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 the New Reformation, Part II – The Burning Necessity

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on December, 10 2015

The Bible is not the “word of God!” It never has been. No one who has ever read the Bible in its entirety could possibly defend that suggestion. This …

Charting a New Reformation, Part I – The Background

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on December, 3 2015

On October 31, 1517, so the story goes, a solitary monk named Martin Luther approached the great doors of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, Germany, on which he planned to post …

Thoughts on Baptizing Chapman Thomas Brinegar

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July, 30 2015

This 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 …

Part XXXV Matthew – Getting Back in Touch with our Source

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on January, 1 2015

I return this week to our study of Matthew’s gospel after a rather long hiatus, which allowed me the opportunity to address other pressing topics such as my visit …

Part XXV Matthew – Atonement Theology, Conclusion: Seeking New Possibilities

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July, 10 2014

Have you ever wondered why the work of Charles Darwin has been so threatening to traditional Christians and to institutional Christianity? In fundamentalist and Bible belt regions of the …

My Great Mentors – Number Seven: Clifford L. Stanley

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on October, 10 2013

He was my Professor of Theology, teaching me for two of the three years I was in Seminary. For me he was the major voice on that 1950 …

You Are Profoundly Wrong! A Response to the Archbishop of Newark and Other Catholic Leaders

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on October, 25 2012

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Newark, the Most Reverend John J. Myers, has recently issued “A Pastoral Teaching on the Definition, Purpose and Sanctity of Marriage.”  In this document, …

An Open Letter to Ross Douthat, New York Times Columnist

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on September, 27 2012

Dear Ross,

A few weeks ago in an op-ed piece of the Sunday New York Times, you began your regular column with these words, “In 1998, John Shelby Spong, …