Yet More Responses to the Spong Challenge

• Tom Jackson Sun, 19 Jul

{a}Thank you for setting up this website, which I found for the first time today. I was looking for the Bishop's active participation in the debate and was quite disappointed to find that he had started the arguement and then chose not to be too active in it.
{b}You now seem to be in the position of trying to argue the point that what the Bishop says is in error rather than him fighting his own corner. However, that being the case, let us proceed.
{c} I think it is true to say that your refutation of thr 12 positions was logical. Being logical, however, shows nothing more than you have used the rules of thought and language in a connected and systematic way. It does not necessarily mean you have discovered, or dealt with the truth.
  In your own way of thought you seem to want to be associated with empiricism and evidence and yet also work from some poaitions that are based truly, and possibly, only, in faith. As a christian myself, please see that last statement as coming from some one who experiences the same dilemma. It is not an attack.
{d} So let me ask you a simple question; at the time of the conception of who we have come to know as Jesus of Nazareth, are you saying that there was no meeting between a human sperm and a human ovum? Is this what you mean by the Virgin Birth?
{e} In your comment on point 10 where the Bishop claims that prayer cannot be a request to God to act in human history, you simply respond by saying it can, This is true, it can be anything you like. It can be the collected lyrics of Bob Dylan if you want it to be, or the first page of the London phone book. But what will you conclude, after making such a public prayer to God for Spong to withdraw, if he doesn't? If you prayed this prayer a million times and he still didn't withdraw, what would be going on? If all the peole in all the world prayed this 5 times a day, for fory years and nothing happened, what would you conclude. Correct me if I'm wrong, and I'm sure you will, but I suspect that you would have to come to the conclusion that it was God's will to have Spong's 12  theses on the net, or that Spong  was just being remarkably disobedient to God. I think Spong would probably respond, and here I maybe being too simplistic, that God just doesn't work like that.
• Nicholas Beale 19 July

{a} Indeed.  Says something about his sincerity - as does the fact that his website and Louie Crew's (one of his cheif henchmen) choose to ignore this site.
{c} There is a big difference between a position which is based on faith and one which is entirely dissociated from empiricism and evidence.  For example, I have faith that my wife loves me, but this does not mean that I have no evidence that she does.  Spong tries to 'argue' that because there is a fundamental tension between 'Modernism' and Christianity, Christianity must change radically or die.  But 'Modernism' is not a consequence of scientific and empirical evidence, it is an elecetive ideology (which is probably incoherent).  You can be 100% familiar with modern science, and accept all the scientific evidence and, to the extent that they are justified, scientific theories, without swallowing the philosophical outlook of 'Modernism'.
{d} We clearly don't know in deatil how God accomplished the miracle of the Incarnation.  Maybe God directly caused the fertlised egg with the right genetic material to come into being in Mary's womb - maybe He miraculously caused the right spermatozoon to arrive.  What I, and the Church, mean by the Virgin Birth is that Mary had not had sexual intercourse before Jesus was conceived.  We believe this, not becasue of some a priori view about 'sinfulness' of sex, but because this was the view of the 1st Century Church and the only reasonable explanation of this is that it was true. Mary, who must have know, was almost certainly alive when Luke's gospel was written - the story must have come from her.
{e}Spong says it cannot be conceived as ...  It's Spong's ex cathedra arrogance that gets me.  Have you seen the interview with him?
• Tom Jackson 23 July 1998 {I haven't yet had time to reply to this, but I will try to. It's a bit long, but interesting}

You have "dodge the bullet," as a lot of good Country singers would say,  concerning my point on Spong 10. I had already agreed with you that when he  used the word "cannot", he had over egged the pudding.  So are you going to  tell me what is your considered opinion of my point about prayer, or are we  just into confirming that he wrote his 12 statements in a sloppy manner?  Are you going to join the debate in a more personal manner?
{c} I agree with you when you say that "modernism" is not a consequence of  scientific and empirical evidence. I agree that it is an incoherent  ideology, in other words, a system of trying to make sense of, and draw  larger human/societal conclusions, from the scientific work that goes on,  and, that is not consistent throughout. However it has had a very powerful influence on the popular mind, which for the most part has no idea of what it is.
 Roads and railways and medicines and hospitals and aeroplanes and good  housing conditions and work for nearly everybody, just seemed to roll up from out of nowhere. More children survived birth; old people lived longer. Some peole began to say, "it's all science,"  and these were people who wouldn't know a second order differential equation if it jumped up and bit them. Some people began to realise that, having a raging life threatening infection, and being being given the choice between antibiotics and a rosary, they would choose the anti biotics. Most importantly,when people began to control their own fecundity through "scientific" means, many let the church drift out of their lives. Remember we are talking about very lovely, very normal people, not people who wrestle with the notion of quantum mechanics,entropy and chaos theory, just ordinary lovely folk, whose own common sense told them that it didn't feel good going to church any more, it felt like being asked to believe in magic. So they started going less regularly. The evidence is there before your eyes every Sunday. I think this is the level on which we should look at things.
 I hate to put words in the Bishops mouth, but I think this is the situation he's trying to address, not whether "modernism" is an elective ideology, coherent or incoherent for that matter. To most people Modernism just means funny looking pictures and tower blocks and lots of steel and glass in buildings that don't look like proper building any more. And if you say I'm patronising people then then I say, come on the council estate where I live, come in the pub on saturday night and talk to folk about Modernism.
 Now all those folk are beginning to realise that certain aspects and applications of modernism is causing the world to die. Muck is being spewed out all over the world and wrecking things. They don't understand the intricate details, they work at Rolls Royce, they aren't biologists, but they understand that we can't go on like this. They are beginning to get a bit hacked off since all these so called experts, who came in on the back of this new modern scientific world, and in whom they trusted, are not all they are cracked up to be.People are getting fed up about being tested and prodded and pontificated over by these so called experts.
 People are beginning to say that if these experts really want to help, they better shut up and be prepared to listen to them.
 Now which notion of God,amongst the many that mankind has perceived over the ages, are you going to explain to them, so that they can see that God and themselves are inextricably bound: El, the ancient God of blood and fire and covenent; Yahweh,God of Moses and Aaron;Yahweh Saboath, the Lord who destroyed his enemies from his ark as it was carried into battle; Yahweh the the Untouchable, so much so, that if you tried to catch the ark as it fell to the floor, he would fry you on the spot; Yahweh the short tempered, who would kill you for bringing fire to the Tabernacle without
being invited; Yahweh the God who had no time for Kings(not many even mention this one);Yahweh, the god who for centuries seemed to tell people
he was not interested in blood sacrifice, but was ignored; Yahweh the Almighty who rolls around heaven like thunder; Yahweh, who even Moses knew lived in you heart, orYahweh, whose second person was a man, who's understanding and expression of love was so close to the spirit of love that it was the same? Was this second person really "Immanuel," or was he "Son of God",a King or was he "Son of Man", a strange man who could rule in heaven with God after the end of times?Will you teach that this Immanuel is a God that has to be borne into life by a woman who has never had sex?
Now which ever you choose it better not be an ideology, for they are hardly ever complete enough to explain that infinitely connected thing called "life". Whatecer it is it must be done so that people can experience life in the light.
  If you judge the success of Christianity as getting people back to church, then I think the sort of people I have lovingly described to you are the people you need to activate. If you judge that success of Christianity as the bringing about the kingdom of heaven, then church going is not as important, but you will still have to touch the hearts of these people. If you judge the success of Christianity as the number of people who live their lives to the full, in the light, then church attendance might not matter at all.
{d} So what will you tell them about the Incarnation and the virgin birth? Well you've already told me.
Nicholas, I won't take you to task about your use of the word "must" in the last sentence, becuase I am not interested in refuting your arguement, I am
interested in exploring ideas with you. Let it be sufficient to say that you've committed a Spongism as you have changed an "almost" certainty into a certainty.Like you, I know, that sex, of itself is not sinful, so I have nothing to explore with you there.
  Let me look at an idea with you that confirms Jesus as Emanuel and Mary as his Virgin Mother, but doesn't depend on some Star Trek like materialisation, by some process based in the discontinuities in the time space continuum.
  It's the first century and they have just realised who has been walking the planet with them. It was a man, so at one with the spirit of love that  permeates all things, that they cannot see the join between his being and the spirit of God. In fact they know that there is no join. This man was the spirit of love incarnate. They had to express this truth.
  First the form: it's a parable.Why a parable? Because the man himself taught in parables, and because in a parable the form and the meaning are integratred. What do I mean by this? Jesus did not come down with a set of laws. If he had he would have taught the law through lesson plans, aims, and objectives, for the assumption that underlies that form is, that the listner does not know before you tell him, but does when you've finished; a transfer of knowledge paradigm. No, Jesus tells stories, and then says the equvalent of, "But you know already, don't you?"  In this pradigm, the assumption is, the knowledge is already there. The parable confirms it. This  was a message of Jesus, "Look into yourselves the truth is there because you were made in the image of God." Moses, according to the parables used about him, said much the same thing,"The law is not very far from you." The parable form would also be ideal for catechesis as new people came in to the community.
  The language, imagery,concepts, cultural, artifacts? Well the ones that were already there, but re created to convey the deep truth.This is not unusual, especially as one of the messages you want to give out  is, "Jesus is the culmination of a promise that was made in this tradition."  Picasso's use of re-worked Spanish imagery in his Painting "Guernica" is an excellent modern day example of going back into the tradition to express a new situation.
  OK, who is jesus, and what cultural titles are there to express his positon and his relationship to God. Well Luke uses Son of Man, Son of God and
Emanuel. These are the biggest appelations he could have got in that culture.
 OK, taking the Immanuel: if he's Immanuel who is Mary?Well Isaiah 7:14 tells you exactly who she is."The Virgin is with child and bears a son and calls his name Immanuel"
  Now I know that over the centuries that the wording had changed in that text, was it "a young woman" or the "young mother", and all could have different cultural meanings, but from the commentaries I have read, and the notes in several Bible versions I have read in my life, there seems to be a consensus that, "The Virgin" had been accepted well before Jesus' birth.And there we have her, Mary, "The Virgin", the sweet Mother of God, loved
by millions.
 You could see them almost working this out with the tool of logic,which you are so fond Nicholas.  This is the cultural appellation that describes her position and her relationship with Immanuel and Yahweh.Once it is recognised, becuse Jesus is forever Immanuel, then Mary is forever Virgin. The state of her sexual knowledge is irrelevant. From that tiltle we know who Mary is , and therefore, who Jesus is, and that is the point of the Gospel, to know who Jesus is.. All sorts of other allusions are made in Luke to cofirm the relationships between Mary Jesus and God....Genisis3:15, Song of Songs 4:12-16, Proverbs 8:22-31, Juduth 13:18-20. and 16:9-10.
Even Gabriel, not any minor angel, was to ask her if she was to be the Mother of God.
 If you detect any cynicism in this then the cynicisn lies in you. They knew who Jesus was they were using the cultural artifacts, like Picasso,  to express the truth.  Many people through history have received these sort of cultural titles like "Father of the Nation", and you would miss the point if you thought that meant the title bearer was related to eveybody.
Queen Elizabeth the First was hardly a virgin, but she was without doubt, the Virgin Queen in the experience of those who loved her.
 And the Incarnation itself..Maybe Saint John can help here. John 1:11-13,
"He came to his own,
yet his people did not receive him;
but all who have received him
he empowers to the children of God
for they believe in his Name.
These are born, but without seed
or carnal desire or will of man:
they are born of God."
What is he going on about? Is he literally suggesting only people born without seed , carnal desire and the will of man  can receive Jesus and become children of God? If that's true, then that's me, and all the world's population from the beginning to the end, with the exception of Jesus (using your definition),out of the running.
Now there are millions of people on this planet, like me, who blundered about causing havoc wherever they went, with respect for nothing and causing damage by  missing the mark time and time again. In fact, if they were anything like me, they didn't much care if there was a mark to miss. And then...... I won't tell you the story, but, I became aware of the knowledge that was already inside me,...the faith inside that Jesus called to in his parables. It was this sort of birth, the birth of "being" that responds to love, that I believe John is talking about. "Being," and the "state of that being" are central to our faith. How do we know that?Because it is God's name, YAWEH, an incredible, almost undecypherable play on the verb "to be".
  Now let's go to the creed;
"We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God form true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the father.
And that 's it, that's what they saw, "of one being with the Father". He had been of one being with the father, as a man, since the instant of his conception, and as we can see in John, that being, that is his whole soul and consciousness, that was love, spoke love, did love, died in love, can only be born "without seed or carnal desire or will of man:they are born of God."          It doesn't matter if Joseph provided the genetic material, God provided his "being." And so there you are, a different look at it ; scripturally based; Jesus recognised as Immanuel and his mother, the Virgin, then and frorever;  Jesus' "being" born not from desire, but by the power of the Holy Spirit.
  Now I have two ways of believing in front of me, your miraculous way, and my way. Which should I choose?  It would be so perfect to complete the circle and argue that my version should be accepted to accommodate the misunderstanding of "modernism" in   the popular mind, but that isn't what I'm going to do. I'm going for help to St Paul. "Worship God in a way that is worthy of thinking beings, by offering your living bodies as a holy sacrifice, truly pleasing to God." Romans 12:1.
I read that text every Sunday morning when I am preparing for Mass. I argue like a Protestant, but I am a Catholic.

• Tyree Hilkert 19 July

I'm one of the "believers in exile" that Bishop Spong is trying to reach out to.  I was feeling nostalgic and browsing Anglican sites and came across yours.  I imagine I agree with you all on matters of liturgy -- I think liturgical innovators should be martyred on pyres of "missalettes."  But I seem to agree with Bishop Spong on theology and ethics.  It's like being a libertarian.  I'm equally uncomfortable with liberals and conservatives.
  A few years ago I left the church to join the Nyingma (old translation) school of Tibetan Buddhism.  (Yes, even in Buddhism I want the OLD prayer book.)  Liturgically it reminded me of home.  Incense, bells, chanting (though in Tibetan instead of Latin), vestments, rosaries, ritual feasts where the species are transformed, and long, long elaborate liturgies.  It's amazing how similar religious phenomena is.  There are hierarchical and political battles.  Many people insist on blind acceptance of doctrine, though in this case it's the doctrines of karma and rebirth rather than original sin and resurrection.
  One thing I discovered that you might find healing is the way that Tibetan Buddhists classify their teachings and practices into parallel vehicles, or "yanas" in Sanskrit.  Depending on our needs and capacity, we practice different vehicles to enlightenment.  See if you think this also describes different Christian approaches.
1. Hinayana, or small vehicle.  Just enough room for the practitioner.
  - motivation: save myself from suffering
  - practices: renunciation
  - Christian parallels:  highly rule-based, authoritarian fundamentalism?
2. Mahayana, or great vehicle.  Large enough to carry all beings to enlightenment.
  - motivation: to save all beings from suffering
  - practices: compassion
  - Christian parallels:  mainstream Christianity, such as you're advocating?
3. Vajrayana, or indestructible vehicle.  We've always been enlightened.  God is with us.
  - motivation: to help all beings recognize the innate enlightened nature they already have
  - practices: emptiness (groundlessness, the dreamlike nature of being, the limits of conceptual thought)
  - Christian parallels:  Christian mysticism?
In Tibet, the highest teachings of the Vajrayana were kept secret because people would misunderstand them.  Either they would take the teachings as license to do whatever they wanted, or they would consider Vajrayana practitioners to be heretics and attack them.  Didn't this happen with Meister Eckhart and other mystics who questioned the ability of our language and concepts to describe God adequately?  "Do not flap your lips about God. If you do, you commit a sin."  I see Bishop Spong as saying the same sort of thing, and receiving the same sort of attack.  Well, except for being imprisoned and tortured...
  One advantage Tibetans have is that they see these "vehicles" as running in parallel.  Though it's important to be consistent WITHIN a single vehicle, teachings ACROSS two vehicles may seem to be inconsistent.  They are compared to different paths up the mountain.  From the top it's apparent that all climbers are ascending, but from the path, it may appear that other climbers are going in the wrong direction.
  Although I share Bishop Spong's perspective, I think it's just as counter-productive for him to insist that everyone agree with his "reformation" as it is for you to insist that he agree with you.  If you're fishing for men, you might rejoice that you've chosen to fish in different spots, because that might mean you'd catch more of them.
• Nicholas Beale 20 July

{a}Ty - Although I don't know much about Buddhism I am not surprised that there are paralells at the human level between the institiutions and systems.
{b} But what you and Spong seem to have forgotten about is - Jesus.  If He is the Son of God, then we have to submit our human and 'modernist' ideas to the touchstone of His ultimate reality.  In which case Spong's 'theses' become the pathetic confused cries of a dim man who has lost his faith to a half-understood and incoherent 'modernity' which was outdated by the 1940s.
{c} We don't insist that Spong agrees with us, we simply insist that if he has abandoned the Christian Faith it is wrong for him to remain a Bishop, and to trade on his position to sell his books.
{d} Why, if I may ask, did you move away from faith in Jesus?  I can understand leaving 'the Church' but not 'The Lord'.
• Tyree Hilkert 20 July

Hi, Nicholas -
{a}We have to remember when we're discussing philosophy and religion that we are pushing language well beyond its operating limits.  Our language and concepts are based on dualistic thinking -- dividing the world into an observing subject and an observed object.  But we can't separate ourselves from God.  We can't stand back from him to observe him as an object.  So language is unreliable.  So is thought:  "A man, through grace, may have full knowledge of all other created things and all their works - yes, and of the works of God too - and be well able to think about them. But of God Himself no-one can think.  Therefore I leave alone all those things about which I can think, and choose for my love that about which I cannot think, because He may well be loved but not thought about. By love He can be reached and held, but by thought never."  - Cloud of Unknowing, Chap. 6, trans. Robert Way
{a1} Since the creed is cobbled together from language and thought, full of inherent contradictions like virgin birth and life after death, it tells me we don't have ANY idea what we're talking about.  Of course not!  It's a mystery!  Our minds are SO limited.  But we've grown so used to these inherent contradictions that they've lost their power to stop our thinking and open our minds to the great mystery, which would be really wonderful. We might actually enter the cloud of unknowing and meet our God.  But instead people use the creed to shut their minds and to bash one another over the head.  Did Jesus teach a creed?
{a2} Who IS the Son of God?  I am.  You are.  The prayer begins, "OUR Father." It's said again in the story of the lilies of the field.  God is OUR father. But it's so wonderful we can't believe it.  The Church fathers were so confused and insecure that they twisted it around, came up with the superstitious notion that Jesus was God's ONLY-begotten Son (as though God had sperm, and very little of it) and denigrated everyone else as "God's children by adoption."
{a3}  I see people make this same mistake in Buddhism:  "MY lama is a genuine enlightened being.  I'm not.  You aren't.  Your lama isn't.  We all need to worship MY lama."  It's idolatrous and completely missing the point.
{a4} Guru yoga, which includes devotion to Jesus, is a TECHNIQUE.  You see that your guru is perfect, then you learn to see your guru in yourself and everyone you meet.  Mother Teresa had the right idea here -- devotion to Jesus THEN seeing Jesus in the face of everyone she cared for.  But if guru devotion stays fixated on the person of the guru, it is dysfunctional.  What if Mother Teresa said, "Oh, none of you are Jesus.  He was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate...  You're just an Indian peasant that I have to be nice to."?  She would have been useless.
{b} Do you think submitting our ideas means we compare one set of thoughts to another?  What makes you think ANY ideas, modernist or ancient, are capable of representing HIS ultimate reality?
{b1} THIS is submitting our ideas:  "Teacher, my mouth will not at all be capable of saying whom thou are like. | Yeshua says: I'm not thy teacher, now that thou have drunk, thou have become drunken from the bubbling spring which I have measured out. And he takes him, he withdraws, he speaks three words to him:  ahyh ashr ahyh (I•Am Who I•Am)."   - Gospel of Thomas, 13
{c} So you think Christian faith is a matter of holding the right opinions, and that since Bishop Spong has different opinions, you conclude that he must
not be a Christian.  You have tradition behind you, but...
{c1} Jesus told the Jews that their religion, being Jews, children of Abraham, was no big deal. He ignored holy scripture, boiling it all down into "love god and your neighbor."  He told people to judge not lest they be judged and hung around with moral degenerates.  He really pissed off the scribes and pharisees, who were upset that he had abandoned the faith.
{c2} Bishop Spong seems to be following Christ's example perfectly, God help him.  Regards - Ty Hilkert
• Nicholas Beale 22 July

{a1} Doesn't this misunderstand the relation of Creeds to beliefs. The Creeds were formulated as a way of coping with the deeply mysterious facts of Christian experience. The first Christians (esp Mary) knew from their own direct experience about the Virgin Birth and Life After Death.  These are tremendous facts and it took them centuries to try to find language that delineated them.  The Creeds were only formulated becasue people insisted on taking part of the truth and bending and distorting it.
{a2} What on earth makes you think that 'the Church Fathers were so confused and insecure'?  St John's Gospel does not read like the work of a confused and insecure man - it is surely the greatest, wisest and deepest single book ever written.  Every page resonates with the overwhelming experience of the love of God.  How rootless moderns can presume to judge such people is beyond me.  Surely your own philosophy (eg at {a3}) does not permit such put-downs of other 'lamas'.
{a4} that is the difference between Jesus and a Guru. Mother T was as wholly devoted to Jesus as you can imagine.
{b} Ideas cannot encompass God, but God has revealed, and continues to reveal, Himself to humankind through ideas.
{b1} What is the point of quoting from the largely fake 'Gospel of Thomas' whilst ignoring the genuine Gospels?  Anyone can make up 'sayings' of  Jesus to support their point of view.
{c} Being a Christian Bishop is a matter of teaching the right teaching, and being a focus of Christian unity in your diocese.  What Spong affirms is bad enough - but his denial and vilification of the faith of at least the overwhelming majority of Christians is completely un-acceptable, and the fact that he does this to sell his books is despicable.
{c1} You have offered a very limited and one-dimensional view of Jesus here - a tabloid reporter might put it this way, but the truth, as you know, is that Jesus was continually quoting scripture and that the reason he was killed was not apostacy but blasphemy: "that you, being man, make yourself God".
{c2} Indeed, Spong does seem to have a Messiah complex.  It would be sad and funny if it were not so damaging.
•  Tyree Hilkert 23 July

{a1} Look how you've jumped from:
- direct experience
- to facts
- to language that delineates facts
 Direct experience is entering INTO the mystery.  It is indescribable.  Did any of the mystics have their revelation and come back to report facts?  No. They came back to write poetry or to talk about clouds of unknowing or the mystery of love.  The Buddha kept his mouth shut for a week after he  woke up, because he knew no one would be able to understand him.
  Facts require being SEPARATE from the mystery and making observations about it.  Facts are subject/object dualistic.  They don't have anything to do with direct experience.  They are at best a tool -- a "skillful means" -- that helps us approach the mystery.  They can point at the mystery, like a map, or like a finger points to the moon, but the mystery cannot be decribed by them.
  Since God is indescribable suchness, I AM, then anything we say INCLUDING THE CREED is only part of the truth.  The creed itself is necessarily a distortion.
{a2} They missed the point that we are inherently the children of God.  It's as though we are second class beings and some highly conditional adoption
process is required. John 1:12 - "To them gave he power to BECOME the sons of God."
  John begins with the very poetic "In the beginning was the Word" which has given license to people to think that their words can capture God.  A
fundamental and fundamentalist mistake.
  The gospel predicates being a son of God on supernatural insemination (1:18) or adoption.  Think of the complexity this introduces.  What does this mean about the people before Jesus, those in areas that never heard of him, or who have only heard his teachings distorted?  Are all these beings doomed because God plunked his one and only kid down only once in ancient Palestine?  If God's that much of an jerk, we don't have to worry about
worshipping him at all.
  The solution is simple: We are inherently children of God.  God is indescribable suchness, I AM THAT I AM.  We are confused by our dualistic thinking and emotional habits and believe we are separate from the universe, from God.  We are prodigal sons who think we are separate from our father, but in fact we're not.  Jesus was teaching us to wake up to our rightful inheritance.
{a3} Personally?  Absolutely.  It's sickening that most lamas seem more interested in ritual, hierarchy, power, and orthodoxy than in waking people
up.
  The same distortions happened in Buddhism as in Christianity. It took a while longer, but then stories started, like him springing from his mother's side and taking three steps, and in each footstep sprung up a perfect Lotus. Or his ascending to heaven to teach HIS blessed mother.  Shakyamuni's attempts to teach people in terms they already believed, like karma and rebirth, became ossified into dogma, as though he endorsed those beliefs. People began praying to him like a God for their business to do well or for health.  It took several hundred years before people started making idols of him and worshipping them.
  Instead of waking up to your own beginningless enlightenment, and using guru yoga as a technique, Buddhism degenerates into cultish obedience to the guru, just like Christianity did.  It's human nature.
{b} When you think the ideas are divine, you're worshipping an idol.
{b1} If Jesus wanted an authoritative book, he would have written it himself or directed it to be written within a few years.  Obviously, he didn't. Thomas sounds the most like a student's notes of his teacher's sayings.  In contrast, the canonical gospels are full of politics and myth.
{c} Bishops are called to BE Jesus for their flock.  Giving them the right teaching is giving them one that makes sense in this century.  Spong is the only Christian leader I've heard who makes any sense.  As for unity,  Jesus divided the Jews.  He didn't unite them.
{d} "It represents a faith in ferment, simultaneously dying and being resurrected... It also reveals that any god who is threatened by new truth from any source is clearly dead already.  Such a deceased god needs to be snatched away from threatened believers so that the anxiety of "a god vacuum" at the heart of some peoples' lives will drive them into honesty and integrity as either believers or nonbelievers.  There is no hope for the revival of worship so long as an idol lives undisturbed in the place reserved for a living God."  - Why Christianity Must Change or Die, p. xix
• Nicholas Beale 23 July, 1998

{a1} If you really believe that "facts don't have anything to do with direct experience" you'll swallow any old rubbish.  Holocaust denial, flat earth, Aryan supremacy.  Try that on the 23rd floor ;-).
{a2} they missed the point becasue they were insecure - they were insecure because the missed the point.  How neat.  Don't you think that God and truth ever challenge your preconceptions?  As for the 'scandal of particularity' your 'arguments' would imply that God could never interact with anyone at all. Fortunately God is not a confused PC American.  God is not limited by time and space in the same way that we are - people are saved through Jesus who have never heard of him (read eg The Last Battle.) And have you never heard of the Harrowing of Hell?
{b} no-one thinks the ideas are divine - but many have divine origins.  This does not make them 'infallible' but does make them 'God-given'.  Jesus, however, is not an idea - he is a Person.
{b1} Why do you think you know what Jesus would have done, better than his closest friends and disciples?
{c} In no Christian church I know are bishops called to "BE" Jesus.  Maybe that's where Spong get's his Messiah complex from?  Spong makes no sense at all of this (or any other) Century: he has no concept of sin or redemption (other than sin=those who disagree with Spong, redemption= agreeing with him).  The Holocaust, Gulag, Pol Pot and Rwanda only 'make sense' in the light of the Cross, a doctrine which Spong expressly rejects.  Spong talks as if Freud were science, which kind of proves that he knows no science.
{d}It is hard to imagine a more breathtaking combination of arrogance, stupidity and confusion that this quote!  I had thought Spong had a 2nd rate  brain - it's clearly 5th rate.  My 6-year old daughter could tell him that god cannot possibly be 'dead' or 'threatened'.  The objection to Spong's ideas is not that they are (true but) threatenting, it is that they are rubbish but, because he is abusing his position as a 'bishop' confusing and damaging.  If an uneducated tramp says 'smoking is good for you' it does no harm, but if a professor of medicine says 'smoking is good for you' then maybe enough mugs will be confused for it to be dangerous.  As for the suggestion that almost all Christians (ie those that disagree with Spong) are worshipping an idol... Spong clearly imagines he is the greatest genius who ever lived - compare his attitude with that of Newton, say.
• Tyree Hilkert 24 July

{a1} Buddhists try to explain this in terms of the "two truths":
• Absolute truth is inexpressible suchness.  It's experiential realization of our true condition.  It is wisdom/emptiness.  It is symbolized in the iconography as a feminine symbol, such as a flower or a skull cup, in the left hand.  It is based on unity.
• Relative truth is the sorts of things we normally say.  It is compassionate skillful means that help us realize wisdom/emptiness.  It is symbolized as a masculine symbol, like a sceptre or a knife, in the right hand.  It is based on duality.
Relative truth is ultimately false because it falsely divides suchness into subject and object.  Just like when I point to SF on a map and say, "There is the city" that's not really true.  It indicates something.  Now we can have actual relative truth (I'm pointing to SF) and inverted relative truth (I'm pointing to San Jose).
Holocaust denial, flat earth, and Aryan supremacy are inverted relative truth.  You seem to think the creed is actual relative truth.  I believe it is inverted relative truth.  Regardless of its status as relative truth, we need to keep in mind that it is NOT absolute truth.
{d} A god who demands human sacrifice because HE has been offended by sin would be a sick child-abuser and not worthy of freedom, let alone worship.
{d1} Sin is believing we could ever be separated from God.  Redemption is realizing we have never been separated from him.  Simple explanation. Doesn't require recourse to detailed records of sinful behavior and thought, a temporal day of judgement, or perverted human sacrifice as propitiation.
  We have to be like Jesus to be redeemed.  The cross symbolizes that we have to "die" to our small separate self to realize we have never been separate from God.  There's no magic to nailing Jesus to a post, except that it graphically illustrates how painful dying to self is, and how even if we're
the son of God we're not going to have it easy.  We have to DIE, not just say, "Thanks for washing me in your blood, Jesus."  That's just superstition.
• Nicholas Beale 24 July

{a1} Christian theologians have articulated the truth behind this idea since the 1st Century.  But you seem, forgive me, to have descended to such a garbled relativist version of it that mere words of mine will not sort you out (Aryan supremacy is a relative truth).  Try the 23rd floor test (thought experiment only please!).
{d} No-one now worships Moloch (although you think he is a realtive truth no doubt!) and for Spong & his acolytes to imply that this is what any Christian has understood the Cross to be about is laughable/disgusting.  For orthodox christian teaching on this see eg here.
{d1} Simple explanation ... total rubbish.  So Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot 's only sin was "to believe that they could ever be separated from God"!!  Indeed, maybe they didn't - they were all pretty mad egomaics - so (according to you) they had no sin, and their butcheries of millions were OK.  In truth, redemption can only begin with repentance, realising that we have been separated from God.
• Tyree Hilkert 25 July

There are some nice things on the web page, but I think you've glossed over sin offering, especially the way you say that people offer their "produce," as though the altar had salad tongs and was convered in vinaigrette instead of having horns and being covered in blood.  Judeo-christian offering is to God, as though one were paying a fine to an implacable official.
  Let's look at the Chod ("cutting") practice in Tibetan Buddhism, which is a visualized offering.
What is sacrificed?  One's own body -- as opposed to Jesus's
Who is sacrificed to?  Everyone.  All beings.
Why?  To overcome attachment to ourselves.  To stop thinking that this body IS us.  To overcome fear of its loss.
  It's traditionally practiced in "charnel grounds", where corpses are chopped up for "sky burial."  If you saw "Kundun", you saw this when they were throwing meat to the vultures.  The dead body is offered in one last compassionate act.  The Chod rite anticipates this.  The practitioner visualizes flaying his skin, chopping up his body, and then calling all beings to come eat him by blowing a trumpet made from a human thighbone.
  The practice is effective because it overcomes self-grasping -- believing that oneself and other people and objects in the universe have inherent
existence -- not because some hard-to-please blowhard deity is fed. - Ty

 
 

• Robert Petillo 20 July sent this to Spong with a copy here:

Dear "Bishop" Spong:
As an elder in the Church of Jesus Christ, I am compelled to join the chorus of those asking you to show some shred of personal integrity by demitting the ministry before you are tried and deposed as the heresiarch that you are. You ought to have done so years ago. How heavy is the judgment that now hangs over you. How you have continued to bring shame upon the name of our LORD Jesus and upon all Christendom with your preposterous teachings and your encouragement of sin.
  The followers of Jesus around the world continue daily to suffer and die for his sake and for the sake of his Gospel. Listen to their dying cries, Bishop. How DARE you continue in office, spewing out idiocy that will titillate the media, bringing dishonor on the martyrs and on the One for whom they are giving their lives? May God have mercy on your soul.
• Ms Sharon M Brown 22 July, 1998  (please excuse my lack of capital letters, i have multiple sclerosis which has affected my hands, making it extremely painful to hold both the shift key and another key simultaneously)

the foundational document of the catholic church - what separates us from so many other denominations - is our creedal inheritance
according to the articles of religion, though it is an historical document and no longer canon law (right?) - makes it clear - The Nicene Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles' Creed, ought thoroughly to be received and believed: for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.
 i can honestly recite every line of the creed with the belief that through the mystery of faith the creed is true and a foundational piece to our church.
 if a bishop - who holds a position of authority - denies the creeds, the scripture, even the divinity of Christ - then that bishop makes a mochary of the very church that has given him that authority - if spong weren't a bishop - if he were already a professor - his opinion would not hold nearly the credence and weight it it now holds - to compare himself to martin luther is ridiculous if the man is not willing to take his beliefs and have the courage to leave the church
as luther did.
  instead, he is taking advantage of one of the greatest gifts we enjoy in the episcopal church - that of open debate - but by bringing up these topics he is going to undermine the work done by him on behalf of homosexuals.
  i had had the utmost respect for spong for his willingness to speak up for the disenfranchised - but this time he is not defending anything but his own agenda - at least when he defended homosexuals he was defending the rights of other people to follow their callings.
  now, as a member of yet another group of the disenfranchised - the disabled - i feel that all the work spong did has been discredited by spong himself.with lambeth upon us it is an unfair platform for spong to use to when the church he seems to no longer believe in is giving him the platform to speak in the first place.
 if spong cannot recite with faith the creed we hold so dear, then he ought to show the bravery of luther, write a new creed and leave.
 i wonder - is spong going to still receive the financial retirement benefits of being a member of the clergy - even though he has tossed in the trash the very beliefs he vowed to uphold upon his ordination?
 according to the bcp - the order of bishops carries on the apostolic work of leading, supervising, and uniting the church.
and during his consecration, spong said - 'In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy  Spirit, I, ....., chosen Bishop of the Church in....., solemnly  declare that I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and  New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation; and I do solemnly engage to  conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the  Episcopal Church.'
  if he is now renouncing all of this then he does not deserve to be a bishop, or enjoy the benefits of the episcopate and the financial rewards associated with it.
• Kep 22 July, 1998

Let's not forget that there are those who disagree with much of what Bishop Spong has to say in his 12 theses, but still believe and advocate for the full inclusion of homosexual and bisexual people in the church.
  I find that what Spong has asserted regarding homosexuality to be inspiring and truth-filled.  I find his more recent theses to be confusing and a grab for attention (and all the perks that go along with it).
  I find it also desperate and ignorant for you to infer that homosexuals are in the same category as mass-murderers, rapists, and pedophiles.  Although you are not the only one in the Episcopal church who makes connections like these?
  It is a shame that we have to have an international debate abot whether or not to be loving and inclusive as Christ was and calls us to be.  When will we really learn?  How long will we sling scripture like a loose cannon?  How long will we use the bible to beat each other up - is that what the book is really meant for?  When will we come down from our little high horse and engage everyone in the gospel?
  Kep Short, Youth Minister, St. John's Episcopal Church, Charlotte, North Carolina
• Nicholas Beale 22 July

Kep - I agree absolutely that what this debate is about is the thourough denial of the Christian Faith in Spong's 11 Theses, so I don't want to get bogged down in the sexual behaviour issue.  But the fact is that the Church has always, and rightly, taught that certain forms of sexual behaviour are wrong, however 'attractive' they may be to certain people.  It is quite legitimate to debate where the lines should be drawn, but to 'argue' that "no external description of one's being, ...can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination"  (and therefore people with homosexual inclinations should not be discourarged from putting them into practise) is a non-sequitur, unless you also hold that people with inclinations to pedophilia etc.. should be equally free from 'discrimination'. I don't put them in the same category- Spong's "argument" does.
• Kep 23 July, 1998,

 Thanks for the response.  I do agree that the 12th thesis cannot be true as it would open the door for any sort of behavior, healthy or unhealthy.
  The debate does rage on regarding sexuality, and both sides sometimes use inappropriate foundations for their arguments.  Whether it is a literal and narrow view of scripture or a denial of Christian principles for the purpose of a human end, they both are flawed and dangerous.
  I commend to you Spong's book LIVING IN SIN.  It is an honest and well thought out approach to sexuality, and he writes rather eloquently. While I cannot agree with Bishop Spong on his 12 theses, I can say that he has made moving assertments regarding sexual orientation and society' misunderstanding and fear of it.
• Rose (aged 6) 23 July

I think Bishop Spong is mad and his theses are rubbish.  I think we should all try and love God.  I think his theses are wrong becasue I know you should love God. I also know that God is the greatest person, and God cannot die.
•  Rev Craig Morrison 24 July {this revealing EMail (note the title) is worth showing in full. Reminds me of this gem}

   Subject:     RevC.Morrison
   Date:         Fri, 24 Jul 1998 00:16:58 +0200
   From:        "craigm" <cmorr@icon.co.za>
  I find your criticisms (apparently would-be witticisms?) of +Spong extremely theologically immature, and fankly, childish. Be informed that: Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.
 An argument does not consist of dehumanising one's opponent. Many of your arguments, to be frank, are silly... in fact, to call them arguments is to elevate them to a level not deserved.
• Nicholas Beale 24 July

Indeed?  Perhaps you can find some arguments against the refutations. Describing them as "fankly, childish" hardly counts.
PS Why do Spong supporters always start with an unsubstantiated insult? Such deep thought appears to be a common characteristic.  Have they learned it from their Master?
• Rev Craig Morrison 24 July {classic examples of Spongian irrationality are marked thus}

{a} I think your postings about +Spong are insulting to say the least. Perhaps if you spent less time attacking his person and more trying to make sense of what he is saying you'd be better off.
{b} Fundamentalists ALWAYS seem to have such a persecution complex about themselves. I find your postings quite unbecoming of someone trying to claim the moral high ground "in Christ".
  I'm a Christian believer. I don't accept EVERTHING +Spong holds to or declares in his faith-statement. But i have no need to find an "anti-Christ" under every bush - as fundamentalists are wont to need to do. (Apparently it IS a need - Communists, Muslims,  evolutionists, "Liberals",  abortionists, Murphy Brown, ... John Spong... it is a strange psychological aberration to NEED to have someone in the world to attack, and it seems to be a
particularly Fundamentalist phenomenon.)
{c}  +Spong has a RIGHT to assert his views whether you - or anyone else believes the contrary. He also has the right to call himself a Christian...after, you claim to be a Christian ... !
{d}  I think that there IS some merit in +Spong's views. I have been in personal contact with him, and have found him to be both courteous and humble,  unlike some of the opinions expressed by some of his Christian opponents on your site.
  Of course, I understand your angst. +Spong touches some raw nerves, and it is said that extremists are extreme precisely because they are unable to cope with the alternative view. There is little difference, as proven on your site, between Muslim Fundamentalist extremism and Christian Fundamentalist extremism... just interchange a few words like "Allah" for "Jesus".
 Why do Fundamentalists find it so hard to accept that ANYONE may just disagree with them, or express a contrary opinion? Feelings of being threatened are really born out of a deep-seated sense of insecurity.
  I'm sorry if you think my comments that some opinions on your site are childish, are intended to insult you. (It doesn't take much to threaten you,
does it?) My friend, sincerity does not make a puerile argument anything more than ... puerile!
{e} For instance, you lump homosexuals in the same category as paedophiles: there is little evidence for this, the product of a warped anxiety called homophobia, for in South Africa, where I live, most paedophiles are shown to be Heterosexual. This is incontrovertible, and therefore is more an expression of your own homophobia, than of +Spong's "questionable" morality.
 Fundamentlaist morlaity is informed more by their own uncomfortable sexual angst than any kind of biblical "morality' (is there such a thing?
 {f} The bible: I love the bible. It has a special place in my life that cannot be replaced by anything.  I abhor its abuse by Fundamentalists.
 But that is another debate that is waiting to happen.
  I shall continue to monitor your unpleasant site (I can accept that there are those who will inevitably disagree with my viewpoint - a sign of Christian maturity, surely) altho' I shall need counselling and confession after the fact, to estore my faith in humanity.
• Nicholas Beale 25 July

{a} I'm not going to fall for Spong's publicity stunt by buying his books.  This is about his published 'theses'.  If he's expressed himself badly, he should withdraw and amend them (this comment strikes me as on the button).
{b}If you looked at the Star Course you would see that I am an Anglo-Catholic, not a fundamentalist.  Spong abuses his position as a Bishop to attack and try to undermine the Christian Faith, claims he wanted a debate, but has chickened out of it Spongians then chant 'threatened homophobic fundamentalist' instead of offering rational argument.
{c} As a private individual Spong is of course free to assert any old rubbish.  But as a Bishop he is not. Surely, Craig, you would agree about that - isn't our disagreement about whether he is in this case inside the bounds of permissible Episcopal utterance?
{d} I have been told that Spong in person comes across very differently from his books.  I am only criticising his written opinions. Since probably 99% of all Christians profoundly disagree with Spong's views, why label us all as 'extremists'?  We are quite able to 'cope' with alternative views, but this does not mean we have to agree with rubbish.  If his theses are not rubbish maybe you be the first person on the site to come up with a rational defense against the preliminary refutations. (BTW Spong is not able to cope - according to him our faith is dead, we worship an Idol, and African Christians are just a step up from witchcraft).  Do you agree with that as well?
{e} Craig, you're missing the point.  I'm not saying that "burglars, embezzlers, rapists, paedophiles, mass-murderers" are homosexuals, merely that these are all "external descriptions of one's being" yet presumably no-one thinks that they should all be completely free from any "discrimination".
{f} Contributions from all viewpoints are illuminating.  But are you sure that it's your faith in humanity that needs restoring?
• Rev Craig Morrison 28 July {classic examples of Spongian irrationality are marked thus}

{b}1) Fundamentalist:  In 1909, two wealthy Texan oilmen (Stewarts) gave $200,000 to publish The Fundamentals, a 12-Volume set asserting about 14 "fundamental" doctrines of 'evangelical' faith.  These were published between 1910 -1915. Its promoters labelled themselves "Fundamentalists" ie. those who accept "the [14]fundamentals of the faith". (Actually only 5 "non-negotiables: virgin birth, deity, vicarious death, uniqueness of Christ, & resurrection) Soon, it became clear that these fundamentalists were just reacting to 19C liberalism, and especially evolutionary theory. This backward, stubborn refusal to think had a precedent in the Galileo/Copernican sagas. Even the  (arguably conservative) Pope (JP11) gave assent to evolutionary theory in 1992.
   Fundamentalism then, in its origins even, displays its reactionary nature. The term subsequently became a disparaging one through the Scope's trial, etc. No one in 1998 can seriously try to defend +James Ussher's 4004 date of creation - or even an "historical" Adam & Eve, for that matter. Get real, man! (The coffee's  long gone cold!)    So a "Fundamentalist" is someone who identifies with the ideas of the 12-volume set. However, that is not the end of it. Fundamentlaism is rabidly Protestant (read: anti-Catholic) in nature, and rooted in the pietist movement.  But perhaps its greatest  achievement' - and its nemesis, is a stubborn clinging to biblical literalism. This is itself an oxymoron, but try to show a fundamentalist that!
  I have wide interaction with Fundamentalists in the pastoral context, and when one shows them demonstartes the absolute lunacy of that position, they retort, "Well,if I don't understand it, then God does, and that's Ok by me!" (!!)  [:o] Or how about this one, by a dear old duck (bless her dead soul) "If it was good enough for Paul, then it is good enough for me!"  {Man, it just cracks up my false teeth every time!}
2) Literalist: is someone who takes every single verse of Scripture propositionally, ie, in an absolute way. For instance, when the text speaks of Adam & Eve, they feel somehow complelled to believe in an historical "first man" etc.    It becomes a problem only when I point out that the betrayer of Christ, Judas, is supposed to have died in two ways: Matt.27:5 by hanging himself, and Acts 1:18 by slipping on rocks and bursting his guts forth. It seems pretty well nigh damned impossible to die twice - or at least in two ways!! But hey, if you don't understand it, well, God does! (And you need to look real smug as you say this, just for effect, that "well, that settles it, then!")
3) Truth:  There cannot ever be the truth. Historical truth is always a partial and relative truth (see: Maimela,S  'Hermeneutics as a Truth-Revealing Praxis' in Theologica Evangelica Vol. XIV, # 3, Dec 1981, pp44-50) This is because, according to Maimela (horror-of-horrors: a liberation theologian) "the eternal-truth-in-itself is not directly accessible to historical beings" (ibed, p47) The point is - to co-opt the words of St Paul, "now we see through a glass, dimly; but then we shall see face-to-face." (1 Cor. 13:12)  Human truth can only, ever be partial truth.
 4) Historical: History, an first year student will tell you, is written by the victor. In South Africa we have first-hand experience of how our history has been twisted to fit an ideology  of race-hatred and oppression. So history is not "neutral" in and of itself, but it carries the suppositions of those who have claimed the right to write history. A case in point is the whole-sale rape and pillaging of whole continents - Africa, South America, Australasia, etc, by "Enlightened" European colonial nations. Desmond Tutu says, "When the whites arrived, we had the land, and they had the bible. Then they told us to pray. But when we opened our eyes, we had their bibles, and they had our land!" I am an African. The history of Africa was largely written by white Americans/Europeans who still talk about the "discovery" of gold, Vic Falls, etc even tho' these things were part of African cultures for aeons.
 The point is that even history is not neutral, unbiased, non-partisan. This certainly applies to the history of the Hebrews in the OT. Recent sociological studies of the ANE (such as of Gottwald, etc) have shown the complexities of OT "history"  - in fact, we call it "salvation-history". We know that even major concepts like the Temple of Solomon have contesting traditions within the OT itself. ie. "Did the people ask for a Temple 'to be like the
other nations'; OR did the LORD command a temple be built, and promised to David that it would come from his house?'
  These and thousands of other contradictions in the OT text demonstrably illustrate the partisan nature and ideological use of "history".
{4a}  Likewise, in the NT, the evangelists clearly were not attempting to construct a historical/biographical account of Jesus' life, but a faith-narrative. They incorporated myths and stories and "traditions" about Jesus to make their faith real for those to whom they wrote. Few Christians realise that it took 369 years for the NT as it is currently comprised to be canonised. Few Christians realise that the oT "canon" was only fixed around 92CE - some 60 years ofter Jesus' death! Certainly, there was a wider pool of sacred literature in use by both Jews and Christians until their respective canons were closed; the OT in c92CE and the NT in 367CE (+Athanasius' PAschal Letter) and the Council of Hippo Regius in c398.
  So the first Christian communitites only had the OT as a "bible" - and it wasn't even a fixed canon of books.
{4b} Similarly, whilest it is accepted that Jesus' title was given in the earliest traditions of the church as "LORD", it took the church some 325 years to actually decree this as a doctrinal position, and then, with some connivance from the Roman state(!) in the saga of the Arian controversy at Nicea.
{4c} And speaking of "Virgin birth" it took the Roman Church 1600 years to decree that Jesus was born of a Virgin! And we know that this can easily be explained as to how this connotation came to be in the gospels (only two) and not in Mark - the first written gospel. It was through a mistratnslation from the Greek Septuagint of the hebrew word for maiden" - 'young girl'. So asserting that one's faith can only be "Christian" on acceptance of such a shaky concept is absolutely beyond comprehension!!
{4d} It smacks of a knee-jerk reactionism by frightened people who faith cannot grow up! As St Paul argued, "children need milk, not solid food." This neurotic reactionism by Fundamentalism only illustrates the immaturity of thier faith, not the substance of their faith. My assertion is that it is a weak faith that is threatened by the likes of Spong, Robinson, Jaspers, Bultmann, Gotttwald, etc.
 5) World:  The world is dying, while Christians fight and insult one another over doctrines that cannot be proven. Who can "prove" the virgin birth?
Thousands of people are cut down by tsunamis and wars beyond description while Christians sit o the Net and bicker about "who has the most truth"
It is an obscene state of affairs!  In my sermon on Sunday I pointed out that of the thousands of anti-abortionists who march down the street, name-calling, shouting, screaming, destroying property, and even killing - as we have seen in the US, if only 10% of those who march, shout and  screamm against abortion would actually go and adopt one of the AIDS orphans from SA; one of the street children who sniff glue all day in the shelter I fund-raise for here in my community, if only 10% of these people would adopt a child, we woud have an abortion "problem". But as is usual for Fundamentalists, it is far, far easier to scream slogans that to actually DO something useful!  That is a challenge to every Christian to act - not by screaming slogans, but by doing as Christ would've done.
{5a}  Here we are: debating things that you won't change my mind about - and i don't expect to be able to change your mind about either. Can we not use our time more profitably as Christians? Nicholas, i do think so.
 So how about, closing down your website. ublish a site where wealthy Christians can adopt unwanted children from around the world. Have a "Hotline to Congress" where you spam uS politicians shouting about abortion.
  I think John Spong might just then become a fan of yours!    But no, it easier to throw stones....
  It is precisely why I am a liberation theologian. White Americans and Europeans love to spend time arguing about the existence of God. Nicholas, the people I work with  - they know God exists, they just haven't experienced God's love and grace in their lives. They don't need fine-sounding arguents
to convince them - they need someone to SHOW them that love! Think about it!
 You, and your supporters obviously feel very threatened by +Spong otherwise how does one explain the defensive, knee-jerk reaction?
 We'll talk again. I remain,  REV CRAIG MORRISON
• Nicholas Beale 28 July

{b1&2} I can see that Fundamentalists & Literalists annoy you but since it is clear on your own definitions I am neither, can we lay that red herring to rest please? (my views re the Bible are explained here)
{3} This is classic confusion.  Partial truth is not the same as relative truth.  Just because our knowledge is imperfect does not mean that it is not real knowledge - it does not mean that 'there can not ever be the truth' - the Pontius Pilate 'school' of theology.
{4} Far too simplistic.  Napoleon wrote a history of the Waterloo campaign - there are British histories of the US War of Independence and the 100 Years War and notoriously, Japanese histories of WW2.
{4a} This opposition between 'biography' and 'faith-narrative' is far too simplistic.  NT Wright  or John Robinson (Can we Trust the NT?) will put you right.  The first Christian communities clearly read the Christian Books as well - see eg Thiede or Wenham.  The 'fixing' of the Canon is a red herring.
{4b} you are confusing the doctrine with the formalised expression of a creed, which naturally happened later.
{4c} this is an oft-repeated confusion.  'Almah means girl, maiden or young woman and occurs in Is 7:14, Gen 24:43, Ex 2:8, Ps 68:25 and Sg 1:3 and 6:8, in all cases referring to young girls who are virgins. Clearly the LXX translators knew very well what the word meant.  Mary was an active member of the early Church, it is ludicrous to suggest that the Virgin Birth was invented because of a prophecy - it happened and then they realised what the prophecy meant.
{4d} It sounds as though you are far more threatened by mainstream Christianity than we are by Spong's pathetic errors.  Neverthless, if a 'Bishop' seeks to betray and undermine the Christian faith to promote his books, someone has to deal with the error, and it seems that I am being called to do my small bit for this.
{5} Moral relativism and a denial of the reality of the incarnation poisons people's ability to act.  If, as Spong says, there is no sin, abortion is just fine,  and there is no real living active God, then why should anyone help others?
{5a} How you spend your time is your affair.  But 20,000 people a year (increasing) are hitting this site so maybe our debates can help others.  How would closing down a site dedicated to people exploring truth help other good causes?  It is wonderful that you, and others, show people the love of God (BTW I'd love to help publicise your good work - do you have a URL for your church, or if not can you EMail me a description and I'll put it up on a separate page in the starcourse website), but if Spong and others are allowed to undermine any real understanding of who God is and how He acts without being challenged, then how is this sustainable?
• Rev Craig Morrison 29 July {classic examples of Spongian irrationality are marked thus}

I actually think the opposite is true: YOU are using Spong to make your own ideas popular. Maybe it boils down to just plain jealousy that he is a bishop. Ever aspired to being a bish, Beale?
  Yourr sense of self-importance is truly astonishing! Quite anally retentive, but astonishing nevertheless! (And I always believed evolution went forwards - you've convinced me to your point of view :- when science gets it wrong it does so in a big way!)  My God! You are an unhappy individual! I hope your life improves coz it sounds rather cruel at present.
(I won't reply to any more of your messages - I'm beginnng to sink to your level, and it disturbs me, but it smells down there.)
• Nicholas Beale 29 July

A true Spongian response! No arguments, just insults.  How revealing.
As it happens I am a layman, happily married for over 21 years with 3 children, and a Director of a strategic management consultancy.  Craig misses the mark completely (but does he care? - it would be much worse to say such things if they were true).  The other true gem is describing the mainstream Christian position as my own ideas.
 
•  Robert N. Deruy 24 July

I must agree with you; the theses are such "lightweight" ideas, that it is difficult to challenge them.
 John Spong is typical of a type of cleric, always picking up on an idea just as its time has passed (see The Gravedigger Files by Os Guiness)
 Beyond that, he is a turncoat. As such his shabby little ideas merit no reflection, and the traitor should be turned over to Satan.
 Baruch HaShem HaMashiyach Y'Shua Bob Deruy (mailto:BobXian@netutah.com) http://come.to/calvarycedar/
 
• Bruce Shaw 31 July

Well, Louie and his people often use scripture as a basis for their arguments for their organization's agenda, John, Newark
tends to throw away anything scriptural as a basis for his beliefs.  I suspect they are silent because John Newark, has
gone too far over the top, and finally insulted too many people.  The other point is that his particular heresies are old
and worn out and have been refuted some years before, and will probably be refuted again.  I think they are eminently worth
ignoring, and should not be given the dignity of a debate.