A Tribute to Bishop Spong – theological Giant.

“We stand on the shoulders of giants” – Jack Spong was one of my giants. The late Bishop Spong was a tremendous influence on my life as a pastor and theologian. I first learned of him upon reading his book “Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism” while I attended the Iliff School of Theology in the early 1990s. I recall being notably struck by his obvious scholarly competence, his persuasive argumentation, and his clear passion for the well-being of Christianity and the Church. I read more of his books during those years and his writings helped embolden me as a firm liberal Christian. As the years passed, and as the movement that has come to be known as progressive Christianity developed and came onto the scene, at times

I found myself frustrated that the good bishop seemed to be stuck in the modern era’s liberal Christianity while so many of us were shifting into the progressive Christianity that was evolving from mainline liberal Christianity. He seemed to be rigid in his denial of any form of miracles and his christology seemed to make no room for any sort of divinity of Jesus. He also seemed to be beholden to science as a way to explain away things and he didn’t seem to leave much room for Christian mysticism and the allowance that contemporary Christians can experience and commune with the Divine. At times I found his writings to convey an absolutist stridentness ironically akin to the harsh rhetoric from the fundamentalists.  (continues below..)

And then… with the passing of just a few more years, Spong’s more recent books not only came ’round to the progressive Christianity à la Borg, Crossan, Burklo, Plumer, etc, but I experienced them in some ways as surpassing it – perhaps as becoming something different – outside the Christian ballpark all together.