Word: sponged
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Hate Spong...
...Stuart Buck sets out to criticize Memorial Church administrators for allowing Bishop Spong to deliver the William Belden Noble lectures (Op-Ed, March 6). He claims to be upset because Bishop Spong's beliefs do not coincide with the doctrinal requirements set out by Nannie Noble in 1898, the founder of the lectures. I say "claims," and although I have no doubt that this situation does upset Buck, he seems to be lying when he tells us he is concerned with W.B. Noble's spirit. Instead, Buck directs his criticism at Bishop Spong himself. The body of Buck...
Buck calls Spong "self-congratulatory," accuses him of "racism," and throws in a sarcastic, willfully ignorant comment about one of the Bishop's parallels being an "unexplainable" analogy. How do these points relate to the Bishop's religious doctrine and its compatibility with Noble's stipulations...
...Spong's message is that there are alternatives to these routes. We can keep the faith and be modern, thinking humans, too. The Church changed dramatically once before, from an institution that concentrated on preserving a religious community to one that helped people cultivate personal relationships with God. Spong says it's time for the Church to change again, to dissolve the vast space between the godly and the secular and to advocate a new philosophy of life, love and being...
These are radical notions, but they represent the type of dialogue that we, the struggling Christian community at Harvard, are starving for. Spong has a message that is exactly as appealing to the doubters and backsliders here as it is to the self-labeled Christians. When we who have ostensibly left the Church forever come back to Memorial Church to hear Spong, I'm sure Nannie Noble will be pleased...