"The Bishop of Rome turned the power of his location in that capital city of the known world into the ability to define Christianity and to limit the understanding of the past to his particular interpretation of the past.
Second, we need to recognize that the New Testament never speaks of Christianity as a majority movement. The Fourth Gospel has Jesus pray that "they all may be one," which clearly implies that they were not one or the prayer would not have expressed this hope. The New Testament expresses the idea that in the vast darkness of the world, the Christians are to be a lighted candle, in the soup of life the Christians are to be the salt, and in the lump of dough, the Christians are to be the leaven that makes the bread edible.
Our job as Christians is never to conquer or to dominate the world, but to give the world a new quality. That is all I seek to do today. I want to be a light shining in both the darkness of the world and of the church. I want to be the seasoning that makes the soup tasty or the leavening agent that causes the loaf to rise. " John Shelby Spong
Always interesting when I find the words to express how it is for me. Interesting also to have Spong cite Bart Ehrman as a good reference. I have been enjoying the Fresh Air interview with him from my podcast archive on CD.
