Here I Stand: My Struggle for a Christianity of Integrity, Love, and Equality - Hardcover

Spong, John Shelby

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060675381 ISBN 13: 9780060675387

Publisher: HarperOne, 2000

Synopsis

"If someone had told me years ago that I would create these enormous levels of both appreciation and hostility in my ordained life, I would have been dumbfounded, shocked, and probably deeply hurt. How did it happen? What created the twin emotions of praise and anger, of gratitude and fear? What forces pushed me, compelled me, or led me to play my particular role in the struggle to make the Christian church respond to the issues of our century and indeed to open new dimensions of spirituality to the citizens of this century? That is the story I seek to tell."

John Shelby Spong has spent a lifetime struggling to discover and create a more just, loving, and authentic Christian faith. Throughout his career as an Episcopal priest and bishop, he has inspired praise and gratitude among the marginalized Christians whose causes he has championed, as well as hostile resistance from traditional and conservative Christians whom he has so boldly challenged. Here I Stand reveals the private side of this very public figure, as Bishop Spong tells the story of the people and events that shaped his thoroughly contemporary yet deeply biblical theology and his commitment to liberal Christian values.

Early in his life, Spong witnessed injustices that were instrumental in awakening his moral consciousness. Growing up in the American south of the 1930s, Spong spent his childhood in an environment of racism, fundamentalism, sexism, and homophobia. The church of his time was no exception; its exclusionary attitudes and practices struck the young Southerner as contradictory to the Christianity he encountered in the Bible and heard preached from the pulpit and taught in Sunday school.

Rather than becoming disillusioned with the church and dropping out, Spong has devoted himself to reforming it, working to integrate women, blacks, gays, lesbians, and other marginalized Christians fully into the faith community better known for rejecting or marginalizing them. In the process, he has challenged the views of leaders such as Jerry Falwell, John Cardinal 0' Connor, and his own Episcopal hierarchy. He has been honored by many as a hero, while enduring harsh reactions from fundamentalists and those wedded to the status quo. Through it all, Bishop Spong has remained committed to his role as a shepherd to every member of the Christian flock. His courageous efforts have made him an inspirational symbol of a Christian church truly worthy of Jesus and the standard bearer for those who strive to be both contemporary, thinking persons and faithful, enlightened Christians.

About this title

Review

Here I Stand is the autobiography of John Shelby Spong, the Episcopal bishop who is a lightning rod for controversy. Spong has for decades been working to popularize an inclusive version of Christianity that avoids racism, sexism, and homophobia; as a result, he has engaged leading conservatives (such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson) in very public conflicts. Here I Stand, predictably, gives a blow-by-blow of Spong's high-profile battles. More surprisingly, Spong also shares some very intimate details about his life that help to explain the sources of his theology. His southern childhood is related in a manner that is every bit as painful and comic as a Flannery O'Connor story. And the story of his first marriage, to a woman whose mental illness persisted for 15 years, is handled with sensitivity and grace. Despite his occasional rhetorical excesses, Spong's book is clearly written in love--with God, with the Church, and with the world. "I walk inside the wonder of this God in every experience of life," he writes at the book's end. We are fortunate that Spong's autobiography so expertly conveys this wonder.

About the Author

John Shelby Spong, the Episcopal Bishop of Newark before his retirement in 2000, has been a visiting lecturer at Harvard and at more than 500 other universities all over the world. His books, which have sold well over a million copies, include Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy; The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic; Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World; Eternal Life: A New Vision; Jesus for the Non-Religious, The Sins of Scripture, Resurrection: Myth or Reality?; Why Christianity Must Change or Die; and his autobiography, Here I Stand. He writes a weekly column on the web that reaches thousands of people all over the world. To join his online audience, go to www.JohnShelbySpong.com. He lives with his wife, Christine, in New Jersey.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0060675381
• ISBN 13: 9780060675387
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 480