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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Hi</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>He's a controversial guy. A few snips from
Wikipedia (<A
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Shelby_Spong">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Shelby_Spong</A>):</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000080 size=2>He identifies himself as a Christian
because he believes that Jesus fully expressed God's presence and that he was
resurrected by God to "God's right hand", and that this is the meaning of the
early Christian slogan of "Jesus is Lord" (Spong, 1994 and Spong, 1991). He
rejects the historical truth of some Christian doctrines, such as the virgin
birth (Spong, 1992) and the bodily resurrection of Jesus that he claims would
define the resurrection as the literal resuscitation of the corpse of Jesus
(Spong, 1994).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000080 size=2>Spong has also been a strong
proponent of feminism, gay rights and racial equality within both the church and
society at large. Towards these ends, he calls for a new Reformation, in which
many of Christianity's basic doctrines should be reformulated.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Pasted from <A
href="http://www.dioceseofnewark.org/jsspong/reform.html">http://www.dioceseofnewark.org/jsspong/reform.html</A>
onto Wikipedia are a few of his own words:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000080 size=2>1. Theism, as a way of defining God,
is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak
of God must be found.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000080 size=2>2. Since God can no longer be
conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus
as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is
bankrupt.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000080 size=2>3. The biblical story of the perfect
and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian
mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000080 size=2>4. The virgin birth, understood as
literal biology, makes Christ's divinity, as traditionally understood,
impossible.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000080 size=2>5. The miracle stories of the New
Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural
events performed by an incarnate deity.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000080 size=2>6. The view of the cross as the
sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive
concepts of God and must be dismissed.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000080 size=2>7. Resurrection is an action of God.
Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical
resuscitation occurring inside human history.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000080 size=2>8. The story of the Ascension assumed
a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into
the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000080 size=2>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.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000080 size=2>10. Prayer cannot be a request made
to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000080 size=2>11. The hope for life after death
must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and
punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a
motivator of behavior.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000080 size=2>12. All human beings bear God's image
and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external
description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual
orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or
discrimination.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Back to Wikipedia:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000080 size=2>Many of Spong's critics charge him
with hypocrisy, saying that a bishop who argues against church doctrines that he
swore in his ordination vow to defend lacks integrity, especially when being
paid by the church. Some, such as Brent Hardaway, would argue that Spong's
beliefs are not even Christian: "The God of the Christian Bible is a theistic
God, and if one does not believe in a theistic God, then he cannot be called a
Christian."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000080 size=2>Gerald O'Collins, Professor of
Fundamental Theology, Gregorian University, Rome argued that Spong’s "work
simply does not belong to the world of international scholarship. No genuine
scholar will be taken in by this book. ... What is said about a key verb St.
Paul uses in Gal. 1:15f. shows that the bishop [Spong] has forgotten any Greek
that he knew. [Spong argued his case based on a Greek word that is not in the
passage] ... [my] advice for his next book is to let some real experts check it
before publication." [Review of Resurrection: Myth or Reality, London Tablet, 30
April 1994]</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>God bless,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Stephen</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>--<BR>Stephen Korsman<BR><A
href="mailto:skorsman@theotokos.co.za">skorsman@theotokos.co.za</A><BR><A
href="http://www.theotokos.co.za">www.theotokos.co.za</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>IC | XC<BR>---------<BR>NI | KA<BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=rcdianne@yahoo.com href="mailto:rcdianne@yahoo.com">Dianne Dawson</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=apologetics@gathman.org
href="mailto:apologetics@gathman.org">Apologetics Group</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, November 26, 2006 1:48
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Apologetics] Bishop John S.
Spong</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Bishop Spong's name is tickling something in my memory but my
brain can't upload it. :-) All I can remember is that he is a
retired Episcopalian bishop. Could someone please remind me (positive,
negative, or neutral)? </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>My interest is piqued because each year my parish presents "A Festival of
Lessons and Carols." I have attended in past years and enjoyed it.
Apparently it is Episcopalian in origin. This year I am one of the
readers so I was doing some research into the readings. I found an
article by Bishop Spong titled "Rethinking the Festival of Lessons and
Carols." <A
href="http://www.dioceseofnewark.org/vox20197.html">http://www.dioceseofnewark.org/vox20197.html</A>.
Before I put too much stock in this article I'd like to know more about the
author.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Thanks,</DIV>
<DIV>Dianne</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV><BR><BR>
<DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000bf><EM><FONT face="comic sans ms">
<DIV><EM><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=#0000bf>Like a deer that longs
for running waters so my soul longs for you, O
God.</FONT></EM></DIV></FONT></EM></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000bf><EM><FONT face="comic sans ms">Ps
42:1</FONT></EM></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><EM><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=#0000bf
size=1></FONT></EM> </DIV>
<DIV><EM><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=#0000bf
size=1></FONT></EM> </DIV></DIV></DIV>
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