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 a New Reformation, Part X – The Second Thesis: Jesus the Christ

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on February, 18 2016

“If God can no longer be thought of in theistic terms, then conceiving of Jesus as ‘the incarnation of the theistic deity’ has also become a bankrupt concept.”

Charting a New Reformation, Part IX – An Evolving God inside an Evolving Christianity

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on January, 28 2016

Today, I conclude the discussion of the first of my twelve theses posted on the internet in my hope to “Chart a New Reformation.” I began with the crucial …

Charting a New Reformation, Part VIII – God –“Not a Being but Being Itself” (Cont.)

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on January, 21 2016

It was a 6th century Greek philosopher named Xenophanes who wrote: “If horses had gods, they would look like horses.” Xenophanes was pointing to the reality, which all of …

Charting the New Reformation, Part VI – Building the Case for the Death of Theism: The Impact of Freud

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on January, 7 2016

First there was the revolution in astrophysics led by Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo. In that revolution, the comfortable assumption that God lived just above the sky, watching over us, …

On the Separation of Church and State

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on November, 26 2015

(Publisher’s note: On November 9th 2015, in Washington, D. C. the national organization known as Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, held …

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 …