Sing A Little Spong

CaNN ^ | 7/29/2005 | CaNN News Editor

[sionnsar]

SING A LITTLE SPONG

Much upset has been spilled over the years over +Jack Spong. And the rich old radical is still doing the song-and-dance, unimpaired by reality: “blah blah blah, Freud & Copernicus, yada yada yada, lightbulbs, Bultmann, etc., etc., etc., go buy my books”. But did you ever wonder why the charming old prelate won’t often discuss his ‘brave new religion‘ in public forums?

+Jack still keeps a candle burning for unhappy old Sigmund:

Freud is truly in a class of his own. Arguably no other notable figure in history was so fantastically wrong about nearly every important thing he had to say…. academics have been — and still are — infinitely creative in their efforts to whitewash his errors…. You can always count on intellectuals to keep a candle burning for whatever idea they’ve invested long years, enormous sums of money and, perhaps above all, limitless ego promoting…

Saith The WebElves

As we said last year,

“the church– ever in search of The Latest Thing– from absorbing Freudian narcotics in the 1950’s in the form of “Clinical Pastoral Education.” Most clergy get such “training”– a mish-mash of group
psycho-analysis, relativism, sloppy Freud, and recounting pastoral encounters with people (although the people so quoted aren’t asked permission if they want to be talked about). It will come as no surprise that John Spong raves in his autohagiography about taking some of the first of these programs in his seminary days. It engenders endless introspection; smart-alecky skepticism about motives; and the usual ‘peek-a-boo’ gnosis we see in so many modern discussions: “You seem very angry about this issue” or “We need to honour all the strong feelings in this discussion.”"

We continued:

This is part of the slippery slime in the church, oozing out of puplits and Diocesan offices and seminaries. This is the reason that progressives can stay in a church they only want to mutate into their own self-affirming image; the justification why they can so callously punish the ‘narrowminded’, ‘bigoted’, ‘biased’ folk who constitute the Christian majority. Here is the secret. They have absorbed wrong-headed atheistic skepticism in place of their Christian minds, and it has a ‘logic’ all its own…

Thomas Oden has decoded the crisis for churches (including current crises), writing extensively about how this modern movement ignores the entire 1800+ years of Christian pastoral understanding and theology before Freud. After all, it seemed like a good idea at the time; who doesn’t want to be more pastoral? But consider this– such ‘theology’ leads directly to Spong, Gene Robinson, Mike Ingham, Bennison, Andy Smith, Jane Dixon, and all the rest.

That Blowed Up Real Good!

Want to blow up Spongianism? Easy. Use the ancient and mysterious art of logic.

(1) Freud: “God” & religion is a neurotic projection.

(2) Spong: God needs to be revisioned.
(3) Spong’s God is a neurotic projection of Spong.
(4) Why should we worship Spong/ Spong’s ‘God’ instead of the classical Christian God?
(5) Spong snarls.
(6) Apply, lather, rinse, repeat.

Of course, this will get you the usual free labels from the Spongites (’narrowminded’, ‘bigoted’, ‘biased’), but no real answer or response. They don’t have one: Spong offers a narrow critique of a caricature of Christianity as understood through 1950’s Freudianism. Thus implode the ’serious questions are now being asked’, and the ‘tolerance’ that must intolerantly attack and eradicate what it identifies as intolerance.

And In Conclusion

Simply put: much of ‘liberal religion’ is closeted, despairing uncertainty and/or disbelief in God & the Christianity founded upon serious faith. But what do we get in exchange for authentic Christian treasures? Sparkly illusions. Zilch.

Prophet to the semi-godless, Spong stares in a mirror, and nothing stares back.