Religion

So now to religion. I have endeavoured to write in a simple manner wherever possible in this blog, but I may fail a little in the comming posts. My shortcomings in expressing myself will be due partly to the complex subject matter and partly (probably mostly) by my inability to articulate myself on certain points. To clear up or indeed expand on many of the issues I raise, you could do a lot worse than to read some of “John Shelby Spong’s” work (you can find them online here).

Bishop Spong is widely recognised in this field and is the inspiration for many of my own thoughts. In fact I challenge anyone to read his work and find fault with it. His arguments are researched comprehensibly, analysed critically and explained so beautifully that one could say it's almost divinely inspired.

So if you are at all familiar with his work, you will see the irony of that last statement and of course I say it with my tongue placed firmly in my cheek. His secret however, lies in the fact that the only agenda he has is that of the truth, that's what he doggedly followed as it led the direction of his journey and with the truth in his arsenal, he had the most powerful backing on which to base his claims and take on the church and its prehistoric notions.

Contrary to first impressions of his work, his message is in fact complimentary to that of the church's and it's only the truth (plus pair of mighty big stones) which has saved him the fate of being slayed as a heretic. Had he arrived on the scene 20 years earlier, he most probably would have suffered the same fate which fell on many of his vocal predecessors.

Alright, so time to strap yourself in, I plan to go deep. There's just no other way to tackle religion. I intend to go in boots and all and take no prisoners. Commit yourself to either reading this properly or skip through to my other blog because this one will need your full attention.

Now my thoughts on this subject continually change....no, they progress. With the only thing static being that the ideas remain dynamic. So I could only ever see this part as a snapshot of my thoughts in time. For them to become set in stone would make them dogmatic in nature—and as you will see, I hate dogma!!

Please also remember as you read the following that these are my personal beliefs and I don’t pretend them to be a definitive account of religion in any way.

The call of Christ for me is an eternal call to love, to live, and to be  -  John Shelby Spong

so lets now have a look at the gospel according to not that Mark but this one..