Charting a New Reformation, Part XXII – The Sixth Thesis, Atonement Theology (continued)

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on May, 19 2016

Everywhere one looks in the Christian religion, one discovers the mentality of “Atonement Theology.” In the church a fetish has developed about the “cleansing power of the blood of …

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 …

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 …

Part XLVI Matthew – Other Minor Characters in the Passion Drama

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on April, 2 2015

Once we begin to see the Passion narrative not as history, but as liturgy that was created to interpret the meaning of Jesus, the literal imprisonment that has been …

Part XLIII Matthew – The Passion Narrative: Discovering the Liturgical Outline

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on March, 12 2015

In Matthew’s story of the Passion of Jesus, based as it is on Mark’s original written passion narrative, we can discover by a close analysis the outline of a …

Part XL Matthew – The Passion Narrative Begins

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on February, 12 2015

It is a familiar story. It has been burned into the collective consciousness of the Christian world over the centuries. Many of its elements have long since left their …

Part XXXIX Matthew – The Apocalypse and the End of the World

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on February, 5 2015

In Matthew’s narrative, the Jewish year came to an end with the month of Adar. The Passover would be the first celebration of the New Year which began …

Part XXXVIII Matthew – The First Confirmation Class

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on January, 22 2015

Most people are not aware that Judaism, at the time of Jesus, had become a missionary, conversion-oriented religion. People all over the Roman Empire were finding their way into …

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