinity that is life itself. Thank you, Bishop Spong for helping me to realize that your journey has been my journey and to express it so well.

[Monta breeden · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new vision gained

I read this book by Dr. Spong because I trust him, because I think he is God-aware in a way that I am definitely not and because I have struggled with this whole Christian/religious question for what seems like an eternity. I’m still struggling but not so violently as before. The storm is dying down around my questions and partly due to reading a couple of Dr. Spongs books and watching a few interviews. It was a book worth reading for me.

[Dick Harding · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many parts of the book are very thought provoking. It's such a hazy topic unless one is a biblical literalist so it didn't seem to me a concrete conclusion was reached. In spite of that it was a wonderful book which revealed to me many concepts which are valuable; I have to say especially that of assisted death.

[Douglas Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I keep this around as a reference book. He draws on his own bio to justify a great deal of why he thinks like he does. Nothing wrong with that, but a few more references would have helped. Well illustrated concepts.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

Loved this book. He answered so many of my life long nagging questions. Learning his personal journey helped me to see the issues that I also had during this time in history.

[Mr S Jarvis · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you ready enough of John Shelby Spong books, you may start to wonder if he is still a Christian. That seam to be the point that he is addressing is the way Christianity is, needed to change from it old orthodox ways of thinking

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spong let me down on this one. He shows that we are products of a random process. There is nothing that is 'watching over us'. Death is but part of the life cycle every living thing experiences. No biggy!! We find ourselves as we become self-conscious and then uber-conscious.

[Barbara]

I enjoyed his biographical parts related to growth in understanding. He gets to the nitty gritty of religion. His "teaching" as a bishop was commendable. His thoughts on eternity stretch my thinking.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it mostly for his list of authors that he thinks are moving the dialogue forward in theology. This book didn’t particularly push my thinking or grab my imagination the way I hoped it would.