Understanding Ireland’s Vote Approving Same-Sex Marriage
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on August, 6 2015Her name is Muriel. She is the 86 year-old widow of an Irish farmer living near the city of Kilkenny in the southern part of the Irish Republic. She is …
Thoughts on Baptizing Chapman Thomas Brinegar
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July, 30 2015This past summer in a lovely chapel quite literally on the coast of Maine, I had the pleasure of baptizing Chapman Thomas Brinegar. A baptism is something I hardly …
Resurrection: Pious Dream or Reality? Part XI, Conclusion
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July, 23 2015In this column, I turn to the Fourth Gospel to complete our journey through the New Testament. Our purpose has been to see what the New Testament really says …
The Charleston Murders: The Final Battle in the Civil War?
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July, 16 2015It was a brutal murder of nine people in an AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The victims, including their pastor, who was also a member of the South …
Resurrection: A Reality or a Pious Dream? Part X The Story of the Ascension
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July, 9 2015“Ideas Have Consequences.” That was the title of a book that I was required to read early in my theological education. It was not a profound book, but its …
An Open Letter to My Readers
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July, 2 2015This week, my column takes the form of a letter to my readers. It is an unusual format, but it speaks to the unusual occurrences in our nation this …
Resurrection: A Reality or a Pious Dream, Part IX Luke: Physical, Non-Physical or Both?
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on June, 25 2015Today, I want to focus on the ambiguity found in the conflicting aspects of Luke’s two resurrection stories in more detail and in more depth. It will help …
Resurrection: A Reality or a Pious Dream, Part VIII: Luke – Mystery Recedes – Literalism Grows
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on June, 18 2015When we come to Luke, the third gospel writer and, counting Paul, the fourth biblical witness to the meaning of Easter, we discover a dramatic shift in the language …
Resurrection: A Reality or A Pious Dream, Part VII: Matthew Interprets and Expands Mark
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on June, 11 2015Matthew is the first gospel writer to narrate an appearance of the risen Christ to anyone. This aspect of the developing Christian story does not begin until the middle …
Resurrection: A Reality or A Pious Dream? Part VI: Matthew’s Story of the Galilean Appearances
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on June, 4 2015Mark’s messenger of the resurrection, described in that gospel as “a young man in a white robe,” had promised a future appearance of the raised Christ to the …
The Graduation Season 2015
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on May, 28 2015It is the graduation season. On university and college campuses around the world people gather in a highly-ritualized pageant to mark a point of transition in many areas of …
Resurrection – A Reality or a Pious Dream? Part V Matthew’s Story of Easter
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on May, 21 2015When we come to the Easter story in the gospel of Matthew, which was written according to the best estimates of the scholars about 10 to 15 years after Mark, we …
Resurrection – A Reality or a Pious Dream? Part IV: The Surprise Found in Mark, the Earliest Biblical Narrative of Easter
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on May, 14 2015What did the Christian movement know about the resurrection of Jesus before the first gospel was written in the eighth decade of the Christian era? The answer to that …
Resurrection – A Reality or a Pious Dream? Part III The Witness of Paul, Continued
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on May, 7 2015After Easter we opened a new unit of columns designed to study exactly what the Bible says about Jesus’ resurrection. We noted that while resurrection is assumed in every …
Resurrection – Myth or Reality, Part II: The Witness of Paul
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on April, 30 2015The first writer of what later came to be called the New Testament was a well-educated Jew from Tarsus in Asia Minor. His name was Paul, although there is a later tradition that suggested that his original name was Saul and that the change from Saul to Paul was symbolic of the change in his life from being a highly-disciplined member of the Jewish religious elite to being a follower of Jesus. The adjective “Jewish” in that sentence is important because at this time in history, there was no such thing as Christianity or the Christian Church. What we now call Christianity was still a minority movement within the synagogue itself called “The Followers of the Way.” These followers were also known by members of the Orthodox Party of Judaism as “revisionists.” That was a deliberately pejorative title. “Revisionists” in ecclesiastical circles means that they were “change agents” destabilizing the “True Faith.”
Resurrection – Myth or Reality, Part II: The Witness of Paul
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on April, 30 2015The first writer of what later came to be called the New Testament was a well-educated Jew from Tarsus in Asia Minor. His name was Paul, although there is …
“Resurrection” A Reality or a Pious Dream? Part I
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on April, 23 2015On Easter Sunday, a couple of weeks ago now, I was in my parish church, St. Peter’s in Morristown, New Jersey. I was not alone. Into that church, at …
Part XLVII Matthew: The Meaning of the Passion opens into the Meaning of Resurrection
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on April, 9 2015The drama of the cross races towards its conclusion. It is a story that runs counter to the cultural expectations. Shaped by the “Servant” figure, drawn from II Isaiah, …
Part XLVI Matthew – Other Minor Characters in the Passion Drama
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on April, 2 2015Once we begin to see the Passion narrative not as history, but as liturgy that was created to interpret the meaning of Jesus, the literal imprisonment that has been …
Part XLV Matthew – Judas Iscariot Person or Myth? Part II
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on March, 26 2015There are at least three traitor stories in the Hebrew Scriptures. They were all well known to Jewish readers of those scriptures. They would not, however, have been familiar …
Part XLIV Matthew: Judas Iscariot – Myth or Reality? Part I
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on March, 19 2015Among the best known characters in the New Testament is the one who is sometimes called “The Anti-Christ.” He is always painted in dark colors, as slinking around corners, …
Part XLIII Matthew – The Passion Narrative: Discovering the Liturgical Outline
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on March, 12 2015In Matthew’s story of the Passion of Jesus, based as it is on Mark’s original written passion narrative, we can discover by a close analysis the outline of a …
William Maurice, i.e. Willie Mo, I Baptize You
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on March, 5 2015It was a strangely emotional moment for me. I was in All Saint’s Church in Austin, Texas, holding in my arms a nine months old baby boy, preparing …
Part XLII Matthew – Identifying the Sources of the Passion Narrative
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on February, 26 2015If we can demonstrate that Jesus never spoke the words, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” from the cross, but that rather the earliest gospel writers, …
Part XLI Matthew – Entering the Passion Narratives
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on February, 19 2015We looked last week at the passion narratives in the New Testament. We noted the additions, the deletions and the contradictions found in these central stories of our faith …