Life-Changing Moments in Duluth, Minnesota
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on April, 16 2009Duluth, Minnesota, is a small city of less than 100,000 people at the southwestern corner of Lake Superior. It is known as one of the colder parts of America, receiving …
Watching the Demise of a Great Institution
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on April, 9 2009We are watching today the tragedy of the demise of the Roman Catholic Church. It is a sad spectacle, but hopefully not one that cannot be reversed. It is …
The Origins of the Bible, Part XXIV: The Book of Ruth
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on April, 2 2009
There are three books in the Hebrew Bible that are designated as “protest literature;” that is, they are all representative of a literary device used by an anonymous …
The Origins of the Bible, Part XXIII: Job, the Icon of New Consciousness
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on March, 26 2009Three books of the Bible, Jonah, Job and Ruth, are known as “protest literature”. We treated Jonah in the section of this study on the prophets. We turn now to Job and Ruth.
The Origins of the Bible, Part XXII: Malachi and the Dawn of Universalism
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on March, 19 2009
Malachi is the last book in the Old Testament as Christians organize the scriptures and it is the last voice to be heard in the Book of the …
New Jersey Will Be the Third State in America to Legalize Gay Marriage
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on March, 12 2009It surprises me only that it was not first. New Jersey has a long history of supporting civil rights and equal rights of all its citizens, as well as …
Titles, Paradigm Shifts and New Consciousness
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on March, 5 2009Paul Tillich referred to it as “The Creativity of the Demonic.” It has long been my experience that conflict does not have to be destructive; it sometimes leads to …
The Politics of Greed: A Response to a Theological Vacuum
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on February, 26 2009There is much acrimony abroad today in the economic recession that has embraced our nation. The political landscape is filled with “victims” and “victimizers.” Some are overt, like Bernard …
The Rhetoric of the Stimulus Package
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on February, 19 2009It has been fascinating watching our legislators in Washington debating the stimulus bill and seeking to reform the way stimulus monies have been spent thus far. My conclusion is …
The Origins of the Bible, Part XXI: Jonah and the Prophetic Lesson Against Prejudice
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on February, 12 2009It was a profound shock to the people of Judah when the City of Jerusalem fell to the army of the Babylonians in the early years of the 6th …
The Origins of the Bible, Part XX: I and II Zechariah, Primary Shapers of the Christian Story
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on February, 5 2009If you were to search the Scriptures for a book called II Zechariah, you would not find it. There is only a single fourteen-chapter book called Zechariah, buried in …
Eternal Life: Pious Dream or Realistic Hope?
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on January, 29 2009Do modern men and women, even those who still attend church, really believe in life after death? Or do they, as I suspect, only believe in believing in life …
Lessons From the Obama Inauguration
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on January, 22 2009In 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 …
The Origins of the Bible, Part XIX: Micah, the Prophet Who Turned Liturgy Into Life
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on January, 15 2009In my career as a bishop I have known churches that spent great time and effort on liturgy and worship. It was clearly the focus, the reason for being, …
A New Year Dawns for Our Nation and the World
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on January, 8 2009A 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 2009It 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 …
Christpower
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on December, 25 2008Many years ago, in 1974 to be specific, for the sermon at the Christmas Eve Midnight service at St. Paul’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, I sought to redefine Jesus …
The Origins of the Bible, Part XVIII: Amos, The Prophet Who Transformed God Into Justice
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on December, 18 2008Not every character in the Bible starts out to be a hero. Indeed, one of the great themes of biblical literature is that it is the meek and the …
Splinter Episcopalians: Giving Gravitas to Trivia
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on December, 11 2008Ari 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 2008Hosea 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 …
The Origins of the Bible, Part XVI: Daniel
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on November, 27 2008History is not well served by the way the Bible is organized. For example, the Torah (Genesis-Deuteronomy), which seems to tell a continuous story, was actually written over a …
The Origins of the Bible, Part XV: Ezekiel
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on November, 20 2008Does a crisis in the life of the Jewish people serve to call great people into leadership or do these leaders become great because they had to deal with a crisis?
George Will and the Episcopal Church Ignorance Masquerading as Journalism
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on November, 6 2008George 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 …
Origins of the Bible, Part XIV: Jeremiah, the Prophet of Doom
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on October, 9 2008The book of Jeremiah, the second of the Major Prophets in the Bible after Isaiah, is not only a large and complicated piece of writing, but it exhibits no narrative line that can easily be followed or recalled.
The Origins of the Bible, Part XIII: II Isaiah — The Figure of the “Servant”
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on October, 2 2008If I were to ask an ordinary group of people, even church people, to tell me about the message of the prophet we call II Isaiah, I suspect I …