Did Jesus Really Perform Miracles?
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on August, 30 2006For many people the title of this column represents a
silly question. The pages of the gospels are filled with stories
of supernatural happenings associated with Jesus. Most people,
…
Understanding Religious Anger
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on August, 22 2006One of the things that always surprises me is the level of anger,
often expressed in acts of overt rudeness, which seems to mark
religious people. It appears so …
Questions and Answers
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on August, 16 2006A note to my readers:
Dear Friends:
Your letters come in such numbers that if I responded to each one
I would need a …
The Ambivalent Church
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on August, 9 2006There is something fundamentally flawed about
institutional Christianity today. I see it in two distinct
places. It was clearly present when I listened to ecclesiastical
figures talk about the …
Cowboy Diplomacy in a Frightening World
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on August, 2 2006In one of its regular features The NewsHour with Jim
Lehrer on PBS recently showed the pictures of 16 more American
military personnel who had recently lost their lives in …
Emily Jane Failla: A Special Life
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July, 26 2006The community of St. Peter’s Church in Morristown,
New Jersey, where my wife and I worship, gathered this week to
celebrate the life of Emily Jane Failla and to …
Free to Believe: A Voice from the United Reformed Church of England
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July, 19 2006Recently, while on a lecture tour of England, I was the keynote
speaker at a national conference of the United Reformed Church of
England. This body, the result of …
On Dating the New Testament
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July, 12 2006A letter from one of my Internet readers, Max Rippeto, asked how
New Testament scholars went about the task of dating the books of
the New Testament. It was …
Katharine Jefferts Schori – New Primate of the Episcopal Church
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July, 5 2006Dear Friends,
The English newspapers made it a front page story.
English ecclesiastical figures from the Archbishop of Canterbury
down to a bigoted pressure group called Forward …
A Living Watershed
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on June, 28 2006Dear Friends,
This week I want to share with you a rare account of a Protestant
church wrestling concretely with whether or not to call an openly
…
Mr. Bush: A Public Embarrassment
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on June, 21 2006I find myself deeply embarrassed today by the President of the United States. It is a new feeling. I do not pretend to be a Bush fan. I have …
A Life Well Lived
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on June, 14 2006Reading obituaries is a remarkably insightful
pastime. Each of us does it more and more as we grow
older. The obituary writer obviously cannot recall
all the twists and …
The Columbus, Ohio, Episcopal Battlefield
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on June, 7 2006I hope my readers will pardon me for spending a
second week dealing with issues within my own
Episcopal Church. I do not do so out of some presumed
…
The California Episcopal Election
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on May, 31 2006The headline in the Washington Post said:
“Episcopalians Reject Gay Hopefuls.” It was the
typical hype of the media. The story went on to say
that the Diocese of …
On Viewing “The Da Vinci Code”
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on May, 24 2006Separating fact from fantasy is not always easy. This
is especially so when the two are skillfully woven
together by a very competent novelist named Dan Brown
and then …
Easter Imagined and Recreated
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on May, 17 2006As I mentioned last week my lifetime study of the
five Easter narratives in the New Testament (I
Corinthians 15:1-58, Mark 16:1-8, Matthew 28, Luke 24
and John 20, 21, listed in …
Easter Explained
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on May, 10 2006Last week I shared with my readers the time in my life
when I devoted a semester at Cambridge University to
making sense, at least for me, out …
Easter Revisited
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on May, 3 2006The biblical narratives purporting to tell the story
of Easter have always held a particular fascination
for me. As early as the summer of 1959 I gave a …
The Gospel of Judas – A Hyped Insignificance
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on April, 26 2006“Calculated sensationalism and scholarly complicity”
were the words Peter Steinfels of the New York Times
used to describe it. “Consciously misleading” were the
words applied to the story …
R.I.P. – William Sloane Coffin, Jr.
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on April, 19 2006April 19, 2006
R.I.P. – William Sloane Coffin, Jr.“Let us resolve to be patriots always, nationalists never. Let us love our
country …
The Final Days: Walking from Palm Sunday to Easter
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on April, 12 2006We Christians are now in the midst of Holy Week, the
most solemn season of the liturgical year. This
sacred time still exercises compelling power since
church attendance …
Oklahoma! A State in Transition
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on April, 5 2006When we hear the name of America’s 46th state, many
images fill our minds. “Oklahoma” was the first of
Rogers and Hammerstein’s ten Broadway musicals,
putting the name …
The Lamb of God: Jesus for the Non-Religious, Part III
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on March, 29 2006In this series, to which I am returning periodically
through the year, I seek to draw our attention to the
person of Jesus before the creeds were formed …
CrossWalkAmerica: Are You Ready to March for a New Christianity?
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on March, 22 2006On Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006, a group of people
will begin in Phoenix a 2500 mile, 141 day,
5,000,000-step walk across America. Their destination
is Washington, D.C., where a public celebration …
Dawning Hope: The Supreme Court and the Case of Lewis v. Harris
Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on March, 15 2006The Supreme Court of the State of New Jersey will
sometime in the next few months hand down its ruling
in the case of Lewis v. Harris. The final …