L. Dwight Turner

Few names can conjure  up negative responses as that of retired Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong. One of the leading advocates of contemporary liberal Christianity, Spong’s ideas have sent more than his share of conservatives and fundamentalists into fits of apoplexy.

 Although I find myself disagreeing with some of Spong’s more radical ideas about the faith in general and about Jesus in particular, I find that my reaction to the writings of the good bishop to be less vitriolic. In fact, I find much of what Spong has to say to be both enlightening and highly pertinent. Further, I find Spong to be a man who thoroughly believes what he says and who has a genuine affection for the faith.

 It is for these reasons that I encourage those readers who have an open mind to read the works of John Shelby Spong and to give this man a fair shake when it comes to his theology as well as his prescriptions for the church. Personally, I think Spong has much to offer the Body of Christ, if we will just put aside some of the things we have “heard” about him and discover for ourselves what he has to say.

 For example, in the passage below Spong discusses how his concept of prayer has changed as he has adopted what he calls a “post-theistic” concept of God. On a personal level, he specifically discusses how his daily two-hour prayer sessions have been transformed into a far wider venue:

 As I moved beyond theism to a post-theistic understanding of God, I discovered that my commitment to starting my day with this focused two-hour time slot did not change, but my understanding of what I was doing did – and dramatically. It made perhaps a 180-degree turn. The primary shift came in what I thought the prayer part of my day was. It ceased to be identified with these first two hours each morning and shifted to embrace the balance of the day. My actions, my engagement with people, the facing of concrete issues – all these became for me the real time of prayer. My prayer came to be identified with my living, my loving, my being, my meaning, my confronting, my struggles for justice, my desire to be an agent of the world’s transformation. That is where I met and communed with God. God was no longer found for me in the quiet places of retreat; now God was in the hurly-burly of a busy and sometimes troubling life. God was found not in the stable rocks but in the rushing rapids.

 (from A New Christianity for a New World)

 I find nothing in these words offensive or heretical. It seems the only folks that find the bulk of Spong’s work to be heresy are those believers, heretics themselves, who hold to the notion that the Bible is the Word of God and worthy of worship. I find bibliolatry to be a particularly vile form of apostasy, and a major cause of division and spiritual paralysis in the church. It is certainly far more deadly than what Spong is talking about.

 (to be continued)

 © L. Dwight Turner 2009/All Rights Reserved