Spong is wrong

TROWEL & SWORD

Resources - Leadership

September 2001

SWORD DEFENDING

Spong is wrong

Bill Van Schie

“REFORM OR BE DAMNED” says Bishop John Shelby Spong.

Yes, bishop Spong is back in Australia and throughout the media he is promoting his new book, “Here I Stand”, using Martin Luther’s words. However, he is not calling people to stand on the Word of God alone as Luther did but to stand on a new-age-compatible reformation teaching.

Bishop Spong says; “Christianity must either reform radically or die.” In Melbourne’s The Age he is quoted as follows:

“The church needs to reform because it is an obvious fact that that Christianity is dying.”
“The Christian Church in every one of its manifestations is in serious decline.”
“On every major issue with which the church has identified itself in the past several centuries, the secular public has voted in another direction.”
“In the past 200 years the world of critical biblical scholarship has expanded exponentially and in the process has greatly eroded the traditional sources of Christian authority. No educated person today can still pretend that the Bible is the literal word of God.”
“It has become increasingly apparent to contemporary theologians that the Bible, read literally, reflects a world view that no longer exists in our century. Ours in not a world in which virgins conceive, angels sing to hillside shepherds, or stars wonder through the sky leading the Magi to the birth place of a saviour.”
“Darwin also destroyed forever the assumption that human life was created good only to fall into sin in an act of disobedience that in turn required a divine rescue that Jesus affected.”
“We must give up any attempt to translate religious symbols of yesterday into believable concepts.”
“Christianity is trapped in pre-modern images and it can’t get its message out.”
“There is a spiritual hunger in Australia that the established churches are failing to satisfy.”
“What the church needs today is a new Christian reformation!”

So far John Shelby Spong!

Spong is wrong to suggest that right across the church spectrum Christianity is dying. There are churches that are vital, thriving, growing and making a huge impact in our secular world. In some third world countries there is immense growth going on.

Spong is wrong to use only anecdotal evidence to support his arguments. In study of proper research and surveys done in Australia, America and England one has to conclude that some churches continue to grow and thrive while making and impact on their secular community while others are on the decline.

Spong is wrong to say that on every major issue the church has been out of step in dealing with change. Any objective student of history will find that on many occasions the church has been in the forefront of improved change.

Spong is wrong to say that modern educated man can not accept a spiritual reality as described in the Bible. Many educated intellectuals and scientists have done so, and still do so, today.

Spong is wrong to assert that Darwinism has forever destroyed the concept of the fall of man and the need for man for a saviour. In spite of Darwinism the evidence of the fall is all around us and many are still claiming Jesus as Saviour.

Spong’s new reformation is nothing more than a trumped up version of an old liberal heresy called the “demythologising” of the Scriptures which Bultmann proclaimed when he said that “God is dead” in the 1960’s. However Bultmann is now an unknown but God, who is still very much alive, still marches on and his Church continues and the gates of hell can not prevail against it.

It surprises me that John Shelby Spong is still a bishop in a “Christian Church”. How can a man be a minister of the Word and Sacraments and deny that very Word and the reality of those very sacraments and then go on and deny the very heart of Christianity, the teachings of the Apostles Creed, just to be more acceptable to secular society?

You know, Bishop Spong and his teaching should not surprise us really. In 2Tim 4:3-4 we read:

“For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”

And how should we respond to the Bishop Spongs of our time? As it says in 2Tim 4:2:

“Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction.”

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