A Poor, Infirm, Weak, and Despised Old Man

I have tried to steer clear writing on the state of the Episcopal Church lately but an exception is in order in the case of the retired Bishop of Newark, John Shelby Spong. He recently issued a jeremiad against the Archbishop of Canterbury which is breathtaking in its rudeness and rant. Understandably, Anglican conservatives in this country are in an uproar. They ought not to be, it isn't worth it.

Spong is old. As Bishop of Newark he oversaw radical innovations which have pushed the diocese into a tailspin from which it has little chance of recovery. Calcified but ardent he continues preaching apostasies and seems not to notice at the same time he insists the Church will die unless she adopts his innovations, the Church is dying because she has adopted his innovations. Spong must be aware of the wreckage and rot in his midst but cannot acknowledge it because doing so would be de facto admission he is in large part responsible. Instead, he blusters, bluffs and pretends: living in a world where it is perpetually 1976, where he, as a leader of the Church of rich, old-line WASPs, the Republican Party at prayer, is her prophet; crying out in the fairways the gospel of social justice. That world, of course, is long gone and the present world, to his consternation, increasingly passes him by. He continues cranking out book after book, all telling the same story and all bought by the same people whose numbers, however, owing to Father Time and flue epidemics, are declining precipitously.

So what is the self-centered Spong to do? It gets increasingly difficult for him to get the attention he craves; making outrageous theological pronouncements no longer does it, he's squeezed that lemon dry. Even his fans these days temper their praise of him by gently distancing themselves after proclaiming his brilliance. Poor fellow: he has become the tiresome drunk at a party who after long overstaying his welcome, ignored by the other guests, plants a lampshade on his head and starts singing, loudly and badly, his old college fight song. Once again he is the center of attention but only briefly as the other guests, appalled, politely excuse themselves and hurry out the door.