This is tolerance... this is open-mindedness...

This is hard core liberalism from the man who was once the Bishop of the Diocese of Newark in the Episcopal Church USA:

A Manifesto! The Time Has Come!

I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is "an abomination to God," about how homosexuality is a "chosen lifestyle," or about how through prayer and "spiritual counseling" homosexual persons can be "cured." Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy. I will no longer dignify by listening to the thoughts of those who advocate "reparative therapy," as if homosexual persons are somehow broken and need to be repaired. I will no longer talk to those who believe that the unity of the church can or should be achieved by rejecting the presence of, or at least at the expense of, gay and lesbian people. I will no longer take the time to refute the unlearned and undocumentable claims of certain world religious leaders who call homosexuality "deviant." I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that "we love the sinner but hate the sin." That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement. I will no longer temper my understanding of truth in order to pretend that I have even a tiny smidgen of respect for the appalling negativity that continues to emanate from religious circles where the church has for centuries conveniently perfumed its ongoing prejudices against blacks, Jews, women and homosexual persons with what it assumes is "high-sounding, pious rhetoric." The day for that mentality has quite simply come to an end for me. I will personally neither tolerate it nor listen to it any longer. The world has moved on, leaving these elements of the Christian Church that cannot adjust to new knowledge or a new consciousness lost in a sea of their own irrelevance. They no longer talk to anyone but themselves. I will no longer seek to slow down the witness to inclusiveness by pretending that there is some middle ground between prejudice and oppression. There isn't. Justice postponed is justice denied. That can be a resting place no longer for anyone. An old civil rights song proclaimed that the only choice awaiting those who cannot adjust to a new understanding was to "Roll on over or we'll roll on over you!" Time waits for no one.

 

I will particularly ignore those members of my own Episcopal Church who seek to break away from this body to form a "new church," claiming that this new and bigoted instrument alone now represents the Anglican Communion. Such a new ecclesiastical body is designed to allow these pathetic human beings, who are so deeply locked into a world that no longer exists, to form a community in which they can continue to hate gay people, distort gay people with their hopeless rhetoric and to be part of a religious fellowship in which they can continue to feel justified in their homophobic prejudices for the rest of their tortured lives. Church unity can never be a virtue that is preserved by allowing injustice, oppression and psychological tyranny to go unchallenged.

 

In my personal life, I will no longer listen to televised debates conducted by "fair-minded" channels that seek to give "both sides" of this issue "equal time." I am aware that these stations no longer give equal time to the advocates of treating women as if they are the property of men or to the advocates of reinstating either segregation or slavery, despite the fact that when these evil institutions were coming to an end the Bible was still being quoted frequently on each of these subjects. It is time for the media to announce that there are no longer two sides to the issue of full humanity for gay and lesbian people. There is no way that justice for homosexual people can be compromised any longer.

I will no longer act as if the Papal office is to be respected if the present occupant of that office is either not willing or not able to inform and educate himself on public issues on which he dares to speak with embarrassing ineptitude. I will no longer be respectful of the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to believe that rude behavior, intolerance and even killing prejudice is somehow acceptable, so long as it comes from third-world religious leaders, who more than anything else reveal in themselves the price that colonial oppression has required of the minds and hearts of so many of our world's population. I see no way that ignorance and truth can be placed side by side, nor do I believe that evil is somehow less evil if the Bible is quoted to justify it. I will dismiss as unworthy of any more of my attention the wild, false and uninformed opinions of such would-be religious leaders as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Albert Mohler, and Robert Duncan. My country and my church have both already spent too much time, energy and money trying to accommodate these backward points of view when they are no longer even tolerable.

 

I make these statements because it is time to move on. The battle is over. The victory has been won. There is no reasonable doubt as to what the final outcome of this struggle will be. Homosexual people will be accepted as equal, full human beings, who have a legitimate claim on every right that both church and society have to offer any of us. Homosexual marriages will become legal, recognized by the state and pronounced holy by the church. "Don't ask, don't tell" will be dismantled as the policy of our armed forces. We will and we must learn that equality of citizenship is not something that should ever be submitted to a referendum. Equality under and before the law is a solemn promise conveyed to all our citizens in the Constitution itself. Can any of us imagine having a public referendum on whether slavery should continue, whether segregation should be dismantled, whether voting privileges should be offered to women? The time has come for politicians to stop hiding behind unjust laws that they themselves helped to enact, and to abandon that convenient shield of demanding a vote on the rights of full citizenship because they do not understand the difference between a constitutional democracy, which this nation has, and a "mobocracy," which this nation rejected when it adopted its constitution. We do not put the civil rights of a minority to the vote of a plebiscite.

 

I will also no longer act as if I need a majority vote of some ecclesiastical body in order to bless, ordain, recognize and celebrate the lives and gifts of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church. No one should ever again be forced to submit the privilege of citizenship in this nation or membership in the Christian Church to the will of a majority vote.

 

The battle in both our culture and our church to rid our souls of this dying prejudice is finished. A new consciousness has arisen. A decision has quite clearly been made. Inequality for gay and lesbian people is no longer a debatable issue in either church or state. Therefore, I will from this moment on refuse to dignify the continued public expression of ignorant prejudice by engaging it. I do not tolerate racism or sexism any longer. From this moment on, I will no longer tolerate our culture's various forms of homophobia. I do not care who it is who articulates these attitudes or who tries to make them sound holy with religious jargon.

 

I have been part of this debate for years, but things do get settled and this issue is now settled for me. I do not debate any longer with members of the "Flat Earth Society" either. I do not debate with people who think we should treat epilepsy by casting demons out of the epileptic person; I do not waste time engaging those medical opinions that suggest that bleeding the patient might release the infection. I do not converse with people who think that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans as punishment for the sin of being the birthplace of Ellen DeGeneres or that the terrorists hit the United Sates on 9/11 because we tolerated homosexual people, abortions, feminism or the American Civil Liberties Union. I am tired of being embarrassed by so much of my church's participation in causes that are quite unworthy of the Christ I serve or the God whose mystery and wonder I appreciate more each day. Indeed I feel the Christian Church should not only apologize, but do public penance for the way we have treated people of color, women, adherents of other religions and those we designated heretics, as well as gay and lesbian people.

 

Life moves on. As the poet James Russell Lowell once put it more than a century ago: "New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth." I am ready now to claim the victory. I will from now on assume it and live into it. I am unwilling to argue about it or to discuss it as if there are two equally valid, competing positions any longer. The day for that mentality has simply gone forever.

This is my manifesto and my creed. I proclaim it today. I invite others to join me in this public declaration. I believe that such a public outpouring will help cleanse both the church and this nation of its own distorting past. It will restore integrity and honor to both church and state. It will signal that a new day has dawned and we are ready not just to embrace it, but also to rejoice in it and to celebrate it.

 

– John Shelby Spong

Imagine the Pope coming out with the flip side of this pronouncement... how do you think it'd be received?  Do you think it would be criticized?  How would the press treat the Pope?  And yet this bromide will barely get any notice from our leftist media unless it's to agree with most if not all of it and to treat Spong as some sort of hero.

There's a lesson here for all who honestly think that leftists desire dialog.  A huge one. 

H/T to Wheat & Weeds.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Comments

[Morgan K Freeberg]

I see something besides the intolerance. I see the delusion that comes with thinking the stuff the author is saying, is to be received by whatever audience it reaches, with some measure of surprise. But here on Planet Earth -- the idea that a liberal isn't going to be receptive to a dissenting idea?

If the Good Lord invented the yawn for just one thing, this might be that thing.

It definitely gets an eyeball roll outta my fine self.

[Shifty1]

Two things come immediately to mind....

First, I beleive this is what Peter is saying in the second chapter of his second epistle....

"just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies", and "They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity.."

Luckily, Peter also describes these "men" and details the special place set aside just for them...

"These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them"

Secondly....the first thought that popped into my head was...

"Well what do you expect from the same denomination that puts such an emphasis on prospective clergy being able to adequately describe their 'junk'?"

HeH!

[Shifty1]

Oh and Mr. Spong is a little confused about the type of government we have here in America.....

"demanding a vote on the rights of full citizenship because they do not understand the difference between a constitutional democracy, which this nation has"...

Sorry Spong-y...but what we've got here is a constitutional REPUBLIC...not a democracy...

But hey..compared to all that other crap he's spewing...this was ALMOST right...at least he remembered that we do HAVE a Constitution....

[Shifty1]

Oh..and another thing (Gotta love Pepsi Max at 0430...)

Isn't this JUST TYPICAL for a libtard? When their arguments (or ideas) are rejected..they just declare the debate over and refuse to participate any more.

Somebody must have his frilly bits in a bunch fearing that the coming liberal slaughterama will be the death knell for his hopes to mainstream the "gay agenda"...

[Locutisprime]

I wonder.....why do I have visions of this man.....standing in front of his bedroom mirror....reciting his diatribe. While stroking his rainbow flag and pretending that he has truly been blessed with some "new knowledge and new consciousness" as a true born again Christian.

We will never know, nor do we need to. But God is watching.

[Tim Chesterton]

Well, first of all, the Pope would definitely get a bigger press because he's the Pope. Spong, no matter how much he would like to be bigger than the Pope, is not.

Second, isn't this piece actually quite old? I recall it coming out a couple of years ago, unless I'm not much mistaken. And if I remember correctly, at least in the Anglican media it did get quite a bit of attention at the time.

Third, many of my liberal Anglican friends find Spong an embarrassment. It's quite possible (many do) to take a more liberal line on homosexuality while at the same time being in complete agreement with every item of the Nicene Creed and traditional Christian orthodoxy. But in my view Spong ceased to be a Christian a long time ago. His twelve theses (see here) are far more shocking to me than his diatribe about homosexuality, and many moderate and liberal Anglicans have roundly criticised them, including the current Archbishop of Canterbury.

[Matteo]

"I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone."

I'll bet God on Judgment Day will want to engage him on the topic. Hopefully Spong will make an exception concerning his "no-debate" rule on that occasion.

[Shifty1]

Hmmmm....out of curiosity, I popped on over to the link provided (some site called "Walking With Integrrity"?!?) and perused the comments....

WOW! If you want to see the narrow-minded, intolerance the left accuses US of, go ahead and read the "comments"....they are ALL in agreement with this barrel of shinola.....Lots of commenta along the lines of:

"Amen, Bishop Spong. Thank you for being so BRAVE and AUTHENTIC in your Christianity. May I give your merkin (google it beotches..heh) a cat-bath?"

Being a contrarian..I wanted to weigh in with at least ONE "Y'all are friggin nutso"...BUT....New comments have been disabled for a 9 day old post by the Administrator!!!! Wanna bet any "dissenters" were purged from the ranks before forever enshrining the "unanimity" of praise heaped upon the Bishop for-evah?

[Dymphna]

Spong is still alive?? My word.

[chuck aka xtnyoda]

Is he still a Bishop in the Episcopal church? If so, at his obvious request, they should do whatever they do to remove his title and remove his name from their roll of members.

Then they should enact a judgment worse that for him would be worse than death itself... they should from now on... ignore him.

[BroKen]

I think Morgan has the proper response. Spong is like baby declaring victory so he doesn't have to play any more.

Tim is right about the Pope (and Spong's desire to be one) and the depth of Spong's heresy being much more troubling than this "Manifesto of Hate." He reveals his hatred of those who disagree with him as he dismisses them as ignorant and backward.

Shifty1, I also waded through the comments and I did find a few dissenters. There is this: "He uses absolutism to try to decry those of us with legitimate concerns." and this: "By all means, speak your heart and your mind and your experience, but don't manipulate portions of the Holy Writ as a means of their justification." and this: "I am offended that this man (Spong) judges me and says that the love I proclaim (for gay people) is a 'lie'." BTW, thanks for the walk through perversion when I googled "merkin".

In the comments you will also find a self-described pagan who says he'd attend Spong's church. Why, of course! 'Cause Spong is a pagan himself.

[Bernie]

Spong is the King of the "Burger King Faiths out there. HAVE IT YOUR WAY.

[DaveK]

What really irritates me about this is how "brave" and "courageous" this guy tries to portray himself to be, as if there are trains with cattle cars waiting at the station to take those poor persecuted G/L/B/Ts off to death camps to be turned into soap. Please. Save your shuck for the Fuller Brush route, Spong. It isn't anything new here.

[Shifty1]

BroKen...glad to be of service.... ;) I would have stopped at the wikkipedia definition and refused to wade any deeper....

[BroKen]

I did. It was enough!

[Stephen J.]

In all fairness, I understand the desire to say, "I'm not going to argue about this any more," out of exasperation and exhaustion and recognition that no minds are going to be changed on either side of the debate.

Spong reminds me of nothing so much as the parodied clergyman in Lewis' THE GREAT DIVORCE:

"When the doctrine of the Resurrection ceased to commend itself to the critical faculties which God had given me, I preached my famous sermon. I defied the hierarchy. I took every risk."

"What risk? What was at all likely to come of it except what actually came -- sales for your book, popularity, TV interviews, and finally a bishopric?"