Posted on 04/12/2005 11:19:52 PM PDT by churchillbuff
O'Reilly has written a dustjacket blurb for Bishop Spong's new book: "The Sins of Scripture challenges Christians to look beyond the myths of their faith into the heart of the matter." I also got an email from a Spong-promoting outfit that says O'Reilly will have Spong on his show.
Here's the Publishers Weekly review on amazon:
Spong, a retired Episcopal bishop and prominent spokesperson for liberal Christianity, focuses this book on "terrible texts" which have been used to justify such "sins" as overbreeding, degradation of the environment, sexism, child abuse and anti-Semitism. These biblical texts, according to Spong, are not the incontrovertible Word of God, but flawed human responses to perceived threats. An incendiary example of this is Spong's assertion that Paul was a closeted gay man whose anti-gay statements were motivated by little more than his own self-loathing. Spong does not stop there; in the course of the book he suggests that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married; that none of the supernatural events described in the Bible took place (including the resurrection); and that theism itself is a misunderstanding of God. Interestingly, readers who do not endorse Spong's radical reinterpretation of Christianity will still find much in this book they can affirm. His explanation of the roots of Christian anti-Semitism is fascinating and much less challenging to orthodoxy than many of his other claims. Unfortunately, Spong leads with his weakest section, which features a variety of poorly constructed arguments claiming, but giving inadequate evidence for, a strong causal relationship between biblical injunctions and both overpopulation and environmental problems. Nonetheless, this absorbing book has much to offer readers of all persuasions.
If this is true then O'Reilly is a degenerate. Didn't Christ say something about false teachers leading people astray?
Spong as in SpongeBob?
O'Reilly must lack discernment not to realize he is being USED-- not just to sell books, but books that deliberately seek to undermine heteronorms and spread lies about the Bible itself.
HEY BILL! Wake UP! Don't be PLAYED like this!
Actually he's a well known Biblical scholar and devoutly religious from an early age, but he's getting on in years.
So the Leprechaun pimps for Spong's new book and deliberately ignores Savage's. Guess we know where his head is at.
O'Reilly is losing it.
"Actually he's a well known Biblical scholar and devoutly religious from an early age, but he's getting on in years."
Actually, he's a homo(sexual). That is his (pagan) religion.
O'Reilly is an ass. I think he did it for the cash.
Spong need all our prayers...he's on very thin ice.
I'm not sure he ever had it to be able to lose...
That would probably come as a surprise to his wife, though she died a couple years ago. It would also come as a surprise to the Episcopal Church, which he served for more than half a century.
Spong is in a worse position than O'Reilly. Spong is supposed to be a minister except he's proven himself to be the minister of Satan.
Yes, his CV is certainly satanic...
THE RIGHT REVEREND JOHN SHELBY SPONG, D.D.
Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark
John Shelby Spong, scholar, author and bishop, is the most published member of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church in the United States. He is the author of fourteen books. His published articles now number in excess of ninety.
Bishop Spong stands in the tradition of Anglican bishops that has included Will Scarlett, John E. Hines, Angus Dun and, to some degree, James A. Pike in America and William Temple, Hensley Hanson, John A. T. Robinson and David Jenkins in England. He is a frequent lecturer at conference centers and on college campuses. On four occasions he has been the guest speaker at Chautauqua in western New York State.
Born in 1931 in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bishop Spong was educated in the public schools of Charlotte, was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1952 and received his Master of Divinity degree in 1955 from the Protestant Episcopal Theological Seminary in Virginia. That seminary and St. Paul's College have both conferred on him honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees. He served as rector of St. Joseph's Church in Durham, North Carolina from 1955 to 1957; rector of Calvary Parish, Tarboro, North Carolina from 1957 to 1965; rector of St. John's Church in Lynchburg, Virginia from 1965 to 1969; and rector of St. Paul's Church in Richmond, Virginia from 1969 to 1976. He was consecrated bishop on June 12, 1976.
Bishop Spong has served on a wide variety of diocesan committees and commissions, including being editor of The North Carolina Churchman, president of the Standing Committee and three times deputy to General Convention. He has been president of the Alumni Association of his seminary and a trustee, both of his seminary and of St. Paul's College. He has also been president of the New Jersey Council of Churches.
Nationally, he has been a theological consultant to the Episcopal Radio and Television Foundation, a consultant to the Standing Liturgical Commission and a member of the Overseas Review Committee of the national church. In 1973 he was elected by General Convention to a six-year term on the Executive Council, the highest governing body of the Episcopal Church, other than the General Convention. In 1986, under Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning, he was appointed to serve on the Standing Commission on Human Affairs and Health. He currently serves on the House of Bishop's Theology Committee.
Bishop Spong has always had an active interest in sports and was at one time a play-by-play announcer for radio stations in Tarboro, North Carolina, and Lynchburg, Virginia, covering football, basketball and baseball. He also served as sports editor for The Daily Southerner in Tarboro. In 1991 he was elected the Quatercentenary Scholar at Emmanuel College of Cambridge University and in 1993 was a guest lecturer at Oxford University in the United Kingdom
A wolf in sheep's clothing no less.
No. A wolf in SHEPHERD's clothing!
Yes, O'Reilly need only recant and disgorge the profits from this thing.
Spong needs miles and miles of rosary beads to be worn out on his behalf. He is defiant.
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