From:  (Nigel B. Mitchell)
Newsgroups: aus.religion,aus.religion.christian,nz.soc.religion
Subject: Re: Spong issues challenges to biblical lore / Episcopal bishop seeking new way to talk about how people experience Jesus, God
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 02:22:46 GMT

On Fri, 26 Mar 1999 09:03:42 GMT,  (John
Fulton) wrote:

>Spong is one of the few Christians that I have met that actually talks
>good sense.  I cannot say that I agree with all of it, but I do agree
>with most of it.

Hi, John.

I have much the same opinion. A lot of what Bishop Spong writes
is fairly well known amongst biblical scholars. In order to get
things into a popular format for his books and public lectures,
he sometimes tends oversimplify both his own point of view and
the more conservative/fundamentalist viewpoint he opposes. His
books certainly would not qualify as academic theology, but they
do a very good job of packaging some of the insights and ongoing
debates of academic theology for a popular audience.


>The real point is that he is not looking for certainty.  He is not
>treating the Holy Bible as a scientific and Historic text book that by
>definition cannot be wrong.  He treats it as a book written for the
>Church to describe peoples experience of God.  Those people of course
>are human like the rest of us, and although divinely inspired can make
>errors like the rest of us. 

A good summary of what Spong does, and what we all should do in
regard to the bible.

cheers


N+

Nigel B. Mitchell