{"id":624,"date":"2009-02-10T21:33:38","date_gmt":"2009-02-11T01:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com\/blog\/?p=624"},"modified":"2025-09-10T08:00:46","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T15:00:46","slug":"john-shelby-spong-and-emergents-recycled-heresy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com\/blog\/john-shelby-spong-and-emergents-recycled-heresy\/","title":{"rendered":"JOHN SHELBY SPONG AND EMERGENTS &#8211; RECYCLED HERESY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>by Sword of Truth <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Several years back a liberal theologian by the name of John Shelby Spong, an ordained Episcopalian Bishop, born in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the year 1933, who has been criticizing the Christian faith, or, shall we say, his version of it before McLaren had come to the fore. Yet, Brian McLaren parrots the viewpoints of Spong who has been proclaiming the &#8220;rethinking&#8221; of &#8220;Christianity&#8221; for the last three decades&#8230;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Spong&#8217;s ideas are a bubonic plague that was toxic in his heyday and remains so to those who follow after it in our day. So prolific was Spong&#8217;s ideas twenty years ago that he made appearances on: <em>Phil Donahue<\/em>, <em>The Tom Snyder Show<\/em>, <em>Oprah Winfrey<\/em>, <em>Good Morning America<\/em>, <em>The Today Show<\/em>, <em>Firing Line w\/William Buckley<\/em>, <em>Politically Incorrect w\/Bill Maher<\/em> (5 appearances) [Maher, of course, is a rabid atheist who holds Christianity as fable and Christians in disdain.], <em>The Factor w\/Bill O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly<\/em>, <em>Nightline<\/em>, <em>CNN<\/em>, and <em>The John Ankerberg Show<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rob Bell&#8217;s promotes the need to &#8220;rethink&#8221; Christianity and everything we &#8220;thought&#8221; we knew; however, Spong has been singing that same &#8216;ole tune since the 80s. In 1988, Spong authored a book <em>A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality <\/em>in which he justifies homosexuality, fornication and rabidly promotes promiscuity between homosexuals and heterosexuals encouraging both to pursue their basest passions with abandon&#8230;. Like Rick Warren, Spong calls for a &#8220;new reformation.&#8221; (link to source removed by Sword of Truth)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Sword of Truth Several&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-progressive-emerging-church","wpcat-25-id"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.4 (Yoast SEO v28.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>JOHN SHELBY SPONG AND EMERGENTS - RECYCLED HERESY - From the Lighthouse<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com\/blog\/john-shelby-spong-and-emergents-recycled-heresy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"JOHN SHELBY SPONG AND EMERGENTS - RECYCLED HERESY\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"by Sword of Truth Several...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com\/blog\/john-shelby-spong-and-emergents-recycled-heresy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"From the Lighthouse\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LighthouseTrailsResearch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-02-11T01:33:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-09-10T15:00:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Miscellaneous News Source\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@LTrails\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@LTrails\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Miscellaneous News Source\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com\\\/blog\\\/john-shelby-spong-and-emergents-recycled-heresy\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com\\\/blog\\\/john-shelby-spong-and-emergents-recycled-heresy\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Miscellaneous News Source\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/9fdbcbd48da5f29bb452804f6cac87fd\"},\"headline\":\"JOHN SHELBY SPONG AND EMERGENTS &#8211; 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