‘He pushed us to speak, and have courage’: Bishop John Shelby Spong laid to rest in Morristown

 

To some Christians, Bishop John Shelby Spong was a heretic. Entrusted with defending the faith, he dismissed notions of the virgin birth and the resurrection of Jesus that have been foundations of Christianity for centuries.

But for many who attended his funeral at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Morristown on Friday, Jack Spong was the embodiment of Christ’s courage and love.

As the Episcopal Bishop in Newark in 1986, at a time when female priests still were gaining acceptance, he ordained the Rev. Cynthia Black, now rector of Morristown’s Episcopal Church of the Redeemer.

Two years later, Spong went further, marrying Black and her wife, decades before same-sex unions would be recognized as legal.

“For him to do that in 1988, he risked his role as a bishop in the church, and risked so much. But yet, that didn’t stop him from doing what he knew was right,” said Black, who credits Spong with bringing a new, life-changing understanding of God’s love to “thousands and thousands” around the world.

In 26 books, countless lectures and newspaper columns, and TV appearances ranging from Sixty Minutes to The O’Reilly Factor and Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, Spong challenged dogma, embraced science, and preached a faith of inclusion.

Video: Bishop Spong is laid to rest in Morristown:

“Any thinking person, everyone was welcome. You didn’t have to sign on for everything. But you could sign on for the journey,” said the Right Rev. Bonnie Perry, also ordained by Spong. She now is the first openly lesbian Bishop of the Diocese of Michigan.

Spong died last month at his home in Richmond, Va. He was 90.

He studied religion at Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh and the Union Theological Seminary; astronomy at Berkeley; and taught at Drew University, among other schools.

Spong’s admirers have included Archbishop Bishop Desmond Tutu and Morehouse College, where his portrait hangs alongside other civil rights leaders in the Martin Luther King Chapel.

He drew fire from William F. Buckley Jr., George Will, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Ross Douthet, and two Archbishops of Canterbury, and received death threats from right wing religious movements. The Ku Klux Klan named  him “Public Enemy Number One,”  according to his obituary.

“I experienced God as the Source of Life, which means that the only way I can worship God is by living fully. I experienced God as the source of love, which means that the only way I can worship God is by loving wastefully,” Spong declared in My Mantra, read aloud at the funeral by his eldest daughter, Ellen Elizabeth Spong.

In Jesus, Jack Spong saw a life fully lived, with unconditional love and “the courage to be all that he was created to be.”

Following Jesus, for him, meant striving for a world “where everyone can be whatever it is that God has created her, him or them to be in the infinite variety of our humanity, people of every ethnic and racial background, men and women, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender people–indeed the whole human race, for that is only way to see God as the Ground of all Being.”

‘I THINK I MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE’

Elected Bishop of Newark in 1976, Spong served for nearly a quarter-century. After retiring in 2000, he became “Bishop in Residence” at St. Peter’s in Morristown, where his courtly, genteel presence left a lasting impression.

One parishioner remembers, with awe, how Spong made a point of complimenting her for her scripture reading after a Sunday service.

Many congregation members were among his honorary pallbearers on Friday. In bright sunshine, on a warm morning that felt more like October in Spong’s native North Carolina, they filed to a garden where his ashes were buried in the shadow of a statue of St. Peter.

Bishop Carlye Hughes and St. Peter’s rector, the Rev. Anne Thatcher, presided. More than 30 clergy members, including at least two retired bishops, joined them in prayer.

In his own words:
Bishop John Shelby Spong envisions everlasting life,
on The Morristown Green Podcast

Details were important to Spong, and he attended to them even unto death. After his passing, his daughter Ellen received a gift in the mail from him: Beautiful tan boots, adorned with butterflies.

“He ordered toned-down ones, so that she could wear them to work,” said the Rev. Janet Broderick, former rector of St. Peter’s, chosen by Spong to deliver his eulogy.

Broderick praised her friend and mentor for empowering women, pushing them “to get up and speak, to have courage.”

Spong was devoted to his wife Christine, and was a great teacher, who listened and learned, Broderick said. He once labeled a dinner party a flop, she recalled him saying, because “no one talked about anything that meant anything.”

In his “beautiful lilting voice,” Spong also delivered brilliant one-liners, Broderick said. Laughter rippled off the stone walls of St. Peter’s as she recounted “that lovely way he’d say, ‘Well now, Janet, that’s a good question. But you’re a complete idiot for asking it!'”

But Spong’s enduring message, she said, was that put-downs and humiliation and discrimination are human inventions.

“That is not what God created. And that is what Jack lived to say: Never confuse decisions people have made with what God has created. And what God has created–that is you and me– is wonderful.”

Spong’s choice for the morning’s other eulogy was a man who disagreed with him. Attorney Michael Rehill was raised in an Irish Catholic family. Spong knew Rehill’s respect for the office of Bishop would make him a trustworthy chancellor for the Episcopal Diocese of Newark.

Rehill described Spong as “the most moral man I ever met,”  and likened him to John the Baptist, Christianity’s voice in the wilderness.

With bemusement, Rehill recounted his mother-in-law coming to him in a panic after hearing Spong speak. Newly widowed, she had just converted to the Episcopalian faith.

“I think I’ve made a terrible mistake,” she said. “I didn’t believe anything he said.”

“It’s okay, Ruth. Neither do I,'” Rehill reassured her.

While visiting his home in Ireland years ago, Rehill was introduced to a Catholic priest. The priest’s eyes lit up when he learned Rehill worked for Spong. All the priests in the local rectory loved Spong’s books!  Each man would read a chapter, and after supper, these priests took turns defending their faith against Spong’s challenges.

Delighted by this news, Spong sent Rehill back with a suitcase full of his autographed books, encouraging them to search for their own truth.

“In my view, he defended the faith best by challenging the faith of those priests…just as he repeatedly challenged all of us as a defender of the faith,” Rehill said.

Like Broderick, Rehill was charmed by Spong’s humor.

One afternoon in New York, after strategizing about how to defuse an attempt to censure Spong for ordaining an openly gay man, Rehill, Spong and another bishop took their wives to dinner. At the restaurant, two young women noticed the purple shirts and clerical collars, and asked if they were bishops. Yes, the bishops confessed.

“The women then turned to Patti, Christine and Jan and asked if they were nuns. Bishop Spong roared with laughter, and with a twinkle in his eye, responded, ‘God, I hope not!'”

Friday’s funeral celebrated a life of inquiry grounded in the belief that faith is written in hearts, not etched in stone. Spong’s legacy will be carried forward by people such as Bonnie Perry and Cynthia Black and Erik Soldwedel.

A deacon in Paterson who made a midlife decision to enter the ministry, Soldwedel said Jack Spong was generous with his encouragement and his time, inspiring him on his journey.

“He demystified the church for people. He gives me the sense that we don’t need these buildings. It’s got to be here,” Soldwedel said, hand over his heart.

“And that’s what he preached. That’s what we’re supposed to do. And we do the best we can.”