Spong on the Listening Process: “I Refuse to Listen”

So Spong, why didn’t you support Proposition 209, the California Civil Rights Initiative, which ended racist and sexist components in state, county and municipal law in that state, or comparable legislation in other states or at the federal level?

Barney the dinosaur wears purple….Mr. Spong is a dinosaur as well.  Sometimes I find it hard to distinguish between them.  Why do we even listen to his thoughts or comments?

Why do people continue to pay attention to the blatherings of this tired, navel-gazing old hippie? Listening to Spong is like listening to Peter and Paul (now, mercifully, sans Mary) adenoidaling away about El Salvador on a PBS fundraiser.

The executive summary: “La la la la, can’t hear you! La la la.”

I think the real question about JSS is why he still gets attention.

Does this mean that the old arch-apostate will mercifully shut his yap, and “go quietly into that goodnight?”  One can only pray…

Hey, it’s okay by me.  I’ve refused to listen to Spong for years!

Sadly, Spong had a lot of airtime on NPR today.  I was channel surfing while driving up from Charlotte to Virginia, and on one of the N. Carolina NPR stations there was a lengthy interview with Spong.  Same old same old tired cliches.  I could predict what he would say before he finished a sentence.  I don’t know what prompted NPR to have him on or what the ostensible subject of the interview was, as I tuned in halfway through the show.

My favorite Spong story of course involves myself (like most of my favorite stories).  When I was an undergrad at Sewanee, he came to speak, and word got out that he would deign to have lunch with undergraduates, and all you had to do was sign up.  First come first served to the sign up list!  So of course, we rallied the conservative crew and about 15 minutes later, lo and behold, the lunch list was full.  No room left on that lunch list for any lefties. 

So off we all trotted off to lunch with Bishop Spong a few weeks later.  Me (I was the head of the conservative student paper), the rest of my editorial board, and a bunch of others.  Including, by the way, Ed Salmon’s daughter.  And we proceeded to give Bishop Spong the most unpleasant lunch time inquisition that we could possibly muster. 

So that was fun and of itself.  But the best part BY FAR was arriving at the lunch and learning he had been told in advance by his schedulers, the University, I don’t know who, that he was going to be having lunch that day with the members of Sewanee BGLAD.  As in Bi, Gay, Lesbian and God knows what else.  So he thought he was going to have the friendliest of all possible audiences, and instead he ended up getting absolutely raked over the friggin coals by a bunch of hyper conservative undergrads. 

I never found out who was responsible for this hilarious scheduling fiasco.  Mysterious ways.  Mysterious ways, indeed.

“I don’t know Bishop Ryle.” The words of a “bishop” so disconnected from, so dismissive of, traditional Anglican Christianity, that he doesn’t even know who JC Ryle is. Isn’t that like an English professor who has never heard of Dickens?

B-b-b-b-ut…. WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE IN A LISTENING PROCESS!!!

The libs have made a SACRAMENT OUT OF IT!

WHATEVER SHALL WE DO NOW?!?!?!?

I have this to say to John Spong:  You, sir, are a liar.  Furthermore, you are no Christian.

Spong is no longer on the fringe.

Not (I hope) to go too far O/T, but White’s reference of the Purity Laws from the Old Testament, got me to thinking about a recent conversation I had with my Mom…and I would be curious hear what others think: In the New Testament, one of the most profound (to me anyway) healings by Jesus was that of the woman who bled for twelve years and was an outcast as a result. As you may recall, among the purity laws was the requirement that women go through a mikvah (ritual bath)following their menstrual cycle, as the bleeding associated with it made them “unclean” (they were also shuttered from the community while menstruating - ergo the ostracization of the woman whom Jesus healed). Two thousand years following the healing of that woman, man’s understanding of biology and medicine has obviously increased significantly (especially over the last 150 years). As a result of this ever-expanding knowledge base, our approach to medicine and the treatment of patients continues to evolve. For example, when I first entered the OR 20 years ago, we were hard-pressed to find a single pair of exam gloves in the decontamination area; surgical instruments were cleaned with our bare hands, unless it was known that the patient had a communicable disease. Nowadays, of course, the emphasis is on ‘infection control’ - with particular attention paid to BLOODBORNE pathogens (e.g. Hepatitis B <which can survive on surfaces OUTSIDE the body for better than two weeks>; Hepatitis C; HIV). For the most part, we don’t touch a patient (or anything that has come in contact with a patient), without wearing gloves. Like most of my colleagues, I’m hyper-vigilant with regards to the condition of my hands, and will have a mini-panic attack if I get home and discover that I have a knick or cut (How did that happen? Where did it happen?How long have I had it? What did I touch after it happened?)...which leads me back to White’s reference to the purity laws: When God gave the laws, there was no knowledge of bloodborne pathogens or disease transmittal through blood and body fluids. He simply declared blood as being “unclean” - and that was enough for the Israelites. Perhaps, then, the purity laws are not quite so anachronistic afterall?
Other thoughts?

Has Spong been baptised and if the answer is yes then my next question is…Why?
Intercessor

Proposed bumper sticker:  “Spong is wrong.”

Perhaps he has hit upon something: We should just say, “Shut up, sir, and get out of the way.  We are no longer listening to you.”

He’s become cantankerously rigid in his second childhood, hasn’t he?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

I am unwilling to argue about it or to discuss it as if there are two equally valid, competing positions any longer. The day for that mentality has simply gone forever.

But what about Living the Questions?
What about the journey being more important than the destination?
What about taking care not to . . . put God in a box?

Barney the dinosaur wears purple….Mr. Spong is a dinosaur as well.  Sometimes I find it hard to distinguish between them.  Why do we even listen to his thoughts or comments?

Perhaps, MassPK, for the same reasons we go to museums to see dry, dead dinosaur skeletons…

What bothers me is that Spong is literally doing everything he can to renounce Christ.

I mean, this man is not just a heretic.  (Actually, he isn’t a heretic. To be a heretic one first has to be a Christian. This man has absolutely and systematically denied Christianity.)

He is not just an apostate.

He has made a career of standing as a Bishop (a Bishop??!!) and denying, indeed, actively rejecting everything of Christianity and renouncing Christ.

It is possible to go to one’s judgement with a worse record but it takes some doing.
I shudder to think how he will face the one he has utterly, totally rejected.

That wasn’t directed at us. We’re irrelevant in Bishop Spong’s world view. That was directed squarely at his arch-rival, Bishop Robinson.

All that Bishop Spong has is his ‘legacy’. And VGR is emperiling it by claiming the gay rights thing as his own.

13 ORNurseDude,

The One who designed our bodies, forming them of dust certainly knows how they work.  He also knew the that explaining things to the children of dust was sometimes pointless.

Almost all of the “Purity Laws” given to Moses have a direct tie to maintenance of the physical health of the society or its members, or so it seems to this one who grew up with most of them….I’d put the ‘menstrual cycle blood’ law into a different camp - it seems designed to ensure fecundity in the population (you can do the math, you’re in medicine).

Jack Spong would seem to be evidence, if not proof, that God’s grace can be resisted. Though, I suppose there’s still time for salvation.

He is certainly evidence to support the charge that the discipline of the Church is not actively present in the ‘Anglican Franchise Holder’ in the United States.

When did he ever listen in the first place?  He is saying:

“I will no longer strive with them.  I no longer fear their influence in the culture.  I will ignore them, and let them die in bitterness and sorrow.”

Yawn.  But - irony of ironies - who really cares what Bishop Spong says will besides we conservatives?  Who is going to pay any attention to this ‘manifesto?’  I never cease to be amazed at the blindness of liberal religionists.  They seem to think there are volumes of potential proselytes just waiting to ponder their every wise utterance if only people would stop associating religion with conservative worldviews.  But in fact liberal religion is just a foil used by the secular culture in its war to establish the secular faith.  When the war is over, and secularism is established, then liberal religion will be a weapon without a purpose.  It will be melted down, and beaten into a plowshare. 

Liberal religion is simply the place secularists think “people who need that sort of thing” should go.  Spong and his kind have dreams of being the spiritual leaders of the revolution.  But the revolution doesn’t want spiritual leaders.  It neither needs nor cares about the metaphysical blatherings of a faux priest and his faux religion.  The revolution is the Religion of Man.  It has done away with bishops and priests and temples.  And it has no use for foolish old anachronisms who wear purple shirts, and try to lead the revolution with the language of the dead.

carl

Hey Johnnie:  Feels nice to just let it out and not pretend anymore doesn’t it?

Proposed Bumper Sticker #2:  “Spong-Of-Satan”

Halloween is coming and once again John Spong is dressing up as an “old school Bishop.” You know, with the purple shirt, collar, pectoral cross in the pocket and nicely appointed suit. The only problem is, everyday is Halloween for John Spong.

And I refuse to listen to John Spong. Makes us even.

I even refuse to listen to Saint Mao Tse Tung.

ORNurseDude - throughout the old and new testament God let’s it be clearly known that he totally understands his creation…

Ah, I now know why he was on NPR for 20 minutes yesterday.  He’s got a new book out.  Ugh.  This is all just pure publicity-seeking, how to get in the news, sell more books.

Ignore him.

Paul B (#29)
Unquestionably! I guess in my rambling, I didn’t adequately articulate my point - namely, that it was Man whose knowledge needed to increase, so as to understand (or at least infer) the rationale behind many of the Laws given by God…for example, blood being “unclean.” Spong is very quick to dismiss the Old Testament as being written by a people who were unfortunate enough to live before the Enlightenment and the advances in science. I would maintain that these “unfortunate people” were INSPIRED by God to write HIS Law - and that in many cases it is precisely because of the advacements made in science that we can see the rationale. I kinda look at this like a parent stopping his/her three year-old from running out into the street. A three year-old is largely unable to reason and so the parent keeps the directive simple. A nine year-old, on the other hand, is able understand the rationale indergirding the directive (namely, that he could get mowed down by a speeding car). In the same way, God told the Israelites that blood was unclean…now that we know about bloodborne pathogens and disease transmission, we also know that God was right.

“I refuse to listen.” 

Of course he does…now.  His allies are in power, so there’s no more need for the sham that was the “listening process.”  The orthodox will snap into line, get bullied into silence or driven out.  Am I the only one who has observed this iron-clad rule of leftist insurgency?

Liberal religionists ... seem to think there are volumes of potential proselytes just waiting to ponder their every wise utterance if only people would stop associating religion with conservative worldviews.

Carl [#24]: True. More specifically, Liberal Protestants believe their secular friends would flock to church if the we could only make church sufficiently convenient and make Christianity safe, undemanding, all-accepting, and in tune with enlightened secular culture.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Liberal religion is just a foil used by the secular culture in its war to establish the secular faith.

This gets much of the story backward. Secularists didn’t create and propagate Liberal Protestantism; Christians and ex-Christians did. In Protestant countries, Liberal Protestantism was more powerful and popular than secularism. Secularism could not have achieved for itself (however craftily) what Liberal Protestantism eagerly but unwittingly achieved for secularism. Only since World War II has secularism itself gained the upper hand.

[33] Irenaeus

This gets much of the story backward.

Fair enough, but it accurately represents the attitude today.  Whatever liberal religion was in the past, it has become in the present a caboose shunted onto a forgotten spur - neither lost nor lamented.

carl

Ah, I now know why he was on NPR for 20 minutes yesterday. He’s got a new book out. Ugh. This is all just pure publicity-seeking, how to get in the news, sell more books.—KarenB [#30]

Books, new books! Spong’s succession of books and book-promotion tours help explain his continuing prominence. To attract media attention, you usually need to offer something “new” (cf. Acts 17:21). Spong’s books appear to do that.

Most reporters don’t know enough to realize how derivative and passé Spong’s ideas really are. He makes good money popularizing other people’s stale ideas. (Ideas that were radical around 1962 hold a special place in his heart, but he’s glad to branch out.) Because Spong’s ideas so closely fit elite secular culture, they’re easy to express, easy to assimilate. And with enough pizzazz, easy to sell.

Spong’s collar and purple shirt are crucial to his success. Without them, he’d be another aging debunker. With them, he can offer reporters the perfect man-bites-dog religion story: the bishop whose dogged pursuit of truth leads him to attack Christianity as remorselessly as the most outspoken secularists. All in all, an easy-to-present story that will impress your editor and titillate a mass audience.

Whatever liberal religion was in the past, it has become in the present a caboose shunted onto a forgotten spur.—Carl [#34]

Agreed. The amazing thing is that Liberal Protestant clergy evidently believe what they most need to regain “relevance” is more of the same.

You know they are failing and I know they are failing. But for them to admit that they are failing and will continue to fail requires repentance, a willingness to admit error and a desire to change direction. Most of us find that rather hard. Especially when you’ve spent your whole life fighting against that sort of theology.

I don’t reckon we’ve changed much from the times of the prophet Elijah. Folks were stiff-necked then, and despite the best efforts of legions of chiropractors, we’re stiff necked today.

Actually, I was disappointed in Spong.  I have always heard he was a scholorly sort of guy, but all he does in this video is whine about how people representing themselves as Christians have done this and that, which has exactly ZERO to do with the authority of Holy Scripture.

Isn’t that like stating that all traffic laws don’t apply because some people choose to speed? 

And to the other guys’ point - if people really followed and applied scripture to their lives there would be no racism, and woman would be held in high regard.  In fact, if people had followed the law in the Middle Ages most plagues would have never happened - the laws around treatment of what is clean and unclean would have prevented the plagues from spreading.

Pitiful that so many have been deceived by Spong.  But, to be fair, you have to be willing to “find out for yourself” by actually reading Holy Scripture.  I think Spong says what many want to hear - he “tickles their ear” to things they are pre-disposed to hear.

Who is this White who’s talking w/ Spong?  Is he ordained?  A prof somewhere?

I thought their demeanor towards one another to be fairly rude - looking around, sitting back w/ the smug “I know what he’s going to say, so why bother listening” expression on their faces.  I found the whole thing a bit of an embarrassment, more a tug of war than a display of Jesus’ love.

[39] maineiac

Who is this White who’s talking w/ Spong?  Is he ordained?  A prof somewhere?

Dr James R White .  He is an ordained Elder at Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, one of the foremost Protestant apologists in the US, critical consultant for the NASB, and a friend.  This is a clip from a formal debate between Dr White & Bishop Spong about the compatibility of homosexuality with Christianity.

carl

Dr. James White
They were not particularly fractious and perhaps my screen is too small, but I didn’t get the same read on body language or facial expression.  Dr. White’s incredulity over Bp. Spong’s professed ignorance of Bp. Ryle was understandable and more restrained than my own would have been (which is not to my credit, I’m sure). It was a reasonably civil debate, and even Bp. Spong wasn’t as vitriolic as his written word would lead one to expect. 
Linda

Hey!
I strong object to being, even remotely, linked to the Spongster… If he wore red, white and blue would you compare him to Captain America?

Barney (bdino)

ps… yes my parents named me Barney, the curse of Family names…

pardon the poor grammar… in the heat of my passion I neglected to edit my previous comment… I strongly object…

ORNurseDude [31] - Exactly! 

As someone said here a while ago, the approach to scripture that Spong is espousing is basically saying, to paraphrase, that if God knew then what I know now, He would have inspired the Bible correctly…

Just slightly OT, but did anyone else know that Marilyn Manson was raised Episcopalian?

“a new day has dawned and we are ready not just to embrace it, but also to rejoice in it and to celebrate it”

Why am I hearing this in Saruman’s voice?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYejrTg7FJM&feature=related

Oh, right…

This is merely Spong’s starting point re-iterated as his actions have ever shown, so how does he think it’ll be believed now?  Decades of deeds in verification.  Actions speak louder than words.  Just like his “listening”.

What I find most amusing is the suggestion that Spong was ever interested in “listening” to the other side.  In the video you’ll notice he’s constantly interrupting his opponent.

You really defame the good Bishop.  Never was there a more fundamentalist Anglican than Jack Spong when it came to preaching the tithe to support the trappings of his office.

I attended that debate; I flew from South Carolina to Orlando because I wanted to see this “scholar” squirm under the questioning of Dr. James White.  I was not disappointed – he did so poorly that halfway through the debate, he wanted to stop and simply “have a discussion.”  His wife stopped the audience question period after just a few questions.  While looking over some notes I took during the debate I see that the first word I used to describe Spong was “ARROGANT.”  While Dr. White’s table was loaded with his Bibles (English and Greek), his laptop and many of Spong’s books, Spong brought only a yellow note pad.  He refused to follow the debate rules; rather than answer questions directly he would give small sermons (usually about himself).  When it was his turn to ask questions he would give a long statement while Dr. White would continually ask, “Is that a question?”

The video above is a good one but the statement that got the only audible reaction (laughter) from the audience was when, as Dr. White was arguing for the veracity of the Scriptures, Spong said, “You have to learn to play with the Scriptures in a little more flexible manner than you seem to do.”  Another powerful moment was when Dr. White took Spong to task for his assertion that the Apostle Paul was an oppressed homosexual. 
The word that best describes John Shelby Spong is narcissist.  A narcissistic old man who couldn’t exegete his way out of a paper bag.

A friend of mine heard Bp.Spong at Kanuga many years ago. At the question time at the end of several days of professed apostacy, my friend asked two questions. “Do you still go to church?” and “Why?” I have wondered about this ever since.

[9] Jason Miller, the same can be said of so so many who style themselves to be Anglicans these days, both within and without TEC. They can spit-out quotes from Rick Warren and Cardinal Newman; but they don’t know Ryle, nor Burgon, nor Bullinger, nor Beckwith, etcetera, etcetera. They turn to the celebrities of the Blogs to get their information and knowledge, instead of the sources.

I have always heard [Spong] was a scholarly sort of guy.—#38

Your sources were much too kind. Spong lies somewhere between “pseudo-intellectual” and “charlatan.”

He’s neither scholarly nor original nor brave nor intellectually honest. File him under “Opportunistic Misleader.”