Controversial bishop returning home to Charlotte

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By Miriam Durkin | The Charlotte Observer

When internationally known Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong returns to his hometown, Charlotte, next week to speak at Myers Park Baptist Church, he'll once again prove he can make fundamentalists and atheists alike crazy.

Here's what the audience is likely to hear:

Yes, God exists, but God is not a separate deity who intervenes in our lives.

Jesus' resurrection is not an historically accurate event, but a symbolic story of what it means to live a fully human life.

Eternal life is not a journey to heaven or hell, but a state which can only be glimpsed when we experience love.

Spong, retired and living in New Jersey, lays out these ideas in his new book, "Eternal Life: A New Vision." They are ideas he has discussed in more than 20 other books, so his followers already know them well. He wants to carve out a new Christianity, one that marries belief in God with sober scientific inquiry.Read this story on Charlotte.com

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