From a netfriend:

Having read both Rowan Williams and Robert Maddox’s response to Spong’s theses I thought I might make a few short comments.

It seems to me that both these people have tried to intellectualise the debate in such a way that the real arguments get lost in the intellectual jargon.

Rowan has clearly either not read Spong’s books or chose to ignore what he has said in them. It seems to me that both of them are really doing the old trick of shooting the messenger which of course you normally do if you can’t refute their arguments.

Robert certainly spent most his paper extolling the greatness of Luther and trying to establish that Spong is no Luther. Considering there is now 500 years of myth surrounding Luther it will be interesting to see if a similar myth surrounds Spong in 500 years time. Me thinks it is a very difficult comparison to make at this time.

Both Rowan and Robert avoided the reality that Spong is seeking theological reform, something that they seem to be denying the need for. Rowan has spent what seems to be a large part of his paper trying to convince us that that you can intellectualise away the very real theological problems that Jack Spong tries to confront rationally and using all the tools of modern biblical scholarship and scientific research available to him.