ELIE WIESEL 1928-2016 R.I.P.
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July, 21 2016He changed the conscience of the entire world, yet he never held a public office. Even Nelson Mandela, perhaps the only other 20th century figure to move the world …
Charting a New Reformation, Part XXVIII – The Ninth Thesis, Ethics
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July, 14 2016“The ability to define and separate good from evil can no longer be achieved with appeals to ancient codes like the Ten Commandments or even to later interpretations …
Charting a New Reformation, Part XXVII – The Eighth Thesis, The Ascension of Jesus (continued)
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July, 7 2016The gospels of Mark and Matthew were composed while the Christian movement was still part of the synagogue. The gospel of Luke may well have been written after the …
Charting a New Reformation, Part XXVI – The Eighth Thesis, The Ascension of Jesus
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on June, 30 2016“The Biblical story of Jesus’ ascension assumes a three-tiered universe, which was dismissed in intellectual circles some 500 years ago. If Jesus’ ascension must be regarded as a literal …
Addressing the National Conference of the American Humanist Association
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on June, 23 2016They gathered at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in downtown Chicago, some 500 delegates strong. They came from all across the United States and abroad with the Netherlands, in particular, being …
On Celebrating my 40th Anniversary of Being the Bishop of Newark
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on June, 16 2016It had the nature of a tribal gathering, or perhaps of “old-timers day” at Yankee Stadium. People came from across the nation and throughout the Diocese of Newark, which …
Charting a New Reformation, Part XXV – The Seventh Thesis, The Resurrection (concluded)
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on June, 9 2016Paul was the first, perhaps he was also the most important, but he was not the only witness to the resurrection of Jesus in the biblical narrative. To complete …
Charting a New Reformation, Part XXIV – The Seventh Thesis, The Resurrection (continued)
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on June, 2 2016Last week, we explored the Pauline corpus of the New Testament in order to learn what Paul meant when he wrote that “God raised Jesus” to the “right hand …
Charting a New Reformation, Part XXIII – The Seventh Thesis, The Resurrection
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on May, 26 2016“The Easter event gave birth to the Christian Movement and continues to transform it. That does not mean, however, that Easter was the resuscitation of Jesus’ deceased body …
Charting a New Reformation, Part XXII – The Sixth Thesis, Atonement Theology (continued)
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on May, 19 2016Everywhere one looks in the Christian religion, one discovers the mentality of “Atonement Theology.” In the church a fetish has developed about the “cleansing power of the blood of …
Charting a New Reformation, Part XXI – The Sixth Thesis, Atonement Theology
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on May, 12 2016“Atonement Theology, especially in its most bizarre form, which we call ‘substitutionary atonement,’ presents us with a God who is barbaric, a Jesus who is a victim and …
Charting a New Reformation, Part XX – The Fifth Thesis, Miracles (concluded)
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on May, 5 2016The nature miracles attributed to Jesus in the gospel tradition were not supernatural events that marked his life as divine. They were rather Moses stories interpretively wrapped around Jesus …
Charting a New Reformation, Part XIX – The Fifth Thesis, Miracles (continued)
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on April, 28 2016“In a post-Newtonian world supernatural invasions of the natural order performed by either the eternal God or the “Incarnate Jesus” are simply not a viable explanation of …
Charting A New Reformation, Part XVIII – The Fifth Thesis, Miracles (continued)
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on April, 21 2016Following the Exodus, Moses’ miraculous power was never again so powerfully displayed in the biblical story, but it did not disappear. In a battle against the Amalekites (Exod. 17:8-14) …
Charting A New Reformation, Part XVII – The Fifth Thesis
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on April, 14 2016“The Miracles Stories of the Old Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an Incarnate Deity.”
I wonder how …
Charting the New Reformation, Part XVI – The Fourth Thesis: The Virgin Birth (continued)
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on April, 6 2016In all probability Jesus was born in Nazareth. That is surely the assumption made in Mark, the first gospel to be written. The names of both of his parents …
Charting a New Reformation, Part XV –The Fourth Thesis: The Virgin Birth, Understood as Literal History, Makes Christ’s Deity, as Traditionally Understood, Impossible!
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on March, 31 2016Almost all of us, at one time or another, have participated in a Christmas pageant. We have been angels or shepherds, wise men or Joseph, the Virgin Mary or …
Charting the New Reformation, Part XIV – The Third Thesis: “Original Sin” Pre-Darwinian Mythology – Post Darwinian Nonsense (Continued)
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on March, 24 2016It was Charles Darwin, who was the primary voice sounding the death knell on Atonement theology. Darwin’s work did not just attack the literal details of the Bible’ …
Charting a New Reformation, Part XIII – The Third Thesis: “Original Sin” Pre-Darwinian Mythology: Post Darwinian Nonsense (Continued)
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on March, 17 2016The perfection of God’s world was described again and again in the text of this Genesis story. We read in Genesis 2 that the world was a fertile garden, …
Charting a New Reformation, Part XII – The Third Thesis: Original Sin “Pre-Darwinian Mythology – Post-Darwinian Nonsense” (continued)
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on March, 10 2016In the fourth century of this Common Era, when the creeds of the Christian Church were being formed, people reading the Christian Bible assumed that it was “the inerrant …
The Sources of Political Gridlock and Anger
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on March, 3 2016It has been a very unconventional political primary season. In the last three weeks two public debates sank to what seem to me to be new lows in presidential …
Charting a New Reformation, Part XI –The Third Thesis: Original Sin – The Myth of the Fall
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on February, 25 2016“The biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings have fallen into “original sin” is pre-Darwinian mythology and pre-Darwinian non-sense.”
If one were …
Charting a New Reformation, Part X – The Second Thesis: Jesus the Christ
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on February, 18 2016“If God can no longer be thought of in theistic terms, then conceiving of Jesus as ‘the incarnation of the theistic deity’ has also become a bankrupt concept.”
The Anglican Communion R.I.P.
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on February, 11 2016It was an historical illusion anyway, a cherished and romantic notion practiced in all kinds of theoretical venues. The idea that the lands that once constituted the British Empire …
Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on February, 4 2016The Book has Arrived!
It has happened in my life twenty-five times before. It seems that one might get used to it after a while. That is …