# Bishop John Shelby Spong: heretic or visionary? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 28, 2003, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016 "2003-02-28T00:00:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2003, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016/81 "2003-03-03T21:43:36Z")
> [@](#): > > Consider: The earliest Christian writers (Clement, Ignatius) don’t quote from any New Testament books. The next generation of writers quote from non-NT books, sometimes referring to them as “Scripture”. Question: how do you know that the “God of the Bible” is the same God that Jesus believed in? Sure, you can take this as an assumption. But you might be wrong! I need to make a minor nitpick here – both the original Polycarp and Ignatius rather extensively use language that is either identical or nearly so to phrasings in of the Gospels and the Letters of John. It’s commonly thought that these are allusions to books respected as accurate accounts, if perhaps not yet accorded canonical status equivalent to the Tanakh. But your point is quite valid otherwise – neither of these writers nor Clement would have a clue about the Chalcedonian definition of the two natures of Christ nor the doctrine of the Holy Trinity; they were later attempts to explicate the reality known to them – that the one God was at the same time the object of Christ’s worship and known to others through Him, and that He indwells humans who accept Christ’s salvation and commit to Him. Today’s shared common-ground metaphysic is not a pseudo-Platonic grasp of an abstract common nature shared by things of the same _ousia_, and therefore the language that we convey that reality described in the previous paragraph needs to change to match what we now use as a philosophical base for our understanding of the world. Spong is quite simply the wrecking crew; his job is to clear out the detritus of the old ruins so that we can build a new mental temple to house that reality. If I cannot explain my grasp of who God is so that **David B.** can grasp it in terms we share, then there’s something wrong with the vocabulary I’m using. ---
**Author:** ![NaSultainne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/8797f3/32.png) [@NaSultainne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NaSultainne)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2003, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016/82 "2003-03-04T03:08:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by FriendRob \* > But Christians have been coming up with “new and improved versions” of Christianity for almost 2000 years. No reason I can see to stop now. This, in a nutshell, illustrates the difficulty I have with Bishop Spong, et al. I fully recognize that you and I can arrive at differing conclusions upon reading any given passage in the Bible, but that may be resolved after subsequent study by one or both of us. Neither of us will claim to have _independent_ and personal reasons for declaring our interpretation to be _superior_ to established doctrine. Yet Bishop Spong is doing precisely that, it seems to me. He **chooses** to alter essential Christian doctrine, and based on what, exactly? > [@](#): > > Question: how do you know that the “God of the Bible” is the same God that Jesus believed in? Sure, you can take this as an assumption. But you might be wrong! Absolutely. BUT, I am basing my faith on a substantive reading of scripture, analysis of its content, cohesiveness, consistency, patterns, etc. I have _evaluated_ its claims to be the inspired word of God. Granted, I began this study having reached some preliminary conclusions, i.e., God exists, He chooses to have a relationship with His creation (man), and He has taken steps to communicate His nature and desires for fellowship in a format that is readily available to man. If I take as given the above, I am more than willing, nay eager, to hear new revelation from God, particularly as the Bible is one lengthy revelation continuously updated and enhanced as man’s understanding of the relationship grow and mature. I am not, however, subject to any one declaration of so-called “truth” without the most rigorous scrutiny. Bishop Spong, at this time, fails that scrutiny. > [@](#): > > Views like Spong’s and the many eloquent writers on this thread come from acknowledging that there is a _historical_ aspect to Christianity (or any religion): ideas change about what the religion means. Martin Luther (favorite of many fundamentalist Christians) was one person who instituted such a change. I’m no expert on Luther, but I think it would be fair to say that he “took out” at least one of the “foundations of the faith” of his time: reliance on the Pope as the ultimate authority of the Church. Of course to some this made him a heretic. But to others he was a visionary leader. I am no expert on Catholicism, so let me simply address it thusly: I would argue that Martin Luther sought to remove the hundreds of years worth of supplementary doctrine for which he could find no scriptural support. In that regard, he was less a figure of dramatic “change” to the church, but rather the equivalent of a course correction. While I think you might, unintentionally, have struck to the heart of Bishop Spong’s nature, this serves to make him less credible in my view. ---
**Author:** ![NaSultainne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/8797f3/32.png) [@NaSultainne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NaSultainne)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2003, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016/83 "2003-03-04T03:29:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Polycarp \* > But your point is quite valid otherwise – neither of these writers nor Clement would have a clue about the Chalcedonian definition of the two natures of Christ nor the doctrine of the Holy Trinity; they were later attempts to explicate the reality known to them – that the one God was at the same time the object of Christ’s worship and known to others through Him, and that He indwells humans who accept Christ’s salvation and commit to Him. Perhaps, perhaps. Does this in any way effect a disruption of the essential doctrine in the Bible, namely man’s sinfulness and God’s redemption? I would argue not. Bishop Spong seems intent on just such a course of action. > [@](#): > > Spong is quite simply the wrecking crew; his job is to clear out the detritus of the old ruins so that we can build a new mental temple to house that reality. I have noted in other posts, **Polycarp** , that you credit God’s nature as at once being perceptible by man (to a limited degree), and imperceptible in His entirety. This I wholly believe. Yet, I believe God most sufficient to define His nature to us, rather than man being presumptuous in defining and limiting God. While I recognize the inherent limitations of the Bible, it being what you might call a primer, I would never presume that God is incapable of further revelation through His own methods. I emphatically do not give such authority to Bishop Spong. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2003, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016/84 "2003-03-04T05:46:10Z")
I don’t know that I’d say that the central theme of the Bible is that of man’s sinfulness and God’s redemption. To me it’s much more like he wants us to be clear on who He is, who we are, who our fellow men are, and what we’re supposed to do and to eschew doing in relation to each, and that His love transcends all limitations we can place on it, including, in particular, killing Him when He takes human form to better communicate it to us. As an Episcopalian, I have a bit of a quandary. Bishop Spong is a bishop and teacher of the church in the Apostolic Succession, and therefore one to whom I am to listen with attention – yet not with total acceptance, for our bishops can and do make mistakes. I grant him insight into the problems that our bland and blind acceptance of traditional modes of thinking about God and reacting to our fellow men according to those teachings have placed on many others. If you have a problem with that, just open any thread where homosexuality has been mentioned and see the open hostility – and the fault for gay men and women’s hatred of Christ and Christianity lies with our rejecting them thanks to focusing on a couple of Bible verses rather than the ones Jesus taught us to count as key. If Spong can possibly say or do anything to break that acceptance and cause us to look at the real God who lies above and beyond our formulae for describing Him, and get us beyond that impasse where we are hated by those whom we should be counting as brothers and sisters, then he is most assuredly doing God’s work in that respect. ---
**Author:** ![GOM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5f9b8f/32.png) [@GOM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GOM)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2003, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016/85 "2003-03-04T18:24:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Polycarp \* > \*\*then he is most assuredly doing God’s work in that respect. \*\* Not if he’s not a Christian… Proverbs 21:4 “…the plowing of the wicked, is sin.” It might not look like sin to us. We might say the man plowing the field was providing for his family, therefore doing God’s work. God’s standard is different from ours. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2003, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016/86 "2003-03-04T18:36:48Z")
**GOM** , what if Spong sincerely feels called by God to say the things that he says? Should he ignore God? ---
**Author:** ![Mars\_Horizon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mars_horizon/32/2804_2.png) [@Mars\_Horizon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mars_Horizon)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2003, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016/87 "2003-03-04T18:47:47Z")
If Spong feels called to say things that fundamentalists think are evil then Spong must be motivated by evil. Showing love is evil if you’re not a fundamentalist. At least according to the alleged Grumpy Old Man. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2003, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016/88 "2003-03-04T19:02:35Z")
That’s an unfair characterization of the **GOM** – but so was his implied characterization of Bp. Spong. **GOM** , I know the man – not well, but well enough to speak to this. He’s sincere and devout in his belief in God, who is totally real to Him, and to Christ, whom he believes to have been the very real means by which we know God in human form – and who continues to work through His people after His Crucifixion. And Spong is insistent that many of our more conservative brethren are substituting a Pharisee’s view of God for the one that Jesus taught – as am I. While I think Spong is out to lunch on some points, and needlessly polemic on others, I stand by him as being a sincere Christian. You know what happens when people start talking about who’s a “REAL Christian” and who’s not. I think we don’t need to go there. ---
**Author:** ![Mars\_Horizon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mars_horizon/32/2804_2.png) [@Mars\_Horizon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mars_Horizon)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2003, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016/89 "2003-03-04T19:46:51Z")
**Poly** - yeah, you’re right that I made an unfair characterization of **GOM**. I was hoping that he would be irritated by it so that I could point out how unpleasant a feeling it is to be labeled an untrue Scotsman. \ ---
**Author:** ![emarkp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@emarkp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emarkp)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2003, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016/90 "2003-03-04T20:35:50Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Polycarp_ > This builds on his first premise, so one must deny theism for this one to be valid. However, I don’t totally deny it – I affirm a God who is greater than anybody’s concept of Him. > > But there’s an important point to be made here. The purpose of the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity and the Chalcedonian doctrine of Christology was to provide an intellectual framework in which to grasp an observed fact (“observed fact” in the sense that it was the faith perception of the early Christians) – _ **in Christ we see God.** _ When we observe the man Jesus of Nazareth, we see what God is like literally brought down to Earth in human form. > … > The obvious conclusion to me is that if the doctrines make grasping the nature of God in Christ heavy going for anyone, they need to be thrown overboard, at least as a part of that person’s theological baggage. The avatar concept of Hinduism may be what works for some in its place. > > In short, one does not deny that God was present in Christ, and experienced in the Holy Spirit – but one need not subscribe to the orthodox doctrines to explain how that happened. Then perhaps we need to reexamine Nicaea and Chalcedon, but let’s not throw out the original source text arbitrarily (which is how I read what Spong is suggesting. > [@](#): > > Spong is quite simply the wrecking crew; his job is to clear out the detritus of the old ruins so that we can build a new mental temple to house that reality. I have little respect for such wrecking crews. If there is no plan the rebuild, then wrecking is simply irresponsible. I don’t see Spong with any plan to rebuild, or even any effort to do so. > [@](#): > > If I cannot explain my grasp of who God is so that **David B.** can grasp it in terms we share, then there’s something wrong with the vocabulary I’m using. Your failure to explain to someone may not be a fault with the language or your use of it. ---
**Author:** ![Mars\_Horizon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mars_horizon/32/2804_2.png) [@Mars\_Horizon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mars_Horizon)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2003, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016/91 "2003-03-05T01:31:11Z")
**Diogenes** , et. al - I’ve been wanting to comment on this since you first opened this thread last Thursday, but I haven’t quite known what to say. I have so many thoughts running around in this jumble I call a mind. 🙂 I discovered Bishop Spong’s writings and thoughts at a pivotal time in my life - the spring of 2001 IIRC. I had realized a few months before that my lifelong devotion to fundamentalist Christianity was in reality, just so much nonsense, and I was angry. I was angry at my parents for being deceived and leading me down such a path, I was angry at the Church for perpetuating such utter bullshit, and I was angry at myself for not having realized sooner what a bunch of crap I thought was True. Here’s an embarrassing revelation: At one time, I believed in :rolleyes: Young Earth Creationism, the Lost Day, the Evil Secular Humanist Conspiracy (followed closely of course by the Evil Gay Conspiracy To Corrupt God’s Children! :mad: ), etc. etc. ad infinitum, ad nauseum. I was turning into what my dear friend **Libertarian** would call a “hand stabbing atheist”. Ouch! And then I discovered the retired Bishop of Newark, John Shelby Spong. And like you said **DtC** , it was like breathing **pure oxygen**. Here was a man who IMHO realized that traditional religion is ultimately doomed, but that - to use the words of Neil Peart - “to criticize is to presuppose an alternative”. His bold - _almost strident_ - “alternative” grabbed hold of me, and caught my attention. I rushed to read everything I could get my hands on, and I was blown away. Here was a Bishop, admitting to the things which I had only just realized myself - that religion can only be true so much as it matches up with the real world we live in, that people should not be condemned as evil for who they are (or who they love!), and that True Faith is our faith in each other - and that faith is watered by experience so that it must grow and change as we learn over time. It was Spong’s works that set me off on a path to discover what great truths I had been missing out on. He led me to read other liberal theologians, like Paul Tillich, Marcus Borg - and from there to other writers, like Viktor Frankl, the Dalai Lama, and Thich Nhat Hanh, to name a few. All of these have had a profound effect on me, to the point that I am almost unable to put it into words. I will leave you now with his words to me in an email dated May 5, 2001 as he responded to a brief account I had written him of my epiphany (if I may be so bold as to use such a word): > [@](#): > > “Dear [Mars], > Thanks for your letter and sharing your story with me. You have been on quite a journey. God is real, but those who act as if their view of God and God are the same distort this God significantly.” > > John S. Spong I will think on this, and try to give my response to his 12 points tomorrow. Thanks for opening this thread. I have enjoyed it, for not only the other Spongphiles, but for reading his detractors as well. Food for thought. Be well. Mars ---
**Author:** ![NaSultainne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/8797f3/32.png) [@NaSultainne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NaSultainne)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2003, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016/92 "2003-03-05T03:04:03Z")
**Polycarp** , I’m addressing this specifically to you, as you seem to be the one with the most intimate knowledge of Bishop Spong’s views. I wrote a lengthy post late last night but didn’t submit it, for which I’m most relieved. I’m afraid my comments would have come across as caustic in the light of day, and I know I need to restrain that tendency to feel as though I’m doing battle. Having said that, let me cut to the chase WRT Spong: his position seems to be that the 1500+ years of OT knowledge and relationship with God, followed by the personal sacrifice of His human Son and another 2000 years of following His word have all been not merely insufficient, which I could continue to discuss eagerly, but _wrong_. Error, misinterpretation, distortion, you name it. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. This is where I have to draw the line. If you submit the argument that God is more than any book, no matter how inspired the writing, can contain, I’m with you. I absolutely agree. Our conceptualization of God is limited to our innate nature, flawed and mortal. Bishop Spong doesn’t seem to argue from that standpoint. He seems to argue that man’s understanding of God is in error from the word ‘go’. That everything we’ve known is in error, and that he alone, Bishop Spong, has seen the light of God’s truth. I don’t get it. I can read the Bible and secular historical sources complementary to it, and I can see the grand picture in magnificent scale and scope. I can read the Bible and see the growing, maturing nature of man’s relationship with God, and all too often, his rejection of God. I can see the expanding revelation of God by God to His people, and marvel at His patience, love, persistence, and wisdom. It’s an awesome journey, one in which the more time you spend looking around, the deeper your appreciation. Now, you tell me that Bishop Spong has some new grand concepts that wash away everything that has come before, not merely improving, but completely destroying the previous foundation. And he claims this is from God? Again and again I will ask: based on what? Does it even make sense that God would allow hundreds of millions of people throughout the centuries to believe (for if we believe in a lie, have we freely believed at all?)in a vision of Him that is not imperfect, but false? Not merely incomplete but a forgery? Not merely wrong but diametrically the complete opposite of His true nature? Does it? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2003, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016/93 "2003-03-05T03:06:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Polycarp \* > If Spong can possibly say or do anything to break that acceptance and cause us to look at the real God who lies above and beyond our formulae for describing Him, and get us beyond that impasse where we are hated by those whom we should be counting as brothers and sisters, then he is most assuredly doing God’s work in that respect. I don’t see that Spong’s belief that we need to toss theism and a whole bunch of other stuff out the window, is a precondition for a Church that accepts and embraces gays as brothers and sisters in Christ. As you know, the new A of C manages to do that, without tossing out centuries’ worth of understanding of Christ. BTW, [Rowan’s writings](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/103-3549414-3321406) have become much more obtainable, due to his improbable rise to the top of the C of E, if anyone’s looking for oxygen. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2003, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016/94 "2003-03-05T03:28:36Z")
**Na Sultainne** , I too am put off by Spong’s insistence on setting up a Fundamentalist strawman and then taking potshots at it. If I were called to critique your own synopsis of your belief system, I would never call it wrong; the most critical I’d be is to use the term “incomplete” – which would also be true of my own belief system, as I’d hasten to add. I’ll challenge your statements when I believe them to be contrary to the greater truth of God’s salvation – we got into this in great depth in the Pizza Parlor, when **His4Ever** , resting on Jesus’s “No man comes to the Father except by Me,” derived from this that nobody but a Christian can possibly be saved. I simply pointed out that **Jesus** is the way – the ineffable, incomprehensible Second Person of the Trinity who lived among us as one of us twenty centuries ago. And what He may do in the hearts and minds of others who have been put off by a doctrinaire, judgmental branch of Christianity is not “a different way” – **He** is the Way. (In passing, I pointed out that Gandhi was all his life a student of God’s Word, and failed to become a Christian because racist South Africans wouldn’t let an Indian in their churches, so he was forced to read our Scriptures from a Hindu perspective. And that nobody but God and Gandhi knows what went on in Gandhi’s heart when he read of Jesus.) And we have an example of precisely what I’m talking about a very few posts above this one – my beloved friend **Mars Horizon** lost his acceptance of a fundamentalist Christianity that he’d been raised to believe, and found new directions in faith in Spong. That one incident alone justifies what Spong has done in my eyes. (You may want to read his autobiography for other incidents of the same sort.) ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2003, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016/95 "2003-03-05T04:02:50Z")
**Mars** , I find your story very intriguing. How do you, personally, conceptualize Spong’s non-theistic deity, and what place, if any, does Christ now have in your faith? ---
**Author:** ![Dreaming\_of\_Maria\_Callas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@Dreaming\_of\_Maria\_Callas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dreaming_of_Maria_Callas)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2003, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016/96 "2003-03-05T16:14:02Z")
What does Spong believe about the afterlife? Does he even believe in an eternal soul that remains after the body dies? And what about the Resurrection? UnuMondo ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2003, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016/97 "2003-03-05T17:38:24Z")
Spong on the [afterlife](http://www.dioceseofnewark.org/vox31199.html) > [@](#): > > \*\*Life after death, understood as a place of reward and punishment, must, I now believe, be jettisoned from the Christianity that hopes to live into the next millennium. It has died already. A slight breeze blowing in its direction will topple it publicly. The days when guilt can be used by the Church as a weapon of behavior control are over. > > But having said that let me now state my deep conviction that our conscious life is not ended with our biological death. For me this is a certainty that arises out of the heart of the Gospel, but I could not see it until I escaped the boundaries of theism which has captured that Gospel for most of its two thousand years. For me, God is no longer a supernatural being external to life. God is rather the very ground and source of Being itself. This means that the more deeply I live and love and have the courage to be the self I am, the more fully God can be seen and revealed in my being. > > ``` > <snip> > > ``` > > So heaven for me is not a place of reward. It is the experience of the fullness of Being. Hell is not a place of punishment. It is the experience of non-Being. > > ``` > <snip> > > ``` > > Eternity lives in me just as God lives in me. I am a part of who God is, or as Meister Eckhart observed in the 14th century, “my me is God.” No, that is not a statement of arrogant, modern megalomania. It is rather the discovery of the doorway into a Christianity that will emerge in the coming reformation in which a new God-consciousness, beyond the theistic limits of yesterday, will be born. I await the Reformation! I hope I have contributed to its arrival.\*\* Make of it what you will. ---
**Author:** ![GOM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5f9b8f/32.png) [@GOM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GOM)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2003, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016/98 "2003-03-05T18:11:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic \* > \*\ ***GOM** , what if Spong sincerely feels called by God to say the things that he says? Should he ignore God? \*\* Being sincere could cover many topics. However, sincerely feeling that I can walk on water does not make it true. I don’t believe Spong has any right to claim he is called by God, because he does not believe in God. This is the quote that opened my eyes about Spong: “So facing this testing moment in history, 21st century Christians can no longer speak of God in the supernatural concepts of yesterday. Yet we have no other vocabulary at our disposal. That is the crisis of our generation. \*\*The supernatural deity is no more. The death of this God was announced by Nietsche in the 19th Century. \*\*It was proclaimed by radical theologians through the secular media in the 1960s. It finally entered our consciousness to stay with the attacks of Sept. 11.” [http://thebruces.stormbirds.org/forum/showthread.php?threadid=6254&pagenumber=1](http://thebruces.stormbirds.org/forum/showthread.php?threadid=6254&pagenumber=1) Spong might be a very intelligent, friendly person, perhaps even a very loving kind of guy. But, based on his own words, I don’t see how anyone can call him a Christian. He will fit very nicely into the coming one world religion though… P.S. God is dead. Nietzsche Nietzsche is dead. God Which one do you think is more accurate? ---
**Author:** ![Mars\_Horizon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mars_horizon/32/2804_2.png) [@Mars\_Horizon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mars_Horizon)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2003, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016/99 "2003-03-05T20:13:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\*How do you, personally, conceptualize Spong’s non-theistic deity, and what place, if any, does Christ now have in your faith? \*\*Good questions. Really, I’m a “weak atheist”. I just don’t think there really is any kind of God out there running things, or communicating with humanity. I almost hate to say that, because I have such deep respect for some of my Christian friends. But it’s true. All throughout history we have seen supernatural explanations for things replaced by naturalistic ones. AFAIK, no naturalistic explanation for anything has ever been supplanted by a supernatural one, and I seriously doubt one ever will. So how do I conceptualize God? I would say that “God” is the way that people explain the truths that humanity has learned through millions of years of struggle to survive. “God” is caring for one another, because together we are made better and stronger. God is not (IMHO) any type of conscious entity that interacts with humans or the physical universe. Having said all that, I don’t begrudge anyone else their God-belief, **to the extent that it makes them a more loving and compassionate person**. That is why I distinguish between the God or the Christ that **Polycarp, Lib, cjhoworth, Mangetout** , et. al. follow, and the hideous monster that certain other un-named posters follow. You know who you are because you show not love, as your conception of God and your treatment of others shows. Now what place does Christ have in my faith? Well, I really dislike the term “faith” - I don’t need “faith” - defined as “trust in some unprovable assertion” - in order to be complete as a human being. I am fine (thank you!) with things that are observable and testable and repeatable. But I will say that Christ has a place in my _life_. His ethical teachings are an excellent place to draw from when seeking to form an ethic for dealing with life, and as I mentioned earlier, when combined with the philosophical views of certain Buddhist sects or writers, are very meaningful. I would heartily recommend Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Going Home: Jesus And Buddha As Brothers”. ---
**Author:** ![emarkp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@emarkp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emarkp)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2003, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016/100 "2003-03-05T20:32:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Polycarp \* > > > [@](#): > > > > 9.) There is no external, objective, revealed standard writ in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time. > > _Au contraire_. There is one basic principle, clearly found in Scripture and in fact taught by Spong himself, that spells out a standard for human behavior: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself. In these two commandments are all the Law and the Prophets.” **Polycarp** while that may be revealed, it’s certainly not objective. How do you determine objectively if someone does in fact love God and man as Jesus indicated? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bishop-john-shelby-spong-heretic-or-visionary/158016.md?page=6)