Re-Creating Easter VII: The Internal Process

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on November, 5 2015

Peter had so clearly wanted to be loyal to Jesus following his arrest. The story is told that he tried to follow Jesus into the courtyard of the high …

Re-Creating Easter VI: The Dawning of the Resurrection

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on October, 29 2015

We have now explored our sources, looking where we could beneath the literal words of the biblical texts. We have come to four conclusions. First, whatever the Easter moment …

Re-Creating Easter V: How did Easter Dawn? What was the Context?

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on October, 22 2015

We are told, but only in Luke’s gospel, that when Cleopas and his traveling companion returned from Emmaus to Jerusalem to share their experience of the risen Christ …

Re-Creating Easter IV When? The Question of Time

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on October, 15 2015

Life-changing “revelations” may well be timeless, but the one receiving these revelations is always bound in time. These insights invade time at a particular moment. We seek now to …

Re-Creating Easter III: Where? The Location in which Easter Dawned

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on October, 8 2015

Revelation and insight do not occur in a vacuum. They always come through a person. They have the effect of expanding the being of the recipient by opening his …

Re-Creating Easter II: Who Stood in the Center of the Easter Moment?

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on September, 24 2015

Who was the person who stood in the center of the most dramatic moment in Christian history, the experience we call Easter? Who was it who first saw the …

Resurrection: Pious Dream or Reality? Part XI, Conclusion

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July, 23 2015

In 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 …

Resurrection: A Reality or a Pious Dream, Part VIII: Luke – Mystery Recedes – Literalism Grows

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on June, 18 2015

When 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 VI: Matthew’s Story of the Galilean Appearances

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on June, 4 2015

Mark’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 …

Resurrection – Myth or Reality, Part II: The Witness of Paul

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on April, 30 2015

The 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 …

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