Bishop John Shelby Spong's Manifesto

Dunstan · 26th October 2010, 05:40 PM

Well, I now have a favorite bishop. In his recent manifesto, Spong says the kind of things that would get any atheist called strident, militant, and hateful.

A few choice tidbits:

Quote:

I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. . . .I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that "we love the sinner but hate the sin." That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement.
...
I will no longer seek to slow down the witness to inclusiveness by pretending that there is some middle ground between prejudice and oppression. There isn't. Justice postponed is justice denied....
I will particularly ignore those members of my own Episcopal Church who seek to break away from this body to form a "new church," claiming that this new and bigoted instrument alone now represents the Anglican Communion. Such a new ecclesiastical body is designed to allow these pathetic human beings, who are so deeply locked into a world that no longer exists, to form a community in which they can continue to hate gay people, distort gay people with their hopeless rhetoric and to be part of a religious fellowship in which they can continue to feel justified in their homophobic prejudices for the rest of their tortured lives. Church unity can never be a virtue that is preserved by allowing injustice, oppression and psychological tyranny to go unchallenged.
...
I will no longer act as if the Papal office is to be respected if the present occupant of that office is either not willing or not able to inform and educate himself on public issues on which he dares to speak with embarrassing ineptitude. I will no longer be respectful of the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to believe that rude behavior, intolerance and even killing prejudice is somehow acceptable, so long as it comes from third-world religious leaders, who more than anything else reveal in themselves the price that colonial oppression has required of the minds and hearts of so many of our world's population...

There's a lot more at the link.

TimCallahan · 26th October 2010, 10:26 PM

One problem I have with Spong's view is that the Bible, at least the Old Testament, does condemn homosexuality, though it doesn't waste too many words on it. It's much more concerned with issues pertaining to paternity (hence the hang up on the girl being a virgin when she's married) and incest. This whole thing of saying the Bible really doesn't condemn this or that thing we'd rather it didn't condemn comes from the assumption that the Bible is the "good book." Thus, if we're environmentalists and we want to keep believing in the Bible, we torture environmentalism out of a text pretty much completely devoid of it. Since we don't want to see God as condemning gays, we make the Bible gay friendly - which it most assuredly is not.

Not to worry, however: The Bible is also not democratically oriented, finds slavery acceptable and is sexist. The simplest way to deal with all of this is to dump the notion that the Bible is divinely inspired, meaning it's not necessarily the "good book." In fact, in many ways it is the "bad book."

ANTPogo · 27th October 2010, 05:20 AM

Originally Posted by TimCallahan

One problem I have with Spong's view is that the Bible, at least the Old Testament, does condemn homosexuality, though it doesn't waste too many words on it. It's much more concerned with issues pertaining to paternity (hence the hang up on the girl being a virgin when she's married) and incest. This whole thing of saying the Bible really doesn't condemn this or that thing we'd rather it didn't condemn comes from the assumption that the Bible is the "good book." Thus, if we're environmentalists and we want to keep believing in the Bible, we torture environmentalism out of a text pretty much completely devoid of it. Since we don't want to see God as condemning gays, we make the Bible gay friendly - which it most assuredly is not.

Not to worry, however: The Bible is also not democratically oriented, finds slavery acceptable and is sexist. The simplest way to deal with all of this is to dump the notion that the Bible is divinely inspired, meaning it's not necessarily the "good book." In fact, in many ways it is the "bad book."

He's not saying that the Bible itself doesn't contain passages that condemn homosexuality. He's saying that those passages are as irrelevant to modern Christianity as those passages in the Bible about slavery and the treatment of women, and therefore homophobes who seize on those passages aren't really seeking to interpret God's message for today's world, but instead trying to find something to justify their pre-existing hatred.

mactonite · 27th October 2010, 09:13 AM

Finally, a sensible church leader.

Craig4 · 27th October 2010, 09:52 AM

Originally Posted by mactonite

Finally, a sensible church leader.

He'd be more sensible if he'd just walk away from the church. It's clearly doing nothing to inform his morality so why bother with it?

keale · 27th October 2010, 10:45 AM

Still I give this guy credit

Professor Yaffle · 27th October 2010, 10:51 AM

And he's called Spong! What's not to like?

Dunstan · 27th October 2010, 10:53 AM

I don't disagree with the criticisms made in this thread: from what I know of him (though I confess I haven't read his book), Spong is one those mushy types who is frustratingly vague and slippery about what he actually believes.

I'm just glad to hear a self-proclaimed moderate liberal Christian actually using blunt language to challenge his fellow Christians, instead of just complaining about how these mean New Atheists are so hard on people like him. And Spong isn't strictly picking on the easy targets like Fred Phelps: his manifesto isn't kind to the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that "love the sinner but hate the sin" line that he denounces as "a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself" is a pretty mainstream Christian position, at least in the USA.

mactonite · 27th October 2010, 11:10 AM

Originally Posted by Dunstan

I'm just glad to hear a self-proclaimed moderate liberal Christian actually using blunt language to challenge his fellow Christians, instead of just complaining about how these mean New Atheists are so hard on people like him. And Spong isn't strictly picking on the easy targets like Fred Phelps: his manifesto isn't kind to the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that "love the sinner but hate the sin" line that he denounces as "a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself" is a pretty mainstream Christian position, at least in the USA.

Still other churches will simply wash their hands of him. That is the beauty of denominations. You can pick and choose who you are with or against at any time. However it is good to see a church member in power throw a biblical curve-ball.

Professor Yaffle · 27th October 2010, 11:27 AM

Reminds me a little of a Bishop I met some years ago who I did have a lot of time for - Richard Holloway. He was Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus of the Scotish Episcopal Church who resigned these positions and left the church partly over its stance on homosexuality. He now calls himself an "after-religionist".

Quote:

It was in 1998, as Bishop of Edinburgh, that he went to his last Lambeth Conference. After a poisonously acrimonious debate about homosexuals in the church, he got up the next morning, packed his car and began the long journey back to Scotland. This incident may not have been the sole trigger that saw Holloway exit the church, but it was certainly a notable staging post. By the following year — still a bishop — he had published probably his best-known book, Godless Morality.

“It upset a lot of people,” he says, neither proudly nor regretfully, sitting in the drawing room of his house in Merchiston. “It was a book that the then Archbishop of Canterbury denounced me over at a conference because I was beginning to challenge the notion, which I believe to be false, that you have to be religious to have a true ethic.”

...snip...

He certainly does not consider himself an atheist and prefers the term “after-religionist” to agnostic. “You can be agnostic and not have any relationship with religion. With after-religion, religion is still there, but as a human construct. You value it still but you no longer operate with the assumption that it belongs to some kind of celestial domain.”

http://entertainment.timesonline.co....cle4448261.ece

CurtC · 27th October 2010, 11:54 AM

Originally Posted by Dunstan

I don't disagree with the criticisms made in this thread: from what I know of him (though I confess I haven't read his book), Spong is one those mushy types who is frustratingly vague and slippery about what he actually believes.

True, and for a while now I've considered Spong to be an atheist, whether he realizes it himself or not. He just has this huge cognitive dissonance thing going on, still being neck-deep in the church and all.

Soapy Sam · 27th October 2010, 12:42 PM

I'd hate to be someone like this. He's clearly a principled and intelligent man, who just can't quite bring himself to accept the fact his career has been founded on total nonsense. It's an unenviable situation.

Manopolus · 27th October 2010, 01:36 PM

Quote:

I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of heathenism in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns worshipping other gods, as if that point of view still has any credibility. . . .I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that "we love the sinner but hate the sin." That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate non-christian persons and fear everything different from themselves, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement.
...

Highlights mine.

Unfortunately, he didn't go nearly far enough to realize how silly and biased the religion itself makes people. He merely takes on the pet issue of the day and ignores the rest. Making the church homosexual friendly doesn't exactly solve anything as far as I'm concerned. This is merely an example of how the church survives these pet issues we occasionally give voice to... all the while refusing to even contemplate other injustices.

26th October 2010, 05:40 PM	#1
Dunstan Illuminator Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Sunnyvale Trailer Park Posts: 4,292	Bishop John Shelby Spong's Manifesto Well, I now have a favorite bishop. In his recent manifesto, Spong says the kind of things that would get any atheist called strident, militant, and hateful. A few choice tidbits: Quote: I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. . . .I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that "we love the sinner but hate the sin." That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement. ... I will no longer seek to slow down the witness to inclusiveness by pretending that there is some middle ground between prejudice and oppression. There isn't. Justice postponed is justice denied.... I will particularly ignore those members of my own Episcopal Church who seek to break away from this body to form a "new church," claiming that this new and bigoted instrument alone now represents the Anglican Communion. Such a new ecclesiastical body is designed to allow these pathetic human beings, who are so deeply locked into a world that no longer exists, to form a community in which they can continue to hate gay people, distort gay people with their hopeless rhetoric and to be part of a religious fellowship in which they can continue to feel justified in their homophobic prejudices for the rest of their tortured lives. Church unity can never be a virtue that is preserved by allowing injustice, oppression and psychological tyranny to go unchallenged. ... I will no longer act as if the Papal office is to be respected if the present occupant of that office is either not willing or not able to inform and educate himself on public issues on which he dares to speak with embarrassing ineptitude. I will no longer be respectful of the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to believe that rude behavior, intolerance and even killing prejudice is somehow acceptable, so long as it comes from third-world religious leaders, who more than anything else reveal in themselves the price that colonial oppression has required of the minds and hearts of so many of our world's population... There's a lot more at the link.

26th October 2010, 10:26 PM	#2
TimCallahan Philosopher Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 5,129	One problem I have with Spong's view is that the Bible, at least the Old Testament, does condemn homosexuality, though it doesn't waste too many words on it. It's much more concerned with issues pertaining to paternity (hence the hang up on the girl being a virgin when she's married) and incest. This whole thing of saying the Bible really doesn't condemn this or that thing we'd rather it didn't condemn comes from the assumption that the Bible is the "good book." Thus, if we're environmentalists and we want to keep believing in the Bible, we torture environmentalism out of a text pretty much completely devoid of it. Since we don't want to see God as condemning gays, we make the Bible gay friendly - which it most assuredly is not. Not to worry, however: The Bible is also not democratically oriented, finds slavery acceptable and is sexist. The simplest way to deal with all of this is to dump the notion that the Bible is divinely inspired, meaning it's not necessarily the "good book." In fact, in many ways it is the "bad book."
TimCallahan Philosopher Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 5,129

27th October 2010, 09:13 AM	#4
mactonite Critical Thinker Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: 34.3° N 118.8° W Posts: 476	Finally, a sensible church leader.
	__________________ Red Blue Violet Green

27th October 2010, 09:52 AM	#5
Craig4 Philosopher Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 5,363	Originally Posted by mactonite Finally, a sensible church leader. He'd be more sensible if he'd just walk away from the church. It's clearly doing nothing to inform his morality so why bother with it?
Craig4 Philosopher Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 5,363

27th October 2010, 10:45 AM	#6
keale Muse Join Date: Dec 2009 Posts: 813	Still I give this guy credit
keale Muse Join Date: Dec 2009 Posts: 813

27th October 2010, 05:20 AM	#3
ANTPogo Unique Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Birmingham, AL Posts: 9,408	Originally Posted by TimCallahan One problem I have with Spong's view is that the Bible, at least the Old Testament, does condemn homosexuality, though it doesn't waste too many words on it. It's much more concerned with issues pertaining to paternity (hence the hang up on the girl being a virgin when she's married) and incest. This whole thing of saying the Bible really doesn't condemn this or that thing we'd rather it didn't condemn comes from the assumption that the Bible is the "good book." Thus, if we're environmentalists and we want to keep believing in the Bible, we torture environmentalism out of a text pretty much completely devoid of it. Since we don't want to see God as condemning gays, we make the Bible gay friendly - which it most assuredly is not. Not to worry, however: The Bible is also not democratically oriented, finds slavery acceptable and is sexist. The simplest way to deal with all of this is to dump the notion that the Bible is divinely inspired, meaning it's not necessarily the "good book." In fact, in many ways it is the "bad book." He's not saying that the Bible itself doesn't contain passages that condemn homosexuality. He's saying that those passages are as irrelevant to modern Christianity as those passages in the Bible about slavery and the treatment of women, and therefore homophobes who seize on those passages aren't really seeking to interpret God's message for today's world, but instead trying to find something to justify their pre-existing hatred.

27th October 2010, 10:51 AM	#7
Professor Yaffle Butterbeans and Breadcrumbs Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Emily's shop Posts: 15,352	And he's called Spong! What's not to like?
	__________________ I think you'll find it's a little bit more complicated than that. My blog "Well I think I've made it abundantly clear in this thread I have no idea what I'm talking about..." - truethat

27th October 2010, 10:53 AM	#8
Dunstan Illuminator Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Sunnyvale Trailer Park Posts: 4,292	I don't disagree with the criticisms made in this thread: from what I know of him (though I confess I haven't read his book), Spong is one those mushy types who is frustratingly vague and slippery about what he actually believes. I'm just glad to hear a self-proclaimed moderate liberal Christian actually using blunt language to challenge his fellow Christians, instead of just complaining about how these mean New Atheists are so hard on people like him. And Spong isn't strictly picking on the easy targets like Fred Phelps: his manifesto isn't kind to the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that "love the sinner but hate the sin" line that he denounces as "a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself" is a pretty mainstream Christian position, at least in the USA.

27th October 2010, 11:10 AM	#9
mactonite Critical Thinker Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: 34.3° N 118.8° W Posts: 476	Originally Posted by Dunstan I'm just glad to hear a self-proclaimed moderate liberal Christian actually using blunt language to challenge his fellow Christians, instead of just complaining about how these mean New Atheists are so hard on people like him. And Spong isn't strictly picking on the easy targets like Fred Phelps: his manifesto isn't kind to the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that "love the sinner but hate the sin" line that he denounces as "a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself" is a pretty mainstream Christian position, at least in the USA. Still other churches will simply wash their hands of him. That is the beauty of denominations. You can pick and choose who you are with or against at any time. However it is good to see a church member in power throw a biblical curve-ball.
	__________________ Red Blue Violet Green

27th October 2010, 11:27 AM	#10
Professor Yaffle Butterbeans and Breadcrumbs Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Emily's shop Posts: 15,352	Reminds me a little of a Bishop I met some years ago who I did have a lot of time for - Richard Holloway. He was Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus of the Scotish Episcopal Church who resigned these positions and left the church partly over its stance on homosexuality. He now calls himself an "after-religionist". Quote: It was in 1998, as Bishop of Edinburgh, that he went to his last Lambeth Conference. After a poisonously acrimonious debate about homosexuals in the church, he got up the next morning, packed his car and began the long journey back to Scotland. This incident may not have been the sole trigger that saw Holloway exit the church, but it was certainly a notable staging post. By the following year — still a bishop — he had published probably his best-known book, Godless Morality. “It upset a lot of people,” he says, neither proudly nor regretfully, sitting in the drawing room of his house in Merchiston. “It was a book that the then Archbishop of Canterbury denounced me over at a conference because I was beginning to challenge the notion, which I believe to be false, that you have to be religious to have a true ethic.” ...snip... He certainly does not consider himself an atheist and prefers the term “after-religionist” to agnostic. “You can be agnostic and not have any relationship with religion. With after-religion, religion is still there, but as a human construct. You value it still but you no longer operate with the assumption that it belongs to some kind of celestial domain.” http://entertainment.timesonline.co....cle4448261.ece
	__________________ I think you'll find it's a little bit more complicated than that. My blog "Well I think I've made it abundantly clear in this thread I have no idea what I'm talking about..." - truethat Last edited by Professor Yaffle; 27th October 2010 at 11:32 AM.

27th October 2010, 11:54 AM	#11
CurtC Illuminator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Dallas, TX Posts: 4,758	Originally Posted by Dunstan I don't disagree with the criticisms made in this thread: from what I know of him (though I confess I haven't read his book), Spong is one those mushy types who is frustratingly vague and slippery about what he actually believes. True, and for a while now I've considered Spong to be an atheist, whether he realizes it himself or not. He just has this huge cognitive dissonance thing going on, still being neck-deep in the church and all.
	__________________ Is there a God? Find the answer at The Official God FAQ.

27th October 2010, 12:42 PM	#12
Soapy Sam NLH Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 25,885	I'd hate to be someone like this. He's clearly a principled and intelligent man, who just can't quite bring himself to accept the fact his career has been founded on total nonsense. It's an unenviable situation.
Soapy Sam NLH Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 25,885

27th October 2010, 01:36 PM	#13
Manopolus Metaphorical Anomaly Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Linn, Kansas (a.k.a. Dead center of Nowhere) Posts: 3,034	Quote: I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of heathenism in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns worshipping other gods, as if that point of view still has any credibility. . . .I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that "we love the sinner but hate the sin." That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate non-christian persons and fear everything different from themselves, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement. ... Highlights mine. Unfortunately, he didn't go nearly far enough to realize how silly and biased the religion itself makes people. He merely takes on the pet issue of the day and ignores the rest. Making the church homosexual friendly doesn't exactly solve anything as far as I'm concerned. This is merely an example of how the church survives these pet issues we occasionally give voice to... all the while refusing to even contemplate other injustices.