Lessons From the Obama Inauguration

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on January, 22 2009

In the days before the inauguration of President Obama, I happened to be reading a biography of the English abolitionist William Wilberforce (1759 and 1833), written by Eric Metaxas. The timing …

A New Year Dawns for Our Nation and the World

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on January, 8 2009

A high level of anticipation marked both this nation and the world as 2008 went into the history books and 2009 dawned. This anticipation came from three sources that I can …

Looking at Christmas Through a Rear-View Window

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on January, 7 2009

It still has magic power. Across the Western world hearts beat lighter during the Christmas season, generosity expands and romance overflows its normal boundaries. Of course, there is a …

Splinter Episcopalians: Giving Gravitas to Trivia

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on December, 11 2008

Ari Goldman, the former religion editor of The New York Times (and not coincidentally my favorite secular religion newspaper writer in America during my active career), once …

The Origins of the Bible, Part XVII: Hosea – The Prophet Who Changed God’s Name to Love

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on December, 4 2008

Hosea is probably my favorite of all the prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures. His story is so real and so compelling and his expansion of the meaning of God …

George Will and the Episcopal Church Ignorance Masquerading as Journalism

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on November, 6 2008

George F. Will, a columnist and regular political pundit on George Stephanopoulos’ Sunday morning ABC talk show, is a doctrinaire, but not an unthinking, political conservative. He did in …

Opportunity Time: The Memoirs of Governor Linwood Holton of Virginia

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July, 16 2008

An autobiography entitled Opportunity Time, written by A.
Linwood Holton, the Republican Governor of Virginia from
1970-74, has just been released by the University of
Virginia …

The Lambeth Conference 2008: Expect Heat, Not Light

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July, 9 2008

The bishops of the world-wide Anglican Communion,
together with invited ecumenical and interfaith guests, will convene
on the campus of the University of Kent in Canterbury, England, on

New Mexico: Learning About a Minority Culture in a Majority World

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July, 2 2008

It is historically very difficult for a majority
culture to understand the emotions felt by a minority culture living
in the same land. In the 1850s a group …

Beauty, Wonder and Excitement in New Mexico

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on June, 25 2008

I am now convinced that there are no sunsets more beautiful
than those that blaze through the evening sky in New Mexico. Perhaps
it is the juxtaposition of …

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