I am really not comfortable writing this article. There is a sense I am writing an obituary and nothing could be further from the truth. Bishop Spong is a beloved friend and he is apparently doing well in his recovery. I suppose I am a little nervous knowing that he will be reading what I write and we already have a history about this. For those who do not know, I am the President of ProgressiveChristianity.org. and we have been publishing Bishop Spong’s weekly articles for over six years now. About a two years ago I had dropped him a line indicating that his contract was running out and wondered what his plans were. Be assured, I wanted him to extend the contract but we needed to know. I do not remember exactly what I wrote but I may have written something like, “Jack, I know you are approaching your 85th birthday, but thought we should get this cleared up.”
We continue today the chronicle of how my books came to be published in French. In Part I, I described how the translator and the publisher came together. Today …
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 …
In Mark’s gospel she was a Syro-Phoenician woman. Matthew has changed her into being a Canaanite woman. That shift is significant because the term “Canaanite” carried so much more …
There are some moments in life when the transcendent is expressed inside the mundane; where the eternal seems to enter the passage of time. They are moments, usually unexpected, …
Most of the portraits of the mother of Jesus that hang in the great museums of the world are dependent first on the biblical stories of Jesus’ birth and …
It is a rare treat in the life of a bishop in general and in the life of a retired bishop in particular to participate in a pastoral act …