Spong Addresses Future Role of Scripture
Episcopal News Service. February 2, 1989 [89024E]
NEW YORK (DPS, Feb. 2) -- In his address to the 115th Convention of the Diocese of Newark (January 27-28), Diocesan Bishop John Shelby Spong called for a commission to conduct a major study aimed at reassessing the role of Scripture in the life of the Church, and its authority for a Church and a world entering the twenty-first century.
Spong indicated to convention delegates and visitors that he is tired of the Bible being thought of as the private possession of fundamentalists, in general, and television evangelists, in particular. He expressed the belief that the mainline churches ought to rescue the Bible from "the Falwells and Moral Majorities of the world."
Spong also addressed the issues of weakening ecumenical ties between Episcopalians and Roman Catholics and their cause, and the need for the Churches to lead society in an ecological crusade.