ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, June 30, 1996 TAG: 9606280030
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KEN GARFIELD KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
Bishop John Spong has no problem with Jesus. Well, actually, there was that book he wrote questioning the Virgin Birth.
What I meant to say was that the former Charlotte, N.C., altar boy has no quarrel with the modern church. Excuse me again. ``I think Christianity today is in trouble,'' he told me. ``The mainline church doesn't seem to stand for much.''
Let me try one more time to properly introduce a 65-year-old who has spent a lifetime lobbing grenades at the status quo and loving it. Spong, head of the 45,000-member Episcopal Diocese of Newark in New Jersey has made a national name for himself by challenging Christian assumptions and practices, in 15 books and a thousand sermons.
During an hour's conversation at his mother's home, he criticized Southern Baptists, challenged Promise Keepers and critiqued Billy Graham. And he did it all with a fire kindled 53 years ago, when his father died and his mother, Doolie, struggled to support the family.
His memories of watching his mother keep the family afloat, while fending off insurance agents peddling unneeded policies, fired his passion for the powerless. It eventually led to his becoming one of the nation's best-known liberal theologians.
Spong is aware of his renown. He can recount, one by one, his four appearances on CNN's "Larry King Live" talk show. He seemed slightly disappointed when he said he never appeared live on ``Nightline'' with Ted Koppel.
He still gets asked about his most famous book. In ``Born of a Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Birth of Jesus,'' he theorizes that Christianity's central figure may have been the illegitimate child of a sexually violated teen-age girl.
But Spong's most celebrated stay in the spotlight came over retired Bishop Walter Righter's ordination in 1990 of a noncelibate gay man as a deacon in the Diocese of Newark.
Righter worked at the time for Spong, who empowered his colleague to conduct the ordination while also calling on churches everywhere to affirm the rights of gays and lesbians. The Episcopal Church court cleared Righter last month.
In 10 years, predicted Spong, homosexuals won't be considered any different than redheads and left-handers.
He thinks our sexual identity - even the person to whom we are attracted - is a gift from God. ``Elizabeth Taylor's never appealed to me,'' he said. ``I'm a Doris Day type.''
But as hot as the issue rages today, gay rights is only the latest windmill at which Spong has tilted. In 41 years as a minister and 20 as bishop, he has defended the powerless and attacked those who would use God and scripture to protect their own turf.
``I think the Bible has been used in my lifetime to support the oppression of blacks, women and gays,'' Spong said. ``My natural inclination is to identify with the poor, the victim.''
Spong was in Charlotte recently to help celebrate his mother's 89th birthday. Though he had to drive back home to Morristown, N.J., for business, he made time to answer a wide range of questions covering the theological ballpark.
Even when his wife, Christine, marched quietly by as if to say ``It's time to go,'' Spong kept a slight smile curled on his face. What's not to smile about, when you're a spiritual maverick with a healthy ego and interested audience?
``I'm not conscious of relishing it,'' Spong said when asked if he goes out of his way to turn heads.
``But I'm conscious that I can't be unfaithful to what I see as God's call.''
Spong reminisced about singing in the boys' choir at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in uptown Charlotte. He talked of being transformed by the times from an indifferent student at Central High School to Phi Beta Kappa at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to a young Tarboro, N.C. preacher, moved by the civil rights era in the 1960s to preach integration.
He cited the motto he long ago learned to live by: ``Get underneath the obvious.''
He spoke of a love of the Bible that began at age 12, even bragging about being able to quote chapter and verse: ``I'm as good as Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham at that.''
Mostly, though, he railed about this, that and the other:
Spong said he was ``appalled'' by the Southern Baptist Convention's recent vote to try to convert Jews to Christianity:
``I think it'll be ignored,'' he said. ``It's out of step. That's the sort of mentality you can have in the ancient world.
``My problem comes when a religious group tries to impose their values. The safety of the church world depends on people getting along.''
He's unimpressed with Promise Keepers, the evangelical Christian movement that brought 65,000 men to Charlotte Motor Speedway last weekend:
``It sounds to me like they're calling men to a role that no longer exists as head of the household,'' he said. ``My sense is that we're past the time when we can deal with men and women separately.''
He appreciates Billy Graham:
``I think he has personal integrity,'' said Spong, who grew up near the Grahams. ``I think the low moment in Billy Graham's life was when he got used by Richard Nixon. I think Richard Nixon thought he could cover over his life with religious respectability.''
Spong even likes Graham's massive stadium crusades that are as much spectacle as they are worship:
``I don't know that I think they do any great changing,'' he said. ``It creates some religious excitement. I think Billy Graham raises dimensions of spiritual life.''
Since he was too busy expounding to heed his wife's hint - I get the feeling she's used to this - I apologized to Spong for keeping him from heading home.
Actually, he never paused long enough to accept the apology. He was far too busy making his last and most important point: Life is all about the pure joy of doing God's work the best and most honest way you know how.
``I don't believe people are motivated by threats of hell or promises of heaven,'' he said. ``I think I want to do good things because they're good. I think Christianity is its own reward.''
Ken Garfield is the religion editor at The Charlotte Observer.
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