Charting a New Reformation, Part X – The Second Thesis: Jesus the Christ

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 18 February 2016 36 Comments
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Question

Without sounding macabre, I wonder who in the next generation of authors/teachers you recommend and believe will continue to develop a similar outlook as yours on both scripture and indeed life itself.

Answer

Dear Robert,

It is not macabre to be realistic. Life moves on and all of us move with it. I plan for at least two more years of activity pursuing my vocational goals, but that amount of time cannot obviously be guaranteed. I have speaking and writing commitments now well into 2017.

I do not worry about succession. No one invited me to succeed them and I will not appoint anyone to succeed me. Look at those religious leaders who sought to pass their careers on to their sons; it does not work. Franklin Graham is a Muslim hater and has become an embarrassment to his father Billy. Oral Robert’s son was fired from Oral Roberts University for corruption. Robert Schuller’s son led the Chrystal Cathedral into bankruptcy. Charisma and vocation do not appear to be hereditary. People rise in their own time to build on the work of their predecessors and mentors. In my recent book, Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy, which was published in early February of this year, I took great pleasure in dedicating it to “My three greatest mentors.” They did not choose me; I chose them, but their lives and writings made me possible. In my column of February 4th I identified them as John Elbridge Hines, John A. T. Robinson and Michael D. Goulder.

I receive mail regularly from clergy from all traditions. They share with me their hopes, their journeys and their struggles. A lot of younger voices are rising in the Christian church. They are not limited to the United States. I am in touch with progressive clergy from Poland, Hungary, Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, France, Africa, Canada, Latin America, Spain, Italy, Australia and New Zealand. They live in this country in places like Phoenix, Omaha, Greely, Colorado, Hendersonville, N. C. and Richmond, Virginia, as well as in many other places. Many of these leaders are willing and even eager to engage issues and to enter arenas that I have never engaged or entered. I am thrilled by them even when I am not sure where they are headed. I think of the Reverend Gretta Vosper, now facing charges of heresy from the Neanderthal elements of an otherwise very progressive United Church of Canada.

I have been a fellow in the Jesus Seminar for about twenty years. That is an incredible theological and biblical think tank. Into that body every year come young scholars. The agenda of the Seminar moves with these younger scholars.

I am part of two different Episcopal churches. One is my parish church, St. Peter’s in Morristown, NJ. The other is my former parish, St. Paul’s Church in Richmond, VA. Both are today headed by brilliant younger clergy. One is a generation younger and the other is two generations younger. They are courageous, competent, thinking, emerging leaders. They do not lack for followers.

The Christian Church will die of boredom long before it dies of controversy. The ranks of the ordained will continue to include a minority who will push the boundaries while the majority will seek to provide the narcotic of religious security. This remains true despite the fact that most of our denominational training schools are in the business of blessing the status quo, rather than engaging in a search for truth that will meet the people of tomorrow’s world. Out of those boundary pushers, the leaders of tomorrow will emerge. They are present in every denomination. Catholic scholarship will finally be able to flourish without the repression that marked its life under the leadership of Benedict XVI, both as Pope and as Cardinal Ratzinger. Theological seminaries like the Theological School of Drew University and the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA, have new deans who understand that blessing the status quo is not the doorway into tomorrow. I believe the future is bright.

Thank you for your letter and for the affirmation that what you think I have done is worthy of being replicated in the next generation.

~John Shelby Spong

 

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