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I am a bishop in the Church. I am deeply devoted to the Christ who stands at the heart of the Christian story. I treasure the sacred scriptures of my faith tradition and study them daily. Nonetheless, I am repelled by so much that I see emanating from within institutional Christianity today. Everywhere I go I confront a spiritually hungry population, but one that is increasingly unwilling to listen to the religious claims of those who have done such evil to so many while claiming that they are speaking for Christ. Most people I meet think that their only options are to continue to be part of this kind of abusive tradition or to rid themselves of all religion. That is why atheism has become such a popular subject for books today. I think a better alternative is to call the Christian Church into a new reformation that will transform it from being a power-seeking institution designed to create religious conformists to one whose goal is to enhance our common humanity. That would be for the Church to walk in a vastly different direction. (UL & bold added)

John Shelby Spong

Roger Morrison wrote:Spong in his latest NL:

I am a bishop in the Church. I am deeply devoted to the Christ who stands at the heart of the Christian story. I treasure the sacred scriptures of my faith tradition and study them daily. Nonetheless, I am repelled by so much that I see emanating from within institutional Christianity today. Everywhere I go I confront a spiritually hungry population, but one that is increasingly unwilling to listen to the religious claims of those who have done such evil to so many while claiming that they are speaking for Christ. Most people I meet think that their only options are to continue to be part of this kind of abusive tradition or to rid themselves of all religion. That is why atheism has become such a popular subject for books today. I think a better alternative is to call the Christian Church into a new reformation that will transform it from being a power-seeking institution designed to create religious conformists to one whose goal is to enhance our common humanity. That would be for the Church to walk in a vastly different direction. (UL & bold added)

John Shelby Spong

Do you think Spong is insightful? Is there a need for Christianism to shift emphasis from the blood-of-Jesus to the physical/mental/emotional/psyche/intellectual health & welfare of "our common humanity"? Warm regards, Roger

Roger Morrison wrote:[Do you think Spong is insightful? Is there a need for Christianism to shift emphasis from the blood-of-Jesus to the physical/mental/emotional/psyche/intellectual health & welfare of "our common humanity"? Warm regards, Roger

Inconceivable wrote:

Roger Morrison wrote:[Do you think Spong is insightful? Is there a need for Christianism to shift emphasis from the blood-of-Jesus to the physical/mental/emotional/psyche/intellectual health & welfare of "our common humanity"? Warm regards, Roger

Roger,

From what you quoted I don't think this is exactly what he is saying. I think he is referring to the need for religeons to get back to Jesus. I was lent a book by a pastor friend called, "A New Kind of Christian". It was about a pastor that was disenchanted by the structure of the Christian churches and felt inspired to get back to the basics - to just being a follower of Christ and teaching only of Christ. I thought it was insightful.

Seems there are many that look at their church as more of a social club, just the team that they root for or their daddy's church. Many simply use it as a place they can seek safety among friends from a frightening world.

Having been in the Mormon church all my life, I have known countless members that have never taken the steps to becoming born again and to have that connection with Jesus. To them, "the Gospel" is more about developing good social habits ie. following prophets and leaders (indirectly following God) and doing whatever job they were asked to fill in the church. They would have "spiritual" experiences, but it would not necessarilly point them toward Jesus - but it would keep them flocked together.

I think Spong is talking more about taking out the fluff so that the people are not distracted from the primary purpose of Christ's message.

A reformation would be most welcome to me.

With a record like that, why does anyone still listen to the public proclamations about sex emanating from the Christian Church? Why would any woman be willing to heed the "moral opinion" of an all-male ecclesiastical group that pontificates in the name of a God called "Father," about what is moral for a woman to do with her own body? Women, who are precluded from the decision making ecclesiastical processes, are quite rightly refusing to be subjected to such uninformed ignorance.

With these sexual battles draining its energy in hopeless conflicts they are destined to lose, no one seems to notice how little attention the Church leaders pay to the Christ figure, who identified himself with the marginalized of his society, the lepers, the Samaritans and even the woman taken in the act of adultery. He broke the bands of religious prejudice against women by engaging the woman by the well in conversation, by encouraging Mary, the sister of Martha, to choose the role of a pupil for herself and by having female disciples who "followed him all the way from Galilee." How was it then possible for Christianity, formed by the followers of this Jesus, to diminish throughout its long history and always in the name of God, the lives and the humanity of so many? I think of the Church's traditional victims: the Jews, the "heretics," the scientists who introduced us to a new understanding of the world and finally people of color, women and homosexual persons everywhere, and wonder what these ecclesiastical victims think when they hear church leaders say: "the Bible is the inerrant word of God." The gospel of John quotes Jesus, I think correctly, as saying "I came that they might have life, abundantly." One cannot give life and diminish people's humanity at the same time. Yet in spite of that record many people still seem to think that institutional Christianity must be listened to in the debate about changing sexual patterns among human beings. In the light of this record, I wonder why.

Gazelam wrote:1) Spong is in no way a christian in that he denys the divinity of Christ.

RM: In Your presumptuous, narrow opinion...

2) Christs teachings enhance our common humanity, so why would oyu need to change anything?

RM: "Christ's teachings", generally speaking, are fine. It is their selective, narrow interpretations by men that necessitates "Reformation"...

3) How do you focus more on Christ than churchs already do? Is there a way to discuss Christ without focusing on his teachings?

Roger Morrison wrote:What Spong suggests, and I concure, generally, is that for centuries the teachings of Christ have been trumped by the teachings, and emphasis, of theologians and ecclessiasts in buildings caled "churches". These spokes-men--you will note there is not a woman among them, this alone should suggest to any perceptive person, something is amiss--have turned Christianism into an institution that, IMSCO, Jesus would have difficulty recognizing. Hence the need for a "Reformation". If not a complete knock-down and rebuild.

How often have you sat in any church--LDS included--and heard a sermon modeled after the contents of "The Sermon On The Mount": Don't accumulate stuff; "God" has no favourites; peace-makers are a blessing; wars, killing, greed are evil--not to be engaged in; the greatest are to serve the lessor, not exploit/master them; "charity" Trump's every thing, prophets, profit and sin. There is not a word in that 'sermon', that I see, that talks about blood atonement, redemption, the "Trinity", 3 degrees of glory, rituals, dressing-up to attend 'church'...

In summary Gaz, the tradition has been for Christianity to focus on the teachings of Man not Jesus. I respectfully suggest that has tended to more 'inactivity' and created more Atheists than self-righteous attendees can imagine. No stats, empirical conclusion... Warm regards, Roger