Charting a New Reformation, Part XX – The Fifth Thesis, Miracles (concluded)

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on May, 5 2016

The nature miracles attributed to Jesus in the gospel tradition were not supernatural events that marked his life as divine. They were rather Moses stories interpretively wrapped around Jesus …

Charting a New Reformation, Part XIX – The Fifth Thesis, Miracles (continued)

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on April, 28 2016

“In a post-Newtonian world supernatural invasions of the natural order performed by either the eternal God or the “Incarnate Jesus” are simply not a …

Charting A New Reformation, Part XVIII – The Fifth Thesis, Miracles (continued)

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on April, 21 2016

Following the Exodus, Moses’ miraculous power was never again so powerfully displayed in the biblical story, but it did not disappear. In a battle against the Amalekites (Exod. 17:8-14) …

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 …

Windsor, England – A Confrontation Over the Meaning of Resurrection

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on September, 3 2015

On one stop near the end of my lecture tour of Europe during this summer, I confronted a person whose question drove me back to the series I had …

Part XLV Matthew – Judas Iscariot Person or Myth? Part II

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on March, 26 2015

There 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 …

Introducing Jesus for the Non-Religious to France

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July, 24 2014

(The following is the speech delivered in Paris at the launching of the French Translation of Jesus for the Non-Religious.)

How can those of us living in …

“Think Different–Accept Uncertainty” Part XV: Was Lazarus Raised from the Dead?

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on August, 9 2012

Before leaving my brief analysis of the miracle stories of the New Testament, I want to look at what is probably the best known miraculous act attributed to Jesus …

A Salute to the United Church of Christ

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July, 26 2012

Sometimes, as one goes about the normal duties of one’s professional life, a pattern of activity slowly becomes visible until one wonders why this had not been seen before.  …