A Necessary Man

John Shelby Spong was the perfect bête noir for conservative Christians during most of his 20-year tenure as bishop of the Episcopal Church's Diocese of Newark, New Jersey. Here was a bishop who would not only question the literal nature of Jesus' virgin birth or resurrection, but who would invariably blame fear or ignorance for the survival of such beliefs in a post-Darwinian, post-Freudian or post-Spongian world.

Spong told reporters in 1991 that this book was on his list of future projects, and it has been well worth the wait. Although much of Spong's other writing also has included a strong element of autobiography, "Here I Stand: My Struggle for A Christianity of Integrity, Love, and Equality,"(HarperSanFrancisco, 448 pp, $25) gives readers the most personable writing Spong has given us about his life as an activist and a contrarian. He paints a fuller picture of buckling under his mother's stern form of Calvinism, in which "for crying out loud" qualified as an impious reference to Jesus on the cross. His father is a bundle of contradictions: a racist who once stood courageously against anti-Semitism; a man who attended church as rarely as possible, but knelt in prayer each night. The young Spong blames himself for his father's death, convinced that if he worked nightly at memorizing the catechism in The Book of Common Prayer, God would keep his father alive.

It's hard to dispute that this young man found his true calling in becoming a priest. Spong tells about celebrating imitation Eucharists as a boy. He describes parish life with palpable affection, and many Episcopalians would welcome his kind of creative, high-energy leadership. In a time when Episcopal priests usually speak in a non-committal passive voice, Spong has left little doubt about what he believes, what he disbelieves, and why.

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