What's Not Wrong With Spong?

Refuting Dominic Statham or Medievals vs. Newtonians · What's Not Wrong With Spong? · Spong and Sarfati - Where Both are Wrong

Back in the days of C. S. Lewis, there was a "bishop Robertson" who had written a book called Honest to God. C. S. Lewis mentioned preferring being honest over being "honest to God". He made some comments on common people finding Robertson more consistent and therefore more honest if he ditched his living as an Anglican bishop.

He mentioned, an uneducated man might react to the propositions of Robertson in two ways: he might agree with them and consequently stop calling himself a Christian and start calling himself an Atheist and stop paying Robertson for the paraphernalia of something he neither of them believed in - or he might disagree and become a Catholic.

Obviously, Catholic clergy back then was not Robertson, was not Spong and was not the Spong-Robertson in "Catholic" very slight disguise whom some call "Pope Francis".

When I met with modernist positions while a Lutheran, I had the impression of dealing with Roberton - we could now say, dealing with Spong. They were not attacking all of the "five fundamentals" so I was a bit overdoing it, they were not "Honest to God" but on some level still Christian and honest in the normal sense of the word. However, I was, since before getting to Lutherans, used to including inerrancy in Genesis (perhaps some gap theory added, "inspired" by Silmarillion and Conan the Barbarian, more the former, as to what I imagined human history could have been like before that gap) in the Biblical inerrancy. I also did and still do take the words of Christ about the Eucharist literally, and in fact, some Lutherans I had contact with back then (I was part of a youth group, which is part of why I didn't get part of a youth group when converting to Catholic), were ignoring this position and presuming I had a moderately "symbolic" (i. e. not as in having symbolicism, but as in lacking literality) perception of the Eucharist, and taking the Roman Catholic position on it (which I as said shared, as far as Real Presence is concerned) as a parallel over simple literal understanding of the Bible. So, I became a Catholic.

I am not accusing each and every Lutheran clergyman I met back then of being Spong or Robertson, but some of the ones I had managed to avoid were. I was aware women "priests" - on whom my position was set through C. S. Lewis' "Priestesses in the Church" - were usually more "Robertson" than some of the male clergy I had to do with.

I definitely based Reverend Jinx (actually Reverend Jenkins, but usually called Reverend Jinx) on the type. If you like fan fiction, I did one on Susan Pevensie after the train crash.* She was told and driven to Sevenoaks by none other than Reverend Jinx - a kind of mentor to her, since I suppose someone who has been to Narnia and comes to deny it would prefer a company that is similarily two minded (I will not prefer "schizophrenic" even if popular wisdom might apply the word, since I disagree with that kind of diagnoses) about ... well, the doctrine he is making his living of, one which therefore should be as integral to his life, as having been to Narnia is to hers.

John Shelby Spong
decided to be wrong.
As he was very good at it,
believe his words, I wouldn't it.

Referring, obviously, to his words on Christian doctrine, I'm not saying he would lie about what he got for Christmas dinner.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Pompidolian Library
Boxing Day
26.XII.2019

PS, I might link to CMI's work on Spong another day, or another hour today, when in form for dealing with their one mistake (in responding to his mention of Joshua)./HGL

PPS, forgot to mention, I decided to convert the day I heard the "chaplain" announce he would be replaced by a "priestess in the Church"./HGL

PPPS, that is (as I just forgot to mention) why I would think a coffee appropriate before taking on Spong and Bott and Sarfati on Joshua's Long Day./HGL

* Here is the link to the chapter conspectus, the ones that are here do not form one continuous narrative as more chapters are planned to be inserted, including chapters I haven't even planned yet:

EN LENGUA ROMANCE EN ANTIMODERNISM Y DE MIS CAMINACIONES : Chronicle of Susan Pevensie
http://enfrancaissurantimodernism.blogspot.com/2011/12/chronicle-of-susan-pevensie.html

As you can see, Revd. Jinx is introduced in chapter 2 as the list now is.