John Shelby Spong
John Shelby Spong (born June 16, 1931 in Charlotte, North Carolina) is the former bishop Anglican Diocese of Newark , New Jersey. This is a Christian liberal theologian , scholar, critic and religious writer. He advocates generally liberal views, such as racial equality. It also calls for a fundamental rethink the Christian faith by abandoning theism and life after death as a punishment of human behavior.
Spong's ideas were severely criticized by other theologians, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams (when Williams was Bishop of Monmouth ).
Summary |
Writings
Spong's work deals with biblical sources and non-biblical, and is influenced by modern critical analysis of these sources (see Spong, 1991). It is representative of a current of thought found its roots in the medieval universalism of Peter Abelard and the existentialism of Paul Tillich , he presents as his favorite theologian New Reformation
Spong has been a staunch supporter of feminism , the gay rights and the racial equality within the Church as in society as a whole. To these ends, it calls for a new Reformation Protestant, in which many basic doctrines of Christianity should be reformulated. The most detailed development of these beliefs is in his book A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional Faith Is Dying and How a New Faith Is Being Born. He outlined his ideas on the website as follows:
Luther lit the Protestant Reformation by nailing to the door of the church in Wittenberg in 1517 the 95 Theses that he wished to discuss. I will issue this challenge to Christianity in The Voice. I'll upload my theses and send copies with invitations to debate the global Christian leaders recognized. My theses are far less numerous than those of Luther , but they are much heavier on the theological level. The issues on which I now call the Christians of the world to debate are these:
1. The theistic conception of God is outdated. Theological language it induces has lost all meaning. We must develop a new way of talking about God.
2. Understanding of the person of Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity should also be abandoned. The Christology traditional no longer credible.
3. The biblical account of creation perfect and complete, of which humanity is fallen into sin, is a myth and pre-Darwinian nonsense post-Darwinian.
4. Interpret the doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ as a biological truth, renders it incomprehensible that his divinity.
5. In our post-Newtonian mindset, we can not interpret the miracles of the New Testament as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.
6. The sacrificial interpretation of the cross atoning for the sins of the world is a barbaric and primitive idea from an understanding of God that should be abandoned.
7. The Resurrection is an act of God passing Jesus in the heavenly world. This is not a physical resuscitation taking place in the human world.
8. The story of the Ascension , which requires a three-tiered universe, can not be transposed into the spatial concepts of the post-Copernican.
9. There is no ethical principle objective outside us, revealed by God and made in writing or on tablets of stone and should never settle our moral conduct.
10. Prayer can not be a series of requests to a celestial deity, asking him to intervene from outside in our human history.
11. The resurrection should not be a reward or result in punishment. The Church must no longer seek to blame the faithful.
12. All humans are God's image, and each must be respected for what it is. Therefore no discrimination is admissible according to criteria of race or sexual orientation.
Spong's work on the textual evolution of the role of Jewish betraying Jesus attributed to Judas Iscariot in the Gospels have garnered attention from social scientists interested in the roots of antisemitism in the New Testament. He strongly supports that the details given on increasing the betrayal of Judas from the synoptic gospels to the Gospel of John are the result of a beautification assets from the more recent authors such as Mark and the Q source , the result an ideological tension resulting from the unexpected and growing hostility between Jews and Christians in the early days of the Church.
Reviews
Gerald O'Collins , Professor of Fundamental Theology, Gregorian University, Rome, said Spong's work "did not simply part of the international world of scholarship. No serious scholar will not have that book. ]
There is a critical book entitled Can a Bishop Be Wrong? Ten Scholars Challenge John Shelby Spong (A bishop can go wrong? Ten scholars challenge John Shelby Spong), edited by Peter Moore.
Rowan Williams , current Archbishop of Canterbury , wrote a response to Spong 12 points in 1998, when he was Bishop of Monmouth: "I can not in any way consider Spong's theses as representing a Christian future defensible or even interesting. And I want to know if the tradition and the Christian scriptures past him seem really empty and sterile as suggested by his text. "
Publications
- 1973 - Honest Prayer
- 1974 - This Hebrew Lord, ISBN 0-06-067520-9
- 1975 - Christpower
- 1975 - Dialogue: In Search of Jewish-Christian Understanding, ISBN 1-878282-16-6
- 1976 - Life Approaches Death: A Dialogue on Ethics in Medicine
- 1980 - The Easter Moment, ISBN 1-878282-15-8
- 1983 - Into the Whirlwind: The Future of the Church, ISBN 1-878282-13-1
- 1986 - Beyond Moralism: A Contemporary View of the Ten Commandments (co-authored With Denise G. Haines, Archdeacon), ISBN 1-878282-14-X
- 1987 - Consciousness and Survival: An Interdisciplinary Inquiry Into The Possibility of Life Beyond Biological Death (edited by John S. Spong, introduction by Claiborne Pell ), ISBN 0-943951-00-3
- 1988 - Living in Sin? A Bishop Rethink Human Sexuality, ISBN 0-06-067507-1
- 1991 - Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethink The Meaning of Scripture, ISBN 0-06-067518-7
- 1992 - Born of a Woman: A Bishop Rethink The Birth of Jesus, ISBN 0-06-067523-3
- 1994 - Resurrection: Myth or Reality? A Bishop's Search for the Origins of Christianity, ISBN 0-06-067546-2
- 1996 - Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible With Jewish Eyes, ISBN 0-06-067557-8
- 1999 - Why Christianity Must Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers In Exile, ISBN 0-06-067536-5
- 2001 - Here I Stand: My Struggle for a Christianity of Integrity, Love and Equality, ISBN 0-06-067539-X
- 2002 - A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional Faith Is Dying and How a New Faith Is Being Born, ISBN 0-06-067063-0
- 2005 - The Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible's Texts of Hate to Reveal the God of Love, ISBN 0-06-076205-5
- 2007 - Jesus for the Non-Religious, ISBN 0-06-076207-1
Other notable events
Spong is the cousin of former Democratic Senator William B. Spong, Jr.
A play is being produced about the life of Bishop Spong, entitled "A Pebble In My Shoe" ("A pebble in my shoe"), written by Colin Cox & produced by Will & Company. He himself saw the play a half-dozen times in different places in the United States.
References
- " Challenging the 'Sins of Scipture' ". Interview with Bill O'Reilly. April 14, 2005.
- What's Wrong With Bishop Spong?
- Spong Song Of The What?
- Career dates retrieved from The Bishop of Newark official website and Bishop Spong's official biography on August 30, 2006.
External Links
- Extensive information on the site Spong Gilles Castelnau
- Bishop Spong's official website
- Antonella Gambotto-Burke is John Shelby Spong
- Audio Interview with ABC Radio Spong
- "A Call for a New Reformation" by John S. Spong
- Compass Interview with Bishop John Shelby Spong
- Minnesota Public Radio Interview with Bishop Spong
- Scott Stephens interview with John Shelby Spong: "I am very orthodox after all!"
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