John Shelby Spong

Of all the devout Christian's I have met there are none more so than Bishop John 'Jack' Shelby Spong. His faith is so strong, so dedicated to the Trinity, to the truth beyond the deity of God, beyond the mysticism and supernatural myth surrounding his faith, to live his life as close to Jesus as he possibly can that I find his vision of how Christianity should be, must be, hugely inspirational. He is more than Christian, more than the divisive nature of religion - he is as close to being a Bodhavista as I can imagine. His revolutionary vision of how Christianity should be is both challenging and controversial. He is much like his Messiah of whom would undoubtedly heap praise on his later day disciple. John Shelby Spong isn't merely Christian he is above and beyond that. He is human and as such recognises how we are part of 'God' as 'God' is part of us.

Jack Spong, if I may be so bold, is a man awake to reality. He is much like a Bodhavista himself in that he sees things as they are rather than hides behind a veil of illusion, of repetitively quoting verbatim slices of the Bible which has little meaning, virtually no meaning of contemporary life and which, in my lifetime alone, has re-evaluated  ancient scriptures.

Spong's "Twelve Points for Reform" were originally published in The Voice, the newsletter of the Diocese of Newark, in 1998. Spong elaborates on them in his book A New Christianity for a New World:

1. Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.
2. Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.
3. The Biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre- Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.
4. The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.
5. The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post- Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.
6. The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.
7. Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It, therefore, cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history.
8. The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post- Copernican space age.
9. There is no external, objective, revealed standard written in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behaviour for all time.
10. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.
11. The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behaviour control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behaviour.
12. All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination.

"The Sins of the Scripture"

I think Bishop Shelly Spong to be not only an inspirational speaker but a force of reason, a truly revolutionary voice for Christian's, and there are many I know, who feel that Biblical scripture has been manipulated by organised religion to such a degree that it cannot be viewed as a representation of how the Christian Messiah would have wanted it interpreted. 

Spong reaches beyond the boundaries of religion using his personal faith to reach out to those whose adherence to the Golden Rule is paramount and includes others, all others, to unite in something larger, more Godlike, than the divisive nature of manmade religion.

His message is an inclusive one. He speaks as though he has awakened, is aware of reality, of the world around him and the need for those of faith to disengage with being organised by an office so that Christians turn toward a personal faith rather than a collective. 

Such inspiration in a time when those who share his vision need it most.