John Shelby Spong dies aged 90

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Episcopalian bishop and longtime anchor for much of liberal Christian (although his critics would certainly dispute that term) theology in the US.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

RIP, HP (a term I'm comfortable using unambiguously for him due above all else to his shockingly overt advancement of the "racist against conservatives" understanding of African and Asian Christianity among liberal American Christians).

[afleitch]

'When the convention of the Diocese of Newark, of which I am bishop, passed a resolution to study the question of church support for committed monogamous relationships between gay or lesbian people, I received thousands of letters.

Some of the letters were straightforward death threats. Others contained threats that were more oblique - their writers were content to assure me that they would pray to God to curse me with a fatal disease, to allow me to be in a plane crash or to permit me to fall victim to some other equally effective means of permanent disposal.'

John Shelby Spong - 1989.

RIP

[John Dule]

Spong John Squar Pant

[H. Ross Peron]

He was not a Christian in any meaningful sense of the term and it's unfortunate he was not defrocked and excommunicated by the Episcopalian Church.

[afleitch]

I think it's interesting that when people talk about him, they disparage his faith and his religious views because it's more important to be a gatekeeper than to accept outside of all that  he held humanising views of many out groups that Christianity dehumanises.

[LabourJersey]

I think it's interesting that when people talk about him, they disparage his faith and his religious views because it's more important to be a gatekeeper than to accept outside of all that he held humanising views of many out groups that Christianity dehumanises.

I don't have an intention of getting too deep into Spong discourse, but many of his modern day critics are more irritated by the fact that he was a Bishop in the church who had his particular theology more than his theological views themselves.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think it's interesting that when people talk about him, they disparage his faith and his religious views because it's more important to be a gatekeeper than to accept outside of all that he held humanising views of many out groups that Christianity dehumanises.

I don't have an intention of getting too deep into Spong discourse, but many of his modern day critics are more irritated by the fact that he was a Bishop in the church who had his particular theology more than his theological views themselves.

And/or find his theological views on foundational issues like, well, the existence of God far more troubling than any of his "social issues" views (which is my position aside from, again, his consistent demonization of African and Asian Christianity to the extent that that constitutes a "social issue").

[Orthogonian Society Treasurer]

I think it's interesting that when people talk about him, they disparage his faith and his religious views because it's more important to be a gatekeeper than to accept outside of all that  he held humanising views of many out groups that Christianity dehumanises.

The issue is that he didn't have faith. He was an atheist, although he most certainly is not one now. I pray the God that he rejected and scorned will have mercy on him.

[afleitch]

I think it's interesting that when people talk about him, they disparage his faith and his religious views because it's more important to be a gatekeeper than to accept outside of all that  he held humanising views of many out groups that Christianity dehumanises.

The issue is that he didn't have faith. He was an atheist, although he most certainly is not one now. I pray the God that he rejected and scorned will have mercy on him.

You're sort of proving my point.

[afleitch]

I think it's interesting that when people talk about him, they disparage his faith and his religious views because it's more important to be a gatekeeper than to accept outside of all that he held humanising views of many out groups that Christianity dehumanises.

I don't have an intention of getting too deep into Spong discourse, but many of his modern day critics are more irritated by the fact that he was a Bishop in the church who had his particular theology more than his theological views themselves.

And/or find his theological views on foundational issues like, well, the existence of God far more troubling than any of his "social issues" views (which is my position aside from, again, his consistent demonization of African and Asian Christianity to the extent that that constitutes a "social issue").

But why is it troubling. At it's core, why is it troubling that he held and expressed those views on foundational issues even in an ecumenical capacity? You might not agree with them but if anything it was a manifestation of the under discussed views of many priests and ministers who simply don't believe many core tenets of their faith (like the former Bishop of Durham), often after years or decades of service but still have a calling to continue to minister.

A survey of UK based Anglican clergy had something like only 83% believing in a personal god. If you are dealing with organised religion as an encompassing system of belief, much larger than individual faith, heterodoxy is something that is very much part of that. Even if it is uncomfortable to acknowledge. He was the public face of that and I'm sure he understood the consequences.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think it's interesting that when people talk about him, they disparage his faith and his religious views because it's more important to be a gatekeeper than to accept outside of all that he held humanising views of many out groups that Christianity dehumanises.

I don't have an intention of getting too deep into Spong discourse, but many of his modern day critics are more irritated by the fact that he was a Bishop in the church who had his particular theology more than his theological views themselves.

And/or find his theological views on foundational issues like, well, the existence of God far more troubling than any of his "social issues" views (which is my position aside from, again, his consistent demonization of African and Asian Christianity to the extent that that constitutes a "social issue").

But why is it troubling. At it's core, why is it troubling that he held and expressed those views on foundational issues even in an ecumenical capacity? You might not agree with them but if anything it was a manifestation of the under discussed views of many priests and ministers who simply don't believe many core tenets of their faith (like the former Bishop of Durham), often after years or decades of service but still have a calling to continue to minister.

A survey of UK based Anglican clergy had something like only 83% believing in a personal god. If you are dealing with organised religion as an encompassing system of belief, much larger than individual faith, heterodoxy is something that is very much part of that. Even if it is uncomfortable to acknowledge. He was the public face of that and I'm sure he understood the consequences.

It's troubling to me largely because he presented these views in a way that positioned himself as intellectually and perhaps morally superior to his more orthodox-minded colleagues. If he'd taken more of a San Manuel Bueno, Mártir attitude (or even a Reverend Lovejoy attitude, in the episodes that characterize him sympathetically), I'd be at least conditionally defensive of him, because you're right that he wasn't unusual in lacking conventional faith but still feeling called to the more sociocultural aspects of Christian ministry. So it really was the framing of his views as indicative of intellectual superiority that I, personally, found so infuriating about him.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

A religious Jew or Muslim is closer to authentic Christianity than Spong.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Didn't he basically compare himself to Martin Luther in his books? The man had an ego. And his goals within the Episcopal Church were pretty much the exact opposite of mine, so I find it difficult to sympathize with his mission. Yes, I'm sure he was a very pleasant man on a personal level, and fighting for LGBT people when gays were getting everything but the kitchen sink thrown at them by most of the Christian community is admirable, but he no doubt played a role in mainline churches' weakened structural component that's meant to bind the community together and preserves the strong foundation of faith. Rejecting even the most bare basic tenets of the faith is not an effectual way to preserve it. And this is the man who said that Christianity needed to "change or die". Well, something changed. And by most accounts it is dying.

So, RIP and all that, but I don't think he ever realized how much he was undermining his own cause. I would say he caused a headache even within the Episcopal Church, but given that so many churches, especially those within the Episcopal Church, have adopted at least some of his ideas I don't think I can even say that with confidence.

[TDAS04]

Not a fan, but RIP.

[LabourJersey]

Spong is interesting in how polarizing he is to people, especially modern-day Episcopalians.

Many young Episcopalians are pretty conflicted about him, since many appreciate his advocacy for LGBT people and the ordination of women. But young people are both LGBT-affirming and believers in the Creed and specifically the Episcopalian liturgy, so in many ways they're more "conservative" than Spong.

I've tried reading one of his books, and my impression is that he really internalized the Calvinist/fundamentalist vision of God from his youth, to the point where the only two options in his mind of what God could be was the fundamentalist "Sky God" and the kind of etheral "God Force" that I think he believed in. When he went on about we need a "post-theistic" vision of God I really didn't understand what he means, since I can imagine a middle ground between an angry man in the sky versus a kind of vague life force. But that's just me.

All in all an intriguing guy. I'm still surprised he stayed on as Bishop of Newark as long as he did. I think Rowan Williams was the one who pointed out that he felt that no one could put up with the endless stress of diocesian politics if they didn't actually believe in the whole system.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Not a fan, but RIP.

     This exactly. He did immense damage by outright rejecting the theological basis of Christian belief, but at the same time I hope he is at peace now.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I think it's interesting that when people talk about him, they disparage his faith and his religious views because it's more important to be a gatekeeper than to accept outside of all that he held humanising views of many out groups that Christianity dehumanises.

The problem with Spong wasn't that he reached out to groups traditional Christianity often paid scant regard to. It was that he largely tossed out Christianity, and he didn't need to do that in order to make that outreach.

[Kingpoleon]

But why is it troubling. At it's core, why is it troubling that he held and expressed those views on foundational issues even in an ecumenical capacity? You might not agree with them but if anything it was a manifestation of the under discussed views of many priests and ministers who simply don't believe many core tenets of their faith (like the former Bishop of Durham), often after years or decades of service but still have a calling to continue to minister.

A survey of UK based Anglican clergy had something like only 83% believing in a personal god. If you are dealing with organised religion as an encompassing system of belief, much larger than individual faith, heterodoxy is something that is very much part of that. Even if it is uncomfortable to acknowledge. He was the public face of that and I'm sure he understood the consequences.

I quite agree that Christian theologians and intellectuals have a long history of calling a Western and materialistic view of reality “liberal theology” and getting away with it. But when a Bishop is praised by Richard Dawkins, who believes that the average man in the pew is irrational, evil, and mentally ill, it is legitimate to question why the church should dialogue with, much less embrace, cultural “Christians” like Richard Dawkins, Robert Price, Marcus Borg, and John Shelby Spong who quite explicitly consider historical Christianity a religion of the simpleton, the poor man, the backwards foreigner. Indeed, many “liberal theologians” in embracing Western modernity’s reality use explicitly colonialist terms like “backwards and ignorant” of any one who affirms the physical Resurrection or the virgin birth.

[afleitch]

But why is it troubling. At it's core, why is it troubling that he held and expressed those views on foundational issues even in an ecumenical capacity? You might not agree with them but if anything it was a manifestation of the under discussed views of many priests and ministers who simply don't believe many core tenets of their faith (like the former Bishop of Durham), often after years or decades of service but still have a calling to continue to minister.

A survey of UK based Anglican clergy had something like only 83% believing in a personal god. If you are dealing with organised religion as an encompassing system of belief, much larger than individual faith, heterodoxy is something that is very much part of that. Even if it is uncomfortable to acknowledge. He was the public face of that and I'm sure he understood the consequences.

I quite agree that Christian theologians and intellectuals have a long history of calling a Western and materialistic view of reality “liberal theology” and getting away with it. But when a Bishop is praised by Richard Dawkins, who believes that the average man in the pew is irrational, evil, and mentally ill, it is legitimate to question why the church should dialogue with, much less embrace, cultural “Christians” like Richard Dawkins, Robert Price, Marcus Borg, and John Shelby Spong who quite explicitly consider historical Christianity a religion of the simpleton, the poor man, the backwards foreigner. Indeed, many “liberal theologians” in embracing Western modernity’s reality use explicitly colonialist terms like “backwards and ignorant” of any one who affirms the physical Resurrection or the virgin birth.

And yet for all the concern about the use of colonialist terminology, the biggest purveyor of colonialism in practice are mainstream to conservative churches who wilfully whip up moral panics in the developing world and hide behind membership numbers to stymie change in global churches. People who equate liberalism with colonialism and end up contextualising Christians in the developing world as the archetypal 'noble savage.'

It's all very well taking a position like that for 'the other side' (and such criticism is both important and justifiable) but it's not served by having a blind spot for those you are defending.

[Kingpoleon]

And yet for all the concern about the use of colonialist terminology, the biggest purveyor of colonialism in practice are mainstream to conservative churches who wilfully whip up moral panics in the developing world and hide behind membership numbers to stymie change in global churches. People who equate liberalism with colonialism and end up contextualising Christians in the developing world as the archetypal 'noble savage.'

It's all very well taking a position like that for 'the other side' (and such criticism is both important and justifiable) but it's not served by having a blind spot for those you are defending.

I’m sorry, are you seriously suggesting that Rowan Williams, who Spong variously accused of being a reactionary medievalist and secretly agreeing with Spong about Jesus never existing, represents the vanguard of reactionary colonialism? Yes, Spong was so obsessed with debunking Christianity that he attacked a Bishop who first advocated for gay rights 15 years before the first country that legalized and who was essentially the first socialist at Canterbury, and was so good a guy that he declared Christians who were theists to be heretics.

[afleitch]

And yet for all the concern about the use of colonialist terminology, the biggest purveyor of colonialism in practice are mainstream to conservative churches who wilfully whip up moral panics in the developing world and hide behind membership numbers to stymie change in global churches. People who equate liberalism with colonialism and end up contextualising Christians in the developing world as the archetypal 'noble savage.'

It's all very well taking a position like that for 'the other side' (and such criticism is both important and justifiable) but it's not served by having a blind spot for those you are defending.

I’m sorry, are you seriously suggesting that Rowan Williams, who Spong variously accused of being a reactionary medievalist and secretly agreeing with Spong about Jesus never existing, represents the vanguard of reactionary colonialism? Yes, Spong was so obsessed with debunking Christianity that he attacked a Bishop who first advocated for gay rights 15 years before the first country that legalized and who was essentially the first socialist at Canterbury, and was so good a guy that he declared Christians who were theists to be heretics.

None of this is related to anything I said.

[John Dule]

And yet for all the concern about the use of colonialist terminology, the biggest purveyor of colonialism in practice are mainstream to conservative churches who wilfully whip up moral panics in the developing world and hide behind membership numbers to stymie change in global churches. People who equate liberalism with colonialism and end up contextualising Christians in the developing world as the archetypal 'noble savage.'

It's all very well taking a position like that for 'the other side' (and such criticism is both important and justifiable) but it's not served by having a blind spot for those you are defending.

I’m sorry, are you seriously suggesting that Rowan Williams, who Spong variously accused of being a reactionary medievalist and secretly agreeing with Spong about Jesus never existing, represents the vanguard of reactionary colonialism? Yes, Spong was so obsessed with debunking Christianity that he attacked a Bishop who first advocated for gay rights 15 years before the first country that legalized and who was essentially the first socialist at Canterbury, and was so good a guy that he declared Christians who were theists to be heretics.

None of this is related to anything I said.

Uh, do you seriously not understand how Hegel's dialectic between the lordship and the bondsman both completes the system of German Idealism and functions as an inherently conservative argument for both mutual societal recognition between unequal parties and the inexorable progress of history? One would almost think you're still reading Fichte!

Some readings for you to familiarize yourself with:

The Phenomenology of Spirit
Elements of the Philosophy of Right
John Hart Ely: Democracy and Distrust
Frederick Schauer: Formalism
Nietzsche: Ecce Homo
Gustave Le Bon: The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind
Spinoza: Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
Alexander Gerschenkron: Continuity in History
Mark Granovetter: The Impact of Social Structure on Economic Outcomes
Vine Deloria: Laws and Treaties
Travis W. Anderson: Philology & Meaning
Alan Watts: The Nature of God

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

And yet for all the concern about the use of colonialist terminology, the biggest purveyor of colonialism in practice are mainstream to conservative churches who wilfully whip up moral panics in the developing world and hide behind membership numbers to stymie change in global churches. People who equate liberalism with colonialism and end up contextualising Christians in the developing world as the archetypal 'noble savage.'

It's all very well taking a position like that for 'the other side' (and such criticism is both important and justifiable) but it's not served by having a blind spot for those you are defending.

I’m sorry, are you seriously suggesting that Rowan Williams, who Spong variously accused of being a reactionary medievalist and secretly agreeing with Spong about Jesus never existing, represents the vanguard of reactionary colonialism? Yes, Spong was so obsessed with debunking Christianity that he attacked a Bishop who first advocated for gay rights 15 years before the first country that legalized and who was essentially the first socialist at Canterbury, and was so good a guy that he declared Christians who were theists to be heretics.

None of this is related to anything I said.

Uh, do you seriously not understand how Hegel's dialectic between the lordship and the bondsman both completes the system of German Idealism and functions as an inherently conservative argument for both mutual societal recognition between unequal parties and the inexorable progress of history? One would almost think you're still reading Fichte!

Some readings for you to familiarize yourself with:

The Phenomenology of Spirit
Elements of the Philosophy of Right
John Hart Ely: Democracy and Distrust
Frederick Schauer: Formalism
Nietzsche: Ecce Homo
Gustave Le Bon: The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind
Spinoza: Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
Alexander Gerschenkron: Continuity in History
Mark Granovetter: The Impact of Social Structure on Economic Outcomes
Vine Deloria: Laws and Treaties
Travis W. Anderson: Philology & Meaning
Alan Watts: The Nature of God

Fantastic stylistic parody. Throwing in Alan Watts at the end is a particularly nice touch. Some of your best recent work.

[Kingpoleon]

None of this is related to anything I said.

I’m sorry, I thought we were trying to talk past each other. I must have misunderstood your first reply to my post.