Christianity QA

Question:

<snip. Nobody else has called for a heretic hunt either. Nobody has to hunt for heretics in the Episcopal Church; they flaunt it. When Spong is practically trying to throw out the idea of heresy altogether, it’s of no real importance that he doesn’t "call for a heresy hunt." And practically, it appears that is in fact conducting such a hunt in his own diocese. Newark is one of a handful of dioceses (all, interestingly, liberal) which have canons allowing the bishop, with the help of his executive committee, to unilaterally take control of a parish by reducing it to a mission. It would appear that this power is being used to quash dissent in his diocese by close parishes that make a point of objecting to his teachings and programs.

I am a bit confused. I had thought Bp. Spong was retired from the Newark diocese, but the above paragraph refers to his activities in the present tense. Am I wrong, or if he is retired, does Bp. Spong still have some powers to suppress conservative parishes in the diocese, or is the current bishop suppressing such parishes on his behalf?  - Steve Denney, still relatively new to the Episcopal church (2 years since confirmation)

Response:

Exactly what canon did Walter Righter violate? After James Stanton and his fellow  right-wing heretic hunters forced the church to spend millions to oust Righter for ordaining an openly gay deacon, the church court  held that no church law or canon had been broken.

Title IV, Canon 1.1, section c: CANON 1: Of Offenses for Which Bishops, Priests, or Deacons          May Be Presented and Tried, and Of Inhibitions    Sec. 1. A Bishop, Priest, or Deacon of this Church shall be            liable to Presentment and Trial for the following                  offenses, viz.:      c. Holding and teaching publicly or privately, and advisedly,         any doctrine contrary to that held by this Church. The contention was that the resolution of the 1979 GC was doctrinal. (And if you look at the form of the resolution, it does indeed seem to be trying to make a doctrinal statement.) The Righter court invented a distinction between "doctrine" and "core doctrine", assigned the 1979 resolution to the former, and then ruled that the canon only applied to the latter. This is judicial activism at its baldest; if such a distinction were to be made, it would be up to the GC to make it. But in essence the court declared that it is the doctrine of the Episcopal Church that declaration of one’s homosexuality is not an impediment to ordination. There was no dispute over the *canon*. The dispute was over the issue of doctrine. All of this is really rather irrelevant. The fact remains that, until the court overrode it, barring declared homosexuals was the will of the GC. Righter (because Spong was too chicken to do it) threw down a gauntlet at the church; it is unreasonable of you to expect nobody to answer the challenge.  The fact is no matter how often you and the other sanctimonious, heretic huntin’ bigots whine and stomp your feet to preserve discrimination based on sexual orientation, the only canon in the Episcopal church that mentions sexual orientation is this: All Bishops of Dioceses and other Clergy shall make provisions to identify fit persons for Holy Orders and encourage them to present themselves for Postulancy. No one shall be denied access to the selection process for ordination in this Church because of race, color, ethnic origin, sex, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation, disabilities, or age, except as otherwise specified by these Canons. No right to ordination is hereby established.

If you will read this more carefully, it does not say that a bishop cannot deny ordination to someone on the basis of their sexuality. The only canon that governs ordination proper is II.8.1, and it only mentions gender. You hate-drunk right-wingers still insist that a conference resolution is the same as a canon. even after the court told it was not.

Well, the rubrics of the BCP aren’t canons either, but according to the canons clergy may be disciplined for violating them. Of the ten offenses listed in IV.1.1, only three of them refer to either the constitutions or the canons, and doctrinal conformity *is* one of the remaining seven. What the court did was say basically, Well, we ten bishops can unilaterally decide what the doctrine of the church is. That’s crap, and it’s the road to schism. I only see one hate-drunk person here: you. I find Spong, Righter, and a lot of the other liberals distasteful because of their smug, casual contempt for their opponents, whom (it appears) they understand very little after years in the House of Bishops. But I don’t hate them. I am solely interesting in arresting the destruction they are wreaking on the church. It’s not that I disagree with them. It’s that their tactic is to break the rules and then have them legitimized after the fact. That’s what happened with Righter, and it’s what happened with Paul Moore. Of course the conservatives are angry, and your wrath at their attempting to use to disciplinary activities of the church as they were meant to be used is utterly unwarranted. The liberals were graceless in defeat at Lambeth, and you are equally graceless in victory here. Scratch a homophobe find a misogynist. So, you oppose the ordination of women too.

You are an ingrate. I have stated, over and over again, that I find no reason *not* to ordain women. It’s not the issue, it’s the process. The Philadelphia ordinations were illegal. Period. And those of use who remember all the way back to 1976 remember the inconvenient detail that ordination of women passed by one vote. One vote. What has happened since has been the witch hunt that you claim the conservatives have been persuing has in fact been the essential character of how the liberals have pursued the issue of women’s ordination. They have systematically tried to hound the resisters out of the church, to the point of enacting Canon III.8.1. Another inconvenient fact: numerous women priests spoke out against this canon at the last GC. It is bad law, and it betrays anglican theological tolerance. I call attention to the fact that not one of the right-winger heretic hunters who rejects in practice the canon on the ordination of women has been placed on trial for heresy.

In practice, they have obeyed the canon. It does not require them to ordain women; it only requires that they must make provisions for ordination of women who enter the process. And they have all made arrangements with other dioceses to handle this contingency. They have been law-abiding, in contrast to their liberal counterparts. Spong has never called for a heretic hunt.

Nobody else has called for a heretic hunt either. Nobody has to hunt for heretics in the Episcopal Church; they flaunt it. When Spong is practically trying to throw out the idea of heresy altogether, it’s of no real importance that he doesn’t "call for a heresy hunt." And practically, it appears that is in fact conducting such a hunt in his own diocese. Newark is one of a handful of dioceses (all, interestingly, liberal) which have canons allowing the bishop, with the help of his executive committee, to unilaterally take control of a parish by reducing it to a mission. It would appear that this power is being used to quash dissent in his diocese by close parishes that make a point of objecting to his teachings and programs. C. Wingate

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – <snip. Nobody else has called for a heretic hunt either. Nobody has to hunt for heretics in the Episcopal Church; they flaunt it. When Spong is practically trying to throw out the idea of heresy altogether, it’s of no real importance that he doesn’t "call for a heresy hunt." And practically, it appears that is in fact conducting such a hunt in his own diocese. Newark is one of a handful of dioceses (all, interestingly, liberal) which have canons allowing the bishop, with the help of his executive committee, to unilaterally take control of a parish by reducing it to a mission. It would appear that this power is being used to quash dissent in his diocese by close parishes that make a point of objecting to his teachings and programs. I am a bit confused. I had thought Bp. Spong was retired from the Newark diocese, but the above paragraph refers to his activities in the present tense. Am I wrong, or if he is retired, does Bp. Spong still have some powers to suppress conservative parishes in the diocese, or is the current bishop suppressing such parishes on his behalf?  - Steve Denney, still relatively new to the Episcopal church (2 years since confirmation)

His retirement takes effect next spring I believe. God’s peace, bill+

Response:

But the "Queen" slur is okay?

I believe he prefers a different spelling. It is also a fact that he styled himself "Qween Lutibelle" back in the days when he was active in usenet news, so I don’t know that he considers it but a badge of honor. C. Wingate

Response:

Wow, what a mess . . . and you wonder why Episcopalians are leaving the church.  All one needs t do is read this mess.  I will tell you one thing, Bishop Keith Ackerman is one of the most loving, kind human beings on the face of God’s earth  (I don’t know about yours).  In addition to that he is a true shepherd of his sheep, not one who "proudly" and full of vanity carries his staff. It was okay to support those who argued that there is scriptural basis for the ordination of women; but when it comes to those who have equal basis in Scripture to deny the ordination of women, the worm turns.  Unless you deny the validity of Scripture, and many today do, The Righter thing was all about God’s law, not the church’s canons – at least in my unintellectual mind.  All you have to do is read all of this and it is pretty easy to see exactly who is the purveyor of hate.    Resorting to name-calling is beneath the dignity of anyone who purports to be having a "Christian" discussion or argument.  As for me, I hope to remain having a child-like faith in God and His scriptures.  (Yes, I really do believe they are His word – and that there is grave danger in adding or detracting from them  - oh, I know, how naive!)  Yes, I want to be as a little child.  It is not the likes of Bishop Ackerman that bring scandal to this church and cause mass exits. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Some conservatives are not stupid, after all, and some conservatives are capable of charity even toweards those whose behavior they disapprove of. Would you care to start with evidence drawn from conservative Bishop James Stanton’s witchhunt attacking Walter Righter for ordaining a gay deacon? In this instance it hardly required any "hunting" to find the "witch". It was, rather, a case of the Diocese of Newark throwing down the gauntlet on the issue. Even Louie Crew admits that the ruling of the Righter court represented, at best, a change in the doctrine of the church on this matter– in other words, that if this ordination were acceptable, it was so ex post facto. Suppose Bp. Ackerman were to refuse to honor the newly inacted canon on ordination of women. Do you seriously expect the liberals to let him get away with it? I wouldn’t. Changing the rules by breaking them is the liberal maneuver, and it is not a "witch hunt" to object when someone breaks a rule and dares you to do something about it. Exactly what canon did Walter Righter violate? After James Stanton and his fellow  right-wing heretic hunters forced the church to spend millions to oust Righter for ordaining an openly gay deacon, the church court  held that no church law or canon had been broken. The resolution Santon used as the foundation of his accusation is not church canon. It was merely a resolution. Try to keep that difference in mind. According to the court, no canon was violated. The court dismissed the charges. The fact is no matter how often you and the other sanctimonious, heretic huntin’ bigots whine and stomp your feet to preserve  discrimination based on sexual orienation,  the only canon in the Episcopal church that mentions sexual orintation is this: Canon on Lesbigays in ECUSA Holy Orders All Bishops of Dioceses and other Clergy shall make provisions to identify fit persons for Holy Orders and encourage them to present themselves for Postulancy. No one shall be denied access to the selection process for ordination in this Church because of race, color, ethnic origin, sex, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation, disabilities, or age, except as otherwise specified by these Canons. No right to ordination is hereby established. –Title III, Canon 4, Section 1 of the Constitution and Canons for the Government of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, Otherwise Known As The Episcopal Church, Adopted in General Conventions 1789-1994, Together with rules of order, Revised by the Convention 1994 , p. 60 Or perhaps you would care to draw fron the example of Bishop Emmanuel Chukwuma of the Diocese of Enugu in Nigeria’s uninvited and unwelcomed public exorcism of The Rev. Richard Kirker, a gay priest, at the Lambeth Conference. No way am I going to defend this one. Hey, you’re right. I thought this was way out of line. But this is one bishop in a world of a billion Christians. No doubt you will not welcome any disturbance your delusions about the charity of heretic hunters, but there isn’t any. I fail to parse this, but this phrase "heretic hunters" is a blantant misrepresentation. Nobody has to hunt heretics here. Righter, Spong, Holloway– all rush out to boldly proclaim their heresy and to flout the canons and doctrines of hte church. They *dare* anyone to do anything They circulated a petition and organized the heresy trial. We have already been over this. But it seems worth repeating to counter yoru repeated fantasia on nonexistant church laws. What canon did Righter violate? The court said he didn’t violate one. You hate-drunk right-wingers still insist that a conference resoution is the same as a canon. even after the court told it was not.  The church court that  Stanton and Wantland convened dismissed the charges becasue they  found that no canon had been violated. You would do well to note their ruling before puking the same nonsense again. about it, and the bishops, pathetically, *don’t* do anything about it. If there’s any heresy-hunting going on here, it’s things like Canon III.8.1. THe raw fact is that liberal bishops have been playing "I’m right, so the rules don’t apply to me" for some twenty-five years, going right back to Philadelphia, which the traditionalists have knuckled under, at least to the letter, in the face of blantantly repressive acts like Canon III.8.1. Scratch a homophobe find a misogynist. So, you oppose the ordination of women too. The fact is, ordination of wonmen  is a matter of church law. Yet there are certain right-wing bishops and their congregations who refuse to honor the presence of women as priests and bishops to this day.  Amazing how the violation of that canon seems to be acceptable to the right-wingers who put Walter Righter on trial for heresy. I call attention to the fact that not one of the right-winger heretic hunters who rejects in practice the canon on the ordination of women has been placed on trial for heresy. I am amused by your characterization of the canon ending discrimination against women as repressive. I haven’t heard so much nonsense since George Wallace stood in the school doorway compaing that the civil rights of white people were being trampled by desegregation orders. Surely there are people of almost all persuasions in this who are (perhaps surprisingly) capable of charity. But Spong’s attacks on his opponents hardly exemplify this. Spong has never called for a heretic hunt. While in your imagination you believe he might do so, the fact remains the only folks who have actually attempted to place someone on trial for heresey are Bishops Stanton and Wantland et all,  the Right-wing Revs. of Dallas and Eau Claire and their bigoted buddies. They, not John Shelby Spong,  petitioned to bring  someone to rial for heresy over offenses that they only imagined were included in actual canon. Please keep to the facts if you can. Repeat the following several times a day until you understand the differnce between fact and fantasy.  "Right-wing heretic hunters Stanton and Wantland actually   placed Walter Righter on trial for hersey. Bishop Spong   has never done anything like that." C. Wingate

Response:

Hey, Louie and I have a certain amount of "Old School Tie", so I can’t hammer him too much… C. Wingate

Response:

M: But the "Queen" slur is okay? — Remove XXX to contact – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hey, Louie and I have a certain amount of "Old School Tie", so I can’t hammer him too much… C. Wingate

Response:

anyone want to defend the Queen? keeper of the liberal faith? http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/luti_faq.html Some conservatives are not stupid, after all, and some conservatives are capable of charity even toweards those whose behavior they disapprove of. Would you care to start with evidence drawn from conservative Bishop James Stanton’s witchhunt attacking Walter Righter for ordaining a gay deacon?

In this instance it hardly required any "hunting" to find the "witch". It was, rather, a case of the Diocese of Newark throwing down the gauntlet on the issue. Even Louie Crew admits that the ruling of the Righter court represented, at best, a change in the doctrine of the church on this matter– in other words, that if this ordination were acceptable, it was so ex post facto. Suppose Bp. Ackerman were to refuse to honor the newly inacted canon on ordination of women. Do you seriously expect the liberals to let him get away with it? I wouldn’t. Changing the rules by breaking them is the liberal maneuver, and it is not a "witch hunt" to object when someone breaks a rule and dares you to do something about it. Or perhaps you would care to draw fron the example of Bishop Emmanuel Chukwuma of the Diocese of Enugu in Nigeria’s uninvited and unwelcomed public exorcism of The Rev. Richard Kirker, a gay priest, at the Lambeth Conference.

No way am I going to defend this one. Hey, you’re right. I thought this was way out of line. But this is one bishop in a world of a billion Christians. No doubt you will not welcome any disturbance your delusions about the charity of heretic hunters, but there isn’t any.

I fail to parse this, but this phrase "heretic hunters" is a blantant misrepresentation. Nobody has to hunt heretics here. Righter, Spong, Holloway– all rush out to boldly proclaim their heresy and to flout the canons and doctrines of hte church. They *dare* anyone to do anything about it, and the bishops, pathetically, *don’t* do anything about it. If there’s any heresy-hunting going on here, it’s things like Canon III.8.1. THe raw fact is that liberal bishops have been playing "I’m right, so the rules don’t apply to me" for some twenty-five years, going right back to Philadelphia, which the traditionalists have knuckled under, at least to the letter, in the face of blantantly repressive acts like Canon III.8.1. Surely there are people of almost all persuasions in this who are (perhaps surprisingly) capable of charity. But Spong’s attacks on his opponents hardly exemplify this. C. Wingate

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Some conservatives are not stupid, after all, and some conservatives are capable of charity even toweards those whose behavior they disapprove of. Would you care to start with evidence drawn from conservative Bishop James Stanton’s witchhunt attacking Walter Righter for ordaining a gay deacon? In this instance it hardly required any "hunting" to find the "witch". It was, rather, a case of the Diocese of Newark throwing down the gauntlet on the issue. Even Louie Crew admits that the ruling of the Righter court represented, at best, a change in the doctrine of the church on this matter– in other words, that if this ordination were acceptable, it was so ex post facto. Suppose Bp. Ackerman were to refuse to honor the newly inacted canon on ordination of women. Do you seriously expect the liberals to let him get away with it? I wouldn’t. Changing the rules by breaking them is the liberal maneuver, and it is not a "witch hunt" to object when someone breaks a rule and dares you to do something about it.

Exactly what canon did Walter Righter violate? After James Stanton and his fellow  right-wing heretic hunters forced the church to spend millions to oust Righter for ordaining an openly gay deacon, the church court  held that no church law or canon had been broken. The resolution Santon used as the foundation of his accusation is not church canon. It was merely a resolution.   Try to keep that difference in mind.   According to the court, no canon was violated. The court dismissed the charges.  The fact is no matter how often you and the other sanctimonious, heretic huntin’ bigots whine and stomp your feet to preserve  discrimination based on sexual orienation,  the only canon in the Episcopal church that mentions sexual orintation is this:  Canon on Lesbigays in ECUSA Holy Orders  All Bishops of Dioceses and other Clergy shall make provisions  to identify fit persons for Holy Orders and encourage them to  present themselves for Postulancy. No one shall be denied access  to the selection process for ordination in this Church because of  race, color, ethnic origin, sex, national origin, marital status,  sexual orientation, disabilities, or age, except as otherwise  specified by these Canons. No right to ordination is hereby  established.  –Title III, Canon 4, Section 1 of the Constitution and Canons  for the Government of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the  United States of America, Otherwise Known As The Episcopal Church,  Adopted in General Conventions 1789-1994, Together with rules of  order, Revised by the Convention 1994 , p. 60 – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Or perhaps you would care to draw fron the example of Bishop Emmanuel Chukwuma of the Diocese of Enugu in Nigeria’s uninvited and unwelcomed public exorcism of The Rev. Richard Kirker, a gay priest, at the Lambeth Conference. No way am I going to defend this one. Hey, you’re right. I thought this was way out of line. But this is one bishop in a world of a billion Christians. No doubt you will not welcome any disturbance your delusions about the charity of heretic hunters, but there isn’t any. I fail to parse this, but this phrase "heretic hunters" is a blantant misrepresentation. Nobody has to hunt heretics here. Righter, Spong, Holloway– all rush out to boldly proclaim their heresy and to flout the canons and doctrines of hte church. They *dare* anyone to do anything

They circulated a petition and organized the heresy trial. We have already been over this. But it seems worth repeating to counter yoru repeated fantasia on nonexistant church laws. What canon did Righter violate? The court said he didn’t violate one. You hate-drunk right-wingers still insist that a conference resoution is the same as a canon. even after the court told it was not.  The church court that  Stanton and Wantland convened dismissed the  charges becasue they  found that no canon had been violated. You would do well to note their ruling before puking the same nonsense again.   about it, and the bishops, pathetically, *don’t* do anything about it. If there’s any heresy-hunting going on here, it’s things like Canon III.8.1. THe raw fact is that liberal bishops have been playing "I’m right, so the rules don’t apply to me" for some twenty-five years, going right back to Philadelphia, which the traditionalists have knuckled under, at least to the letter, in the face of blantantly repressive acts like Canon III.8.1.

Scratch a homophobe find a misogynist. So, you oppose the ordination of women too. The fact is, ordination of wonmen  is a matter of church law. Yet there are certain right-wing bishops and their congregations who refuse to honor the presence of women as priests and bishops to this day.  Amazing how the   violation of that canon seems to be acceptable to the right-wingers who put Walter Righter on trial for heresy. I call attention to the fact that not one of the right-winger heretic hunters who rejects in practice the canon on the ordination of women has been placed on trial for heresy. I am amused by your characterization of the canon ending discrimination against women as repressive. I haven’t heard so much nonsense since George Wallace stood in the school doorway compaing that the civil rights of white people were being trampled by desegregation orders. Surely there are people of almost all persuasions in this who are (perhaps surprisingly) capable of charity. But Spong’s attacks on his opponents hardly exemplify this.

Spong has never called for a heretic hunt. While in your imagination you believe he might do so, the fact remains the only folks who have actually attempted to place someone on trial for heresey are Bishops Stanton and Wantland et all,  the Right-wing Revs. of Dallas and Eau Claire and their bigoted buddies. They, not John Shelby Spong,  petitioned to bring  someone to rial for heresy over offenses that they only imagined were included in actual canon.   Please keep to the facts if you can. Repeat the following several times a day until you understand the differnce between fact and fantasy.     "Right-wing heretic hunters Stanton and Wantland actually    placed Walter Righter on trial for hersey. Bishop Spong    has never done anything like that." – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -C. Wingate

Response:

Some conservatives are not stupid, after all, and some conservatives are capable of charity even toweards those whose behavior they disapprove of. Would you care to start with evidence drawn from conservative Bishop James Stanton’s witchhunt attacking Walter Righter for ordaining a gay deacon?

In this instance it hardly required any "hunting" to find the "witch". It was, rather, a case of the Diocese of Newark throwing down the gauntlet on the issue. Even Louie Crew admits that the ruling of the Righter court represented, at best, a change in the doctrine of the church on this matter– in other words, that if this ordination were acceptable, it was so ex post facto. Suppose Bp. Ackerman were to refuse to honor the newly inacted canon on ordination of women. Do you seriously expect the liberals to let him get away with it? I wouldn’t. Changing the rules by breaking them is the liberal maneuver, and it is not a "witch hunt" to object when someone breaks a rule and dares you to do something about it. Or perhaps you would care to draw fron the example of Bishop Emmanuel Chukwuma of the Diocese of Enugu in Nigeria’s uninvited and unwelcomed public exorcism of The Rev. Richard Kirker, a gay priest, at the Lambeth Conference.

No way am I going to defend this one. Hey, you’re right. I thought this was way out of line. But this is one bishop in a world of a billion Christians. No doubt you will not welcome any disturbance your delusions about the charity of heretic hunters, but there isn’t any.

I fail to parse this, but this phrase "heretic hunters" is a blantant misrepresentation. Nobody has to hunt heretics here. Righter, Spong, Holloway– all rush out to boldly proclaim their heresy and to flout the canons and doctrines of hte church. They *dare* anyone to do anything about it, and the bishops, pathetically, *don’t* do anything about it. If there’s any heresy-hunting going on here, it’s things like Canon III.8.1. THe raw fact is that liberal bishops have been playing "I’m right, so the rules don’t apply to me" for some twenty-five years, going right back to Philadelphia, which the traditionalists have knuckled under, at least to the letter, in the face of blantantly repressive acts like Canon III.8.1. Surely there are people of almost all persuasions in this who are (perhaps surprisingly) capable of charity. But Spong’s attacks on his opponents hardly exemplify this. C. Wingate

Response:

I would subscribe to this theory more if Spong spent less time ridiculing those of orthodox beliefs. I this wise, one could start with the dreaded "ascending at the speed of light" passage and work from there. Some conservatives are not stupid, after all, and some conservatives are capable of charity even toweards those whose behavior they disapprove of. C. Wingate

Response:

I would subscribe to this theory more if Spong spent less time ridiculing those of orthodox beliefs. I this wise, one could start with the dreaded "ascending at the speed of light" passage and work from there. Some conservatives are not stupid, after all, and some conservatives are capable of charity even toweards those whose behavior they disapprove of. C. Wingate

I am witholding judgment until I see some evidence of this. Would you care to start with evidence drawn from conservative Bishop James Stanton’s witchhunt attacking Walter Righter for ordaining a gay deacon ? Or perhaps you would care to draw fron the example of Bishop Emmanuel Chukwuma of the Diocese of Enugu in Nigeria’s  uninvited and unwelcomed public exorcism of The Rev. Richard Kirker, a gay priest, at the Lambeth Conference. No doubt you will not welcome any disturbance of your delusions about the charity of conservative hetretic hunters, but there isn’t any.

Response:

I would subscribe to this theory more if Spong spent less time ridiculing those of orthodox beliefs. I this wise, one could start with the dreaded "ascending at the speed of light" passage and work from there. Some conservatives are not stupid, after all, and some conservatives are capable of charity even toweards those whose behavior they disapprove of. C. Wingate

I am witholding judgment until I see some evidence of this. Would you care to start with evidence drawn from conservative Bishop James Stanton’s witchhunt attacking Walter Righter for ordaining a gay deacon ? Or perhaps you would care to draw fron the example of Bishop Emmanuel Chukwuma of the Diocese of Enugu in Nigeria’s  uninvited and unwelcomed public exorcism of The Rev. Richard Kirker, a gay priest, at the Lambeth Conference. No doubt you will not welcome any disturbance of your delusions about the charity of conservative heretic hunters, but there isn’t any.

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Let’s be clear about something, something which posts about Bp. Spong seem to ignore. MR. Spong is a very compassionate person. His social gospel is entirely orthodox, frequently compelling, and a sincere effort to be Christ in all situations. This is MR. Spong, the humanist. BP. Spong is a very contentious man, inducing the Church to a quarrelsome state about the most basic tenets of faith. This Spong is heterodox, apostate, and heretic. Isn’t this contradictory? Not at all. A person can subscribe to Christian orthopraxy without adopting Christian orthodoxy. In fact, as MR. Spong demonstrates, he can be more orthpractic than most Christians, but be motivated for reasons altogether absent of orthodox Christianity. We call these people humanists, and they are very much appreciated. But a bishop is called to teach right doctrine as well as right practice, and here BP. Spong fails miserably. Too bad. His voice in the Name of socialism is unparalleled, but his voice in the Name of Christ is very much compromised.

In what sense if Bishop Spong a "voice in the name of socialism?" This isn’t meant as a rhetorical question, but all I have seen so far other than his theological arguments is his support for gay rights. Socialist societies of the marxist variety are not generally known for their tolerance of people who are gay or in other ways differ from the ruling norm. Of course, I do not assume he is marxist, but there has been a tendency among some liberal clergy to overlook gross injustices and political repression in certain marxist societies of third world countries, such as Cuba, Vietnam or even China. I am not familiar with Bp. Spong’s political views. Perhaps I could find this information at the Newark diocese web site that Bill Jones recommended, or perhaps someone else in this group could fill us in on his support for socialism.  - Steve Denney

Response:

Let’s be clear about something, something which posts about Bp. Spong seem to ignore. MR. Spong is a very compassionate person. His social gospel is entirely orthodox, frequently compelling, and a sincere effort to be Christ in all situations. This is MR. Spong, the humanist. BP. Spong is a very contentious man, inducing the Church to a quarrelsome state about the most basic tenets of faith. This Spong is heterodox, apostate, and heretic. Isn’t this contradictory? Not at all. A person can subscribe to Christian orthopraxy without adopting Christian orthodoxy. In fact, as MR. Spong demonstrates, he can be more orthpractic than most Christians, but be motivated for reasons altogether absent of orthodox Christianity. We call these people humanists, and they are very much appreciated. But a bishop is called to teach right doctrine as well as right practice, and here BP. Spong fails miserably. Too bad. His voice in the Name of socialism is unparalleled, but his voice in the Name of Christ is very much compromised. Stephen Heersink San Francisco The Ecumenical Communion http://www.onelist.com/subscribe/ECUMENICAL-COMMUNION "In things necessary, unity; in things doubtful, liberty; in all things, charity."             –Saint Augugustine of Hippo

Response:

I agree with you. Let’s be clear about something, something which posts about Bp. Spong seem to ignore. MR. Spong is a very compassionate person. His social gospel is entirely orthodox, frequently compelling, and a sincere effort to be Christ in all situations. This is MR. Spong, the humanist.

That’s right. What is his social gospel?  (Rhetorical, as are all the subsequent questions). So far, everything I’ve heard or read by him is more of this "we need to make Christianity more relevant". He may think he’s well-intended, but he’s totally off base. Christianity is inately relevant, but it demands repentance and sacrifice of the old nature. And how does attacking the Church make him a compassionate person. It seems that he is compassionate to the faithless and anti-Christian (who also attack the church), at the expense of the Body of Christ itself (those of us who try to live obedient to God’s Word)? And how does attacking the authority of Holy Scripture make him compassionate. By undermining the cornerstone of Christian faith he is not compassionate, but anti-Christian. I agree that Mr. Spong has more in common with secular humanists than Christians. It may well be he IS a secular humanist. BP. Spong is a very contentious man, inducing the Church to a quarrelsome state about the most basic tenets of faith. This Spong is heterodox, apostate, and heretic. Isn’t this contradictory? Not at all. A person can subscribe to Christian orthopraxy without adopting Christian orthodoxy. In fact, as MR. Spong demonstrates, he can be more orthpractic than most Christians, but be motivated for reasons altogether absent of orthodox Christianity.

What is orthopraxy? We call these people humanists, and they are very much appreciated. But a bishop is called to teach right doctrine as well as right practice, and here BP. Spong fails miserably. Too bad. His voice in the Name of socialism is unparalleled, but his voice in the Name of Christ is very much compromised.

I agree 100%. Obedientia et Pax, Daniel Pflager

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