Why Bishop Spong Must Change

From the very first page of Bishop Spong's book Why Christianity Must Change or Die:

I define myself above all other things as a believer. I am indeed a passionate believer. God is the ultimate reality of my life. I live in a constant and almost mystical awareness of the divine presence. I sometimes think of myself as one who breathes the very air of God...

And for my part, I have an almost mystical awareness of the fact this man is a poseur.

That's how saints go through life, not ordinary sinners. None of the more saintly people I've met have ever talked like that. Nor have I found such talk in the writings of saints. They might be extremely grateful to God for the peace and joy He's given them, but only after they've told you what wretches they were, which makes their gratitude the greater and the grace the more amazing.

But we soon see the reason for Spong's cringe-worthy testimony to his own piety: it's a rhetorical device, and I shudder for him that he'd bandy talk of such matters for such a cheap purpose. On the next page he's going to flat-out deny the Nicene Creed, the basic statement of Christian belief, and he's establishing his credentials as a believer first. He's like the racist saying "some of my best friends are black...", before he hits us with this:

The words of the Apostles' Creed and its later expansion known as the Nicene Creed, were fashioned inside a worldview that no longer exists. Indeed, it is quite alien to the world in which I live. The way reality was perceived when the Christian creeds were formulated has been obliterated by the expansion of knowledge. If the God I worship must be identified with these ancient creedal words in any literal sense, God would become for me not just unbelievable, but in fact no longer worthy of being the subject of my devotion...We are that silent majority of believers who find it increasingly difficult to be members of the Church and still be thinking people.

I fail to connect this to the Nicene Creed itself. It's as if Spong has some straw man creed in mind in which God is literally an old white man with a beard, and the sun revolves around the earth. Here's the entire Creed:

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

I find it amazing that such a long and detailed statement, almost two millennia later, is so unobjectionable. Does Spong simply feel it's impossible God once took human form? The God who stoops to such constant and intimate connection with Spong-- is Spong privy to an almost mystical knowledge of His limitations?

Spong says if parts of the Creed are true in "any literal sense", such a God is "unworthy of belief". Again, I don't get it. Is an aloof clockmaker God who winds up the universe and lets it run worthy of Spong's belief, in a way an intervening God is not?

Does Spong pray to a clockmaker God? Does he pray at all? Perhaps in some respects he'd be more comfortable as a Muslim: they also seek an almost mystical awareness of God while denying the divinity of Christ.