I have to say, I really do think The Spongster is way behind the curve on this one. It’s a bit late in the day to suddenly start going on about “Just say no! to homophobia” – that fight is over in TEC.

If he was really as with-it as he thinks he is, he’d be all for the transgender rights, since that’s the next dot on the radar.

If he really wanted to be in advance of the struggle, he’d be agitating for rights for our companion animals to engage in ministry – for too long, the entrenched humanoid chauvinism has upheld and maintained the privileged status of primates in the church! Why, the very term “primates” is enshrined in the language as a position of power and status! Justice for non-primates now!

“‘In-alien-able?’ If you could hear yourselves. Human rights! The very name is racist. The Federation is nothing more than a Homo sapiens only club.”

-Azetbur, Chancellor of the Klingon High Council

Why is it that the Sponginator, in his rants, reminds me so much of Algore and his global warming bs rants? Bet they are the bestest of buds.

So much for the never-ending duties of “dialogue” and “learning from the Other”.

JSS obviously felt VGR was getting more attention than he was.

He almost seems to think anyone *wants* to discuss anything (ANYTHING) with him, dosen’t he? I wonder how he arrived at that astonishing impression? He was meaningless when he was in office, less so every day.

“Therefore, I will from this moment on refuse to dignify the continued public expression of ignorant prejudice by engaging it.”

When did he ever try to engage anything? He just always did and said what he wanted to do – to Hell (literally) to the rest of the world.

Ladies… Gentlemen… please!

We must attempt to understand Bishop Spong… He must have had a wicked childhood… he must have had a miserable youth…. depraved… er,, deprived of the basic human needs… water, food, shelter, warmth and never a chance to reach for self-actualization… 150 years ago he might have been in the care of an asylum but today we are so much more advanced. We have done away with institutions for beings who possibly could be emotionally and mentally short changed and now encourage them to seek public office and positions of authority in many different agencies.

He is so much smarter than everyone else. Must be nice. What an ego!

John Shelby who?

After reading this diatribe the question that inevitably pops into one’s mind is, “if this is what you think of a significant portion of your own ecclesial body, why did you bother to take holy orders?”

Several further observations. First, with respect to his comments about the Holy Father, I must say that I sincerely doubt that Pope Benedict XVI would ever deign to notice, much less engage in debate with, this intellectual and theological pygmy (with apologies to any pygmies reading this) concerning this question, or indeed any other. Having read some of the Holy Father’s theological writings, it seems to me that the most likely explanation for this display of rudeness and pique towards the Vicar of Christ may be that +Spong simply finds himself out of his depth and is intellectually incapable of comprehending what the Pope has been attempting to drill into his and his generation’s thick skulls for the past several years.

Second, spewing this sort of calumny and bile in public is hardly an edifying example of the qualities that one should expect to characterize the behavior of Christian bishops of any denomination, even the episcopal church. This used to be called “giving scandal to the faithful”, but +Spong obviously believes that the world has “moved on” and “a new consciousness has arisen” so such considerations are no doubt “outmoded”, at least in his tiny mind. If, that is, TEC still deserves to be described as Christian in any meaningful sense, rather than just a pagan sect that enjoys playing dress up every Sunday; and if it is the latter, why pick on us poor Christians?

Third, what the heck is +Spong’s beef with the ABC? This is a real stumper. Maybe I’m missing something, but, after all, he and ++Rowan are singing from the same hymnal, so to speak. The ABC muddles on, issuing numerous public pronouncements about MDGs, British domestic politics, global warming, multiculturalism, the proper reordering of the world’s economies, the regulation of banks, etc., etc., etc. Everything, apparently, except saving souls for Christ, so he and +Spong should get along like a house on fire. I have no doubt that ++Rowan and he agree on every one of these questions. If they don’t agree on the LGBT agenda, surely +Spong could have handled this a tad more diplomatically. Because as we all know, ++Rowan’s statements on anything concerning the Anglican communion are so vague that you can parse them any way you choose to. In my opinion, +Spong should have announced that the ABC agrees with him, cited a couple of wishy-washy statements on this question from the numberless examples available, declared victory, and gone home.

Finally, as a politician once remarked to a colleague who had just publicly put his foot in his mouth, “a period of silence from you would be appreciated.” Fortunately, given +Spong’s age, we must expect to be deprived of these pearls of wisdom in the not too distant future. Tempus fugit, and all that, you know.

I think Mr. Purdy has nailed this one. Poor Spong is feeling ignored, so he’s stamping his feet and bellowing so people will pay attention again.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ…..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Intercessor

Sure, he don’t debate. But do he indaba?

What’s Spong? Has this anything to do with Spam? Both are fried are they not?

Even the liberals in New Jersey described him as autocratic and absolutist: a my-way-or-the-highway sort of bishop. This crap isn’t anything new.

Given that he’s nothing but a popularizer who’s stolen most of his schtick from a serious (and seriously wrong) thinker like John A. T. Robinson and, of course, the New York Times, perhaps it’s really a waste of electrons to refute him. His ideas are sterile and his cult is dying.

Remember, Piers Plowman, that at the time of the 1998 Lambeth Conference +Williams, then Archbishop of Wales, characterized the lucubrations of the Spongster on SS as like the thoughts of “a clever sixth-former.” That seems to have rankled.

I’ve given this some thought – not much – just some thought. The mindset behind this rant does give insight as to how Bishop Pike wandered off and died in the desert.

Well well.

We have put up with this him and his disciples for 30 years or more – doing everything in their power to COMPLETELY destroy Christianity one denomination at a time.

It’s really quite simple. He can say all of this right now because there isn’t anyone left in the organization to fight against him anymore. Hate? He embodies it.

Now that we’re on the outside, we get to watch the writhing and gnashing of teeth. And I plan to enjoy every minute of it.

Someone should write an opera about him. He’s as devious, deviant and evil as they come.

See you in hell Spong.

Attention all MCJ posters: I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of whether I am the smartest man in the world and never make mistakes. I will no longer engage the ignorance that emanates from so many of you. I will no longer listen to your sentimental appeals to such ambiguous concepts as “truth.” I will now spend all of my time talking with people like John Shelby Spong, who, like me, is also very, very smart and never, ever wrong, although as I am the smartest man in the world, John Shelby Spong is the “almost smartest man in the world next to me.” Nevertheless, he is also never, ever wrong. Just because God said something once a long time ago doesn’t mean He is right right now, right? Unlike me and John Shelby Spong. I am now trying to reach a decision on my position as the greatest hunk in the world. Stay tuned.

He has lost the ability to see anything positive outside himself. This is the rant of an old man who has alienated himself from those around him because of his metastasized ego. I have heard schizophrenics with delusions of grandeur that are more charitable. It would not surprise me if he decided to remove himself permanently from such an undeserving world. Emile Durkheim had a word for this “Anomie”. He is adrift on a sea of despair with no rudder and no engine.

“I am ready now to claim the victory. I will from now on assume it and live into it.”

Wasn’t it in “Prince of Space” that there was a shot of a spaceship briefly milling about over downtown Tokyo before flying off, and Crow wisecracked, “Well, consider yourselves conquered – gotta go!”

This sounds like he’s been reading that new book the one Episcopal chick has been flogging — the one that claims that the path to serenity is totally ignoring any shadow of a suggestion that you might be wrong in any way.

Maureen,
The movie “Mosquito Coast” with Harrison Ford has already illustrated the tragic results of unshakable certitude not profiting from the corrective feedback of ordinary reality.

I just wish he would shut the foxtrot up!

Shut the Frick Up: A Bishop Rethinks Rational Discourse by John Shelby Spong (Men’s Room Wall, 2009)

“I will dismiss as unworthy of any more of my attention the wild, false and uninformed opinions of such would-be religious leaders as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Albert Mohler, and Robert Duncan.

This was the whole point of the rant…to lump Duncan in with the more extreme religious right (dead or alive.)

Chris –

I think you made a typo: “You’re a sick joke, John. Benny Hinn is more theologically serious than you are, old-timer.”

Didn’t you mean to say Benny Hill??? (And yes, gentle readers, I know that the beloved British comedian is dead.)

I’m gobsmacked at how openly Spong declares that the world has moved on, with the clear implication that it has left God somewhere back in the dust. And for him to take potshots at Pope Benedict – well, it’s fortunate for Mr. Spong that the Pope is far moving kind, charitable, understanding, and Christian than John Shelby; the Pope’s prayers for JSS (and one would think it a safe assumption that JSS does get included in that long, long list at times) will do Spong a whole lot more good than JSS’ own words and actions. (And, I wonder if JSS would have gone after John Paul II in the same manner. There was no theological difference between the Popes in the areas addressed by Spong, but JPII had more of a “teddy bear” kind of image than Benedict does.)

The Curt Jester has kindly created a Rite of Exorcism of the Spirit of Vatican II, which I’m sure could be adapted for use with those afflicted by Spongian Ego Exposure:

http://www.splendoroftruth.com/curtjester/index.html

He wants another Time Magazine cover shot.

Cheers

StandFirm has taken a policy decision to ban all heretics. Time for MCJ to do the same.

I think Spong has misjudged the situation. Most of the world’s Christians oppose homosexuality as much as they always have. Only some Anglicans and a few liberal protestants have changed. Still, it is good to hear that Spong has decided to stop talking about it.

JSS’s greatest rival, perhaps nemesis isn’t anyone at StandFirm, VirtueOnline, Kendall Harmon, a named evangelist or even the Pope. The man JSS fears most is V Gene Robinson.

The Episcopal church has only room for one media whore and JSS fears that his spotlight is dimming. This is his move to reclaim the gay ground from the simple country bishop.

Of course the problem with both bishops, and which the mainstream media haven’t cottoned onto, is that neither bishop has any clothes on.

Of course it doesn’t take much to bowl the mainstream newsies over as long as your message fits their own narrative.

“StandFirm has taken a policy decision to ban all heretics.”

Ha, ha, does this include advocates and proponents of WO? I thought not — so what you’re saying is that they’ve usurped the plenitudo potestatis and applied Pastor Aeternus to their own sweet selves, and defined SS to be heretical and WO to be kosher. “He that diggeth the pit …” etc.

To all ex-TEc people,

Re-join TEc and be in sacramental communion with Bishop Spong, Bishop V. Gene Robinson, et al and let them know that you’re not a hateful, backwards homophobe.

Re-join TEc and re-join inclusive hands with Revisionists, Communion Partners, and 3rd Wayers.

Just Do It.

Spong illustrates the folly of the appeasement strategy adopted by TEO’s conservatives over the years. He’s like a spoiled child who behaves worse and worse the more you give into him.

I wonder what his wife thinks about his continued obsession with homosexuals. Maybe she’s just glad to get him out of her face as he sits at the keyboard churning out his solipsistic rubbish.

I have another idea on why the appearance of this rant of Spong’s at this time. He’s got a new book out, called Eternal Life: A New Vision, in which he doubtless recycles all the old arguments for trashing all ideas of Christian hope. Or, maybe publishing a new book is just itself another bid for attention …

Yawn. We Newarkers have heard it all before.

If this means that we will no longer have to listen to any of his rants, then Right On!!!

Of course, I’ve seen two year olds pitch a better tantrum than the Spongster.

OOOOPS! Forgot to mention that Baby Blue had the best pictures up to accompany this rant! Truly inspired!

Shrill, brittle, pessimistic.

All good!

Full of anger, bitterness, self-deception, hatred. He will one day stand before his maker, and see that those objects in his hands, that he thought were diamonds, are little dried up turds. He can deceive himself only so long.

Smurf Breath – there’s a Mrs. Spong? :-O

How did he ever drag himself away from the mirror long enough to get married?

Actually, there have been two Mrs. Spongs. His first wife died of cancer in 1988, I think, and he remarried.

Hm. Had no idea he was married or had children, and I don’t know why I’m so surprised. After all, the man is human. It’s just that everything seems to revolve around “I think”, “I feel”, “I say”, “I do (or don’t) accept” and so on.

Captain Yips has discovered why this effusion was produced at this particular time: the Bishop has a new book out and is whipping up publicity.

So I checked out the Amazon link and the foreword strikes me as interesting, not to say peculiar; he mentions Tim Russert’s funeral (not by name, but you can tell that’s who he’s talking about) and the fact that some non-Catholics received Communion in defiance of the norms of the Church, and he takes the opportunity to have a go at “tribal religion”.

Now, why this should concern him one way or the other, not being a Roman Catholic, I have no idea – save that he goes on about the “easily identifiable television and media personalties” who attended, and maybe I’m crazy but I get the faintest whiff of sour grapes: this was a Big Media Event so why didn’t the mean ol’ Catholics make this an ecumenical service, and naturally, for such a Big Event of Nationwide Importance, someone of his stature should have been asked to participate/celebrate/give the sermon. But no! Those mean ol’ Catholics hogged all the publicity themselves!

Well, maybe I’m nuts, but that’s the impression I’m getting:

http://www.amazon.com/Eternal-Life-Vision-Beyond-Religion/dp/0060762063/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255813003&sr=1-1

Yes Fuinseoig, as FW Ken notes. In addition, if you can believe it, he’s also had a play written about his life, ‘Pebble in my Shoe’. Gremlin in the Ecclesiological Engine more like. Where’s William Shatner when you need him?

why this should concern him one way or the other, not being a Roman Catholic, I have no idea

Well, his own sect (dying, in no small part due to his efforts) is pretty boring since the Christians left, and the Catholic Church is always good for a go. You know, we really aren’t doing that well, at least in the west, but we are holding our own, and that puts the lie to his central thesis, which is that ditching Christian doctrines is necessary to the church’s survival.

There is an old notion that increasing education levels will necessarily lead to a decline in religion. The facts are clearly against this idea, but I think Spong remains stuck in his own personal – obsolete – dogmas.

Is there an Ignoble ASS Award? I present, JSS, sometime bright sixth-former around oh, say, 50 years ago, or so, now matured into an aged garrulous half-heimers sixth-decade past sixth-former with the social grace of a nap-needing two year old deprived of his pacifier/rubber/dummy or whatever it is he needs to stick in his mouth for oral gratification.

The kind you see in the grocery store on banned German TV ads for contraception:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nojWJ6-XmeQ

Wanna bet his parents own that video?

Will someone tell this clown that the 60s are soooo over.

SmurthBreath, I think he’s wife his totally okay with his obsession. I met the Spongs 8 years ago when he returned to his old parish of St. Paul’s in Richmond, Va to preach at their Lenten series. She’s English I think and while I’m against what he preaches I said to her that he does preach very well to which she replied with great enthusiasm that he was “inspiring.” I also recall his sermon had nothing to do with the appointed lessons of the day but was about why the Bible and the Church had been wrong and took the usual swipe at Jerry Falwell who I understand he was actually friends with. I had also purchased his book “Here I Stand” which I had him sign. What the heck! It’s not every day you meet a famous heretic. But I don’t see how anyone could be attracted to his message. I even heard he has family in Virginia who distanced themselves from him.

@ Bill (not IB)” ..it’s fortunate for Mr. Spong that the Pope is far moving kind, charitable, understanding, and Christian than John Shelby; the Pope’s prayers for JSS (and one would think it a safe assumption that JSS does get included in that long, long list at times)will do Spong a whole lot more good than JSS’ own words and actions.”
Not only in the Pope’s prayers but in those of every Catholic, in particular on Good Friday: during the Prayers of Intercession under the heading “For those who do not believe in God”.

Wait, people….

If I read this right, JSS is announcing that he is finally going to STFU?

I’d take that as GOOD news.

There’s no link here or at Baby Blue to the original letter/pronouncement/hissy fit. I’d like to know where that was, and whether it was somewhere that takes comments.

But, then, if I read the comments, I’d be sinning against charity big time.

John Spong, as a consecrated radical, wrecked my erstwhile spiritual home, the Diocese of Newark long before his dotage and now, with whatever brain he ever had gone to tapioca pudding, he is finishing the job on the soon-to-be-corpse of the Episcopal Church.

What a loony, ignorant and self-deluded man he is and has always been! His idea of the ‘new consciousness’has been past its ‘sell-by’ date since the Death of God cover of Time magazine, around the time when ‘They’re coming to take me away, ha-ha’ was a chart-busting hit and Tiny Tim was tip-toeing through the tulips on the Tonight Show.

Mr. Spong’s ego, arrogance and contempt not only for the religion he supposedly represents (he’s so obviously representing a false “Christ”!!!) is nothing short of breathtaking!!!

As to operas (if you really mean true opera, and not “soaps”): his character is already represented through the following Wagnerian villains: Klingsor (in Parsifal), Hagen (in Götterdämmerung from the Ring cycle) and Alberich (again Ring cycle but also shows up in Das Rheingold and Siegfried. The question is: when will that chief devil face his disgrace? I hope it won’t have to wait all the way to the Last Judgement – it would be so lovely to see him get hurt here (i.e., on Earth) as well (and marche to charity with somebody so blatantly evil as he!!).

I’ll dare say he’s a bisexual who’s so glad to worship himself – some women love really arrogant men, alas…

Sorry, but I forgot to mention that in the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (“The Nibelung’s Ring”), Alberich is Hagen’s father – and as he’s made to say in Act II, Scene 1 of Götterdämmerung by Wagner (always his own librettist!): “Zu zähem Hass doch erzog ich Hagen” (“for ferocious hate I sired Hagen”).

Most certainly, I’ll dare say that the Devil himself spiritually sired and raised John Shelby Spong, Satan’s own lickspittling lackey, for ferocious hate of God Himself and of His Only-Begotten Son Jesus Christ Our Lord!!! HOWEVER, just as those anti-heroes ALL lose (Hagen ends up drowned by the Rhinemaidens!) at the end, we’ll end up seeing Mr. Spong (no true cleric, let alone “prelate” he!!) rotting in Hell until the Last Judgement, at which point the odds are astronomically in favour of his burning up with his chosen master Satan in the Lake of FIRE!!!!!

What a pity that in our atheistic, pseudo-rational days, there is no king or other eminent potentate like Felipe [Philip von Habsburg] II of Spain who posted the following edict about his enemy William of Oranje “the silent” (according to the Durants, for whatever worth it is…) on 1581/03/15:

Therefore…for all his evil doings as chief disturber of the public peace, and as a public pest, we outlaw him forever, and forbid all our subjects to associate with him or communicate with him in public or in secret, or to administer to him victuals, drink, fire, or other necessaries. We declare him an enemy of the human race and give his property to all who may seize it. In order the sooner to remove our people from his tyranny and oppression, we promise, on the word of a king and as God’s servant, that if one of our subjects be found so generous of heart…that he shall find means of executing this decree and ridding us of the said pest, either by delivering him to us dead or alive, or by depriving him at once of life, we will give him and his heirs landed property or money, as he will, to the amount of 25,000 gold crowns. If he has committed any crime, of any sort whatsoever, we will pardon him. If he be not noble we will ennoble him.

[Balthasar Gérard managed to execute this decree (after four attempts by others failed) on 1584/07/10 at the cost of extreme torture and death after trial by the city magistrates of the Dutch city of Delft at which he expressed joy over his success. The full reward was paid to Gérard's parents; however, an apparent attempt to have him canonised as a Catholic saint failed when church officials felt that it was going too far...]

Stand Firm seem rather like English Evangelicals (big E: Anglican churchmen) but more like run-of-the-mill American evangelicals. Conservative Protestants.

I think nobody outside Spong’s age group takes him seriously or has even heard of him. Rather like the Call to Action RCs a legend in his mind. Or as the credally orthodox Rowan Williams said, a bright sixth-former.

If you’re going to have a king, have one like Philip.

“Spong illustrates the folly of the appeasement strategy adopted by TEO’s conservatives over the years.”

Are you saying that this is de facto what the Communion Partners and 3rd Wayers have really done despite all their protestations to the contrary?

I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone.

If only we could believe you’d keep that promise.

If only we could believe you’d keep that promise.

Aye. And I’m counting on everyone to save that quote and land on him like a sumo wrestler if he opens his mouth about it again.

[...] Exhibit A [...]

Several years ago, when I was struggling through a crisis of faith, my brother sent me a book by Spong, in the hopes that it would be helpful. I read the first few pages in which Spong insisted he was still a Christian but proceeded to list all the things he no longer believed about Christ or Christianity. In short, Spong essentially jettisoned anything anybody of any denomination would recognize as Christianity, leaving a faith so shriveled and truncated as to be virtually useless. I wondered what was the point of calling yourself a Christian when you no longer believed anything of Christianity. The book was helpful, but perhaps not in the way my brother intended. It helped me resolve my crisis of faith and decide that for me it was Catholic Christian orthodoxy or nothing.