In theological college in the late 1990s, you could have divided the student body into three groupings: those of us who looked to Rowan Williams, those who looked to John Stott, and those (a minority) who looked to Bishop John Shelby Spong. For those of who did not look to Spong, his writings and pronouncements exercised a not insignificant influence, for we often defined ourselves against his views. His recent death, therefore, brought to my mind the debates of theological college in those years, the times since then when I have invoked his name to represent a stream of theology with which I deeply disagree, and the passage of the years. The thoughts below are not intended in any way to represent a meaningful assessment of the works and thought of Bishop Spong. They are, rather, a means of assisting me to organise my thoughts on how a Bishop and theologian with whom I profoundly disagreed, particularly on Creedal matters, helped to shape my thinking. And, now in my early 50s, the...
Protestant Episcopalian - Burkean - clerk in holy orders