Japan’s 18th-Century Pioneer of Historical Consciousness

Column by Cassandra Farrin on February, 9 2017

Martin Scorsese recently released a film adaptation of the 1966 novel “Silence” by Shusaku Endo that traces the persecution of Christians in 17th-century Japan. As a long-time admirer and friend of the Japanese people, I am understandably nervous about how this new film will affect Western perceptions of a country I hold dear, so I looked into the history of religious persecution in Japan to help put the film in context. Ironically, the best book I found on the subject wasn’t on Christianity at all, but on Buddhism: Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan: Buddhism and Its Persecution by James Edward Ketelaar.

More Than Words: A Thank You and Introduction

Column by Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin on January, 26 2017

It’s interesting, I love reading Spong now for the exact opposite reason I first loved reading Spong.

Let me explain.

I’ve been a devout Christian my entire life. From the somewhat conservative thinking Greystone Baptist Church of my childhood to the progressive thinking Presbyterian Church of the Covenant where I currently serve as Interim minister I have never lost my “soul deep” belief in God.

Jack Spong – A Teacher Whose Words Offer Life

Column by Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. on January, 19 2017

Even before our children were born, my wife, Rïse, and I, like many a parent, sang and read to our children. Later, nestled between us in bed and then resting upon our laps, they listened intently as we read about rabbits, moons, gardens, fingers, toes and smiles. Bit by bit, these little beings began to imitate us, holding the book precariously in tiny hands; looking first at the pages and next at the words as if reading, and eventually, eagerly, albeit clumsily, turning the book’s leaf. And then one day it happened, as if by magic – they themselves were reading. They had taught themselves to learn how to read. Such pride in their newly discovered competence. And the truly magic sojourn into the land of truth had begun in earnest. They were experiencing the exhilarating freedom of moving beyond the two-dimensional landscape of imitation into the endless world of exploration, made possible by following the Spirit’s invitation to learn how to learn. Imitation is a fine and necessary beginning, but as an ending it is claustrophobic, and stultifying as death.

The Ultimate Source of Anti-Semitism – The Circumstances That Brought Judas Into the Jesus Story

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on January, 5 2017

I return today to a subject that I have covered before. It is essential however, to this series on the sources of anti-Semitism, so I ask my reader’s …

May our world learn to see the infinite shades between black and white.

Column by Mike McHargue on December, 29 2016

Evolution shaped our brains to take shortcuts. Our senses relay to the brain a ceaseless, torrential downpour of stimulus and information, and so our neurons team up to sort and sift this stream into higher-order abstractions–mainly categorizations in the form of either/or classifications.

The Terrible Texts: Be Fruitful and Multiply and Subdue the Earth (Originally posted August 2003)

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on December, 22 2016

Christians have never been significantly committed to the preservation of our common environment. Ecological concerns are present in Church life, but they never quite make it to the top …

I, and many others, stand upon Bishop Spong’s shoulders

Column by Rev. Roger Wolsey on December, 15 2016

It’s accurately said that “we stand on the shoulders of giants” and John Shelby Spong is one of mine. Bishop Spong has been a tremendous influence on my life as a pastor who is also a theologian and writer. Though we’re not of the same denomination, we are birds of a feather and kindred spirits. We share similar vocational callings. We give a damn about Christianity and its capacity to serve as a source of healing and prophetic transformation in a world that sorely needs those things. And, we care enough about the lineage we’re part of to critique the hell out of it – literally – to help separate the wheat from the chaff in ways that help the faith to be relevant and meaningful in this new millennium.

The Common Roots of Hanukkah and Christmas (Originally Posted December 2003)

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on December, 8 2016

Religious people frequently assert that they have received their truth by divine revelation. It is a strange assertion, leading almost inevitably to the power claim that there is a …

Jesus’ call is for us to be whole and real, not religious; loving, not moral and righteous…

Column by Rev. David M. Felten on December, 1 2016

Dear Jack,

When I learned of your stroke in September, I was en route to the fourth Common Dreams Conference in Brisbane, Queensland. Having no details at that point and being a half-a-planet away, I was anxious about having to endure the uncertainty of this news on my own. I needn’t have worried, though. As it turns out, I couldn’t have found myself in a more supportive and equally concerned crowd anywhere in the world

A New Christianity, a New Prayer Bishop Spong Style

Column by Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox on November, 24 2016

“My goal in life is to pray without ceasing”.
Bishop John Shelby Spong

In his book A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional Faith is Dying & How A New Faith is Being Born, Bishop Spong addresses multiple issues worthy of further consideration especially because the coming year 2017, marks the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation and Spong is rightly calling for a Reformation today.(1) I suppose it is worth mentioning that I have been doing the same as in my book A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality and the Transformation of Christianity which contains the 95 theses that I pounded at Luther’s church in Wittenberg at Pentecost season in 2006 in response to Cardinal Ratzinger making himself pope, a practice I repeated five years later at Cardinal Law’s Basilica of Maria Maggiore in Rome on a Sunday morning in protest of his cover-up for pedophile clergy in his previous assignment as archbishop of Boston.

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