I think the best way to view the Gospels is to view them as a

Host:
The cathedral was silent, its echo hollow and timeless. The candles burned low, each flame trembling like a thought not yet decided. Dust hung in the light that streamed through stained glass — color spilled like revelation across the cold stone floor.

Jack stood near the altar, looking up at a crucifix darkened with age. His hands were in his coat pockets, his face thoughtful — a man caught between faith and fascination. Jeeny sat on the nearest pew, her hands resting on a notebook, her eyes tracing the shifting colors as light moved through the glass.

Outside, church bells tolled faintly in the distance, though no service had begun. Inside, it felt as though time had already ended.

Jeeny: softly “John Shelby Spong once said, ‘I think the best way to view the Gospels is to view them as a magnificent portrait being painted by Jewish artists to try to capture the essence of a God experience that they believe they had with Jesus of Nazareth.’”

Jack: quietly “That’s… beautiful. And dangerous.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “Dangerous?”

Jack: nodding slowly “Because he’s saying the Gospels aren’t photographs — they’re paintings. Interpretations. Art.”

Jeeny: softly “Yes. Painted not with brushes, but with faith.”

Jack: after a pause “And art, by nature, is subjective.”

Jeeny: quietly “But that’s what makes it true.”

Host: The light through the stained glass shifted, washing the altar in blue and gold — heaven’s palette poured into human stone. The church creaked softly as if remembering centuries of whispered prayers, of people trying to make sense of the same mystery.

Jack: after a long silence “You think he’s right? That the Gospels aren’t meant to be literal?”

Jeeny: softly “Literalism kills wonder. Stories breathe so that faith can move. The writers weren’t reporting — they were revealing.”

Jack: quietly “So faith is interpretation, not information.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “Exactly. The Gospels are less about proving God and more about painting Him.”

Jack: after a pause “Then the brushstrokes — the metaphors, the miracles — they’re not lies. They’re language.”

Jeeny: softly “Language for the ineffable. The divine translated into human emotion.”

Host: The candles flickered, their small flames trembling as if stirred by unseen breath. The sound of the wind outside seeped through the old stained glass, soft but persistent — like a reminder that truth, too, moves in drafts.

Jack: quietly “It’s funny. We’ve spent centuries arguing about whether these stories are factual — when they were never meant to be factual. They were meant to be felt.”

Jeeny: softly “Exactly. You can’t footnote an encounter with the divine.”

Jack: smiling faintly “You can only describe its light.”

Jeeny: quietly “Yes. Like the way a painter describes the sun — not by reproducing it, but by showing what it does to color.”

Jack: softly “And that’s what the Gospels did. They painted what the divine did to the human heart.”

Jeeny: nodding “To theirs. To ours.”

Host: The organ pipes groaned faintly as the wind outside shifted. It wasn’t music, not yet — just the suggestion of it, a sigh of sound through hollow brass, as if the building itself wanted to join their conversation.

Jeeny: after a pause “You know what I love about Spong’s idea? He gives the authors back their humanity. They weren’t scribes; they were artists, trying to articulate transcendence.”

Jack: softly “To make sense of something too vast to make sense of.”

Jeeny: quietly “Yes. To paint God in the language of man.”

Jack: after a moment “And maybe that’s what makes faith art — the attempt to make mystery visible.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “And love is the pigment.”

Jack: quietly “Then doubt is the texture.”

Jeeny: nodding slowly “And the canvas — our lives.”

Host: The sunlight moved higher through the stained glass, shifting from blue to gold to crimson, like a story retold in color. Each shade seemed to whisper a different truth, none of them final, all of them beautiful.

Jack: softly “So, the Gospels — they weren’t meant to be historical accounts. They were spiritual self-portraits.”

Jeeny: quietly “Yes. Not about who Jesus was, but who He became in the hearts of those who knew Him.”

Jack: after a pause “Then maybe belief isn’t about agreement. It’s about resonance.”

Jeeny: softly “Exactly. The question isn’t ‘Did it happen?’ It’s ‘What does it awaken?’”

Jack: quietly “That changes everything.”

Jeeny: smiling “It should.”

Host: The sound of footsteps echoed faintly through the nave — a tourist, or perhaps just memory passing through. The air smelled faintly of wax, old stone, and something eternal.

Jeeny: after a long pause “You know, if we looked at religion the way Spong suggests — as art — maybe we’d stop fighting over it.”

Jack: quietly “Because you don’t argue over a painting. You experience it.”

Jeeny: nodding “Exactly. You stand before it, you let it move you. You find what it means to you.”

Jack: softly “And maybe the meaning changes each time you look.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “That’s faith — not certainty, but continual re-seeing.”

Jack: after a pause “So maybe God isn’t the painting. He’s the light that lets us see the painting.”

Jeeny: softly “Yes. And the act of seeing — that’s the prayer.”

Host: The candles burned lower, their small flames bowing toward their own eventual end. But in their dying glow, the stained glass seemed brighter — as though belief and fragility had always been part of the same illumination.

Jack: softly “It’s strange, isn’t it? How the divine needs human hands to make it visible.”

Jeeny: quietly “That’s the paradox. The infinite needs the fragile to find form.”

Jack: after a pause “So, when those Jewish artists wrote the Gospels, they weren’t dictating God’s voice — they were painting His reflection.”

Jeeny: softly “Yes. Through memory, culture, fear, and wonder. Through the colors of their humanity.”

Jack: quietly “Then the Gospels are less about God coming to Earth, and more about Earth learning how to speak God.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “Exactly. A language made of light and longing.”

Host: The bells outside began to toll again, slow and resonant. Each chime echoed through the church like a heartbeat — steady, ancient, human.

And as the last note faded into the vaulted air, John Shelby Spong’s words seemed to take on flesh within the quiet — a truth not of doctrine, but of vision:

That the Gospels are not history,
but artistry —
a human attempt to capture the essence of divinity
through the trembling brushstrokes of faith.

That those who wrote them
were not chroniclers of proof,
but painters of experience,
translating encounter into image,
mystery into metaphor.

That faith itself
is a living canvas,
where doubt adds depth,
and love brings light.

And that to believe
is not to memorize,
but to behold —
to stand before the masterpiece
and whisper, with awe and humility,
“I see something of myself in this.”

Fade out.