Examining the Story of the Cross, Part II: Did the Crucifixion of Jesus Occur at Passover?

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 9 March 2011 8 Comments
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Question

I grew up in a small town north of Charlotte, NC. I now live in the Charlotte area. My parents went to the Baptist Church about three times a week. My father was the head deacon….Well, you get the picture. I have read several of your books because I have been “in exile” for years, but I still have strong moments of fear and guilt. I can not find a church in this area where I feel at ease. I feel that I should be raising my children in the church but they really don’t want to go. I was raised to believe that if you accepted Jesus in your heart that you would be saved. I struggle with this daily and I feel extremely alone with my thoughts. What should I do?

Answer

Dear Linda,

I grew up in Charlotte but have not lived there since graduating from high school in 1949. I have, however, made two trips to Charlotte in recent years and one of them was to a Baptist Church – the Myers Park Baptist Church to be specific. It was one of the most exciting weekends of my life. The senior pastor, Dr. Stephen Shoemaker, was open, intelligent, sensitive and caring and he had inaugurated an annual lecture series designed to enable his congregation to interact with current biblical scholarship. The eagerness to learn exhibited by the congregation was amazing. Most of them were raised, as I was, inside a fundamentalist understanding of Christianity. Myers Park Baptist is a large congregation, but its life is vibrant and its welcome to strangers and newcomers is real.

I’m sure there are other congregations with which you would feel comfortable, but since your background was Baptist I think that is where you should look first. In my tradition St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in downtown Charlotte (North Tryon at West 7th street) would certainly be a place I would be comfortable to worship at regularly. The two national church bodies that seem to me to have escaped the message of sin, guilt and rescue in favor of affirming empowerment to live, emphasizing the freedom to love and the courage to be all that you can be are the Unity Church Movement and the United Church of Christ. I am confident that you can find congregations of both of those traditions in the Charlotte area. Good luck in your search. My sense is the autocratic and fundamentalist churches are not as dominant as their loudness and domination of the media would have us believe. Behind the decibels of negativity are many congregations faithfully living out the Jesus message to bring life abundantly to all.

~John Shelby Spong

 

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