Rating: 
Summary: Incredibly good.
Review: The book actually rates ten stars! It takes courage to face-up to the reality as writen in the Bible.One negative viewer councils "go to the source". If that source had actually been read, he/she would be agreeing with Bishop Spong!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Book for Thinking People
Review: If you have ever had difficulty with the fundamentalist advice to stop thinking and just believe everything, you will find this wonderful book a faith saver.
Rating: 
Summary: Inadvertant argument for dismantling Christianity
Review: If Spong is right, then one would be much better off staying in bed on Sunday. Why waste your time going to church? He performs a masterful job of making Christianity look inconceivably silly. That is, if he is right. Essentially, he wants to remove every indispensable element of Christianity and substitute something that is uninteresting and bland in its place. Will we ever some to the end of silly books like this one?
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing Honesty
Review: Bishop Spong is not one to refrain from asking urgent religious questions in order to preserve feelings of security. Unafraid of wandering at times far outside the boundaries of traditional Christian thought, he takes his Christian readers on a spiritual journey at times so terrifying that one may desire at times to lapse back into the comfort of strict conservatism--but Spong's message is not without hope. While he does give a quite negative (and often accurate) assessment of "institutional" Christianity as we know it, his book is ultimately filled with a radiant optimism about the future of Christian faith. His greatest triumph is the ability to articulate the truth about God and Jesus while separating it from the "containers of truth" in which history has handed it down to us. I am convinced that his most ambitious speculations are correct: humanity is entering a "post-religious" era in which we must shed the framework of theism and search for a more mature spirituality. Let Spong guide us in that journey and show just how rewarding it will be.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice try...
Review: I believe the Wittenberg Door said it best, "Spong calls himself a beleiver in exile because it sounds better than unbeliever." Although Spong makes a serviceable argument in this book, what he ends up with is something other than Christianity. That's fine and dandy, but if it doesn't look like a duck and doesn't quack like a duck, it ain't a duck. Spong also presents a lot of academic theories and scholarly debated issues as if they were universally agreed upon by theologians and biblical scholars. It sounds good if you are unfamiliar with the field but if you have a background in these areas you see that he often bases his arguments on positions that are by no means accepted widely among scholars. Worth a read if you can check it out from your library but not worth the money.
Rating:
Summary: Spong Tells It Like It Is!
Review: Bishop Spong is one gutsy cleric! This icon of candor speaks truth to his fellows, telling them how far the church has strayed, and what it must do to mend its ways. There can be no doubt that his criticisms are valid - look at the church, look at what it has become! Spong realizes that Christianity has become a sham and that it is in need of serious renewal. His prescriptions, while painful, would go along way to restoring the church to health.
Rating:
Summary: Finally!
Review: This book has set down in scholarly and readable fashion my ownstruggles to make contemporary sense of my faith. That Bishop Spongis a deeply spiritual man is evident, and the conclusions he reacheshave enabled me to make sense of my own beliefs. I thank him with all my heart for his courage and honesty.
Rating:
Summary: Ultimately Spong can't say why anyone should be a Christian
Review: I don't dislike Spong; actually, I think a lot of what he *quotes* (and sometimes says) is accurate. But I'm afraid his series of books really have only the indirect value of presenting a case history of a man who can't fully resolve his crisis of faith. Everyone knows the traditional reason to avoid telling lies: Each lie requires an additional lie to support it, and so on, until one collapses under the burden of maintaining a convincing facade. I'm not saying Spong is a liar -- not at all! -- but his attempt to cobble together something which he can call Christianity is cumbersome and embarassing in the same way. He's bold and obviously relishes controversy, but nevertheless lacks the ultimate courage to speak plainly... If Nietzsche were still alive he'd be salivating over Spong. Not content to vituperate the millions of his fellow Christians whose beliefs at least can lay claim to tradition, he has to rail against the entire 2000 year history of the church. Spong takes pains to prove that the Catholic church, the Protestants, the popes, scholastics, American preachers, monks and nuns, missionaries, Latin fathers, Greek fathers, St. Paul, evangelists, and probably Jesus himself have misrepresented Christianity. I'll take Tolstoy's catharizing over Spong's any day. And though I don't share his atheism, Bertrand Russell is like a breath of fresh air after this book and its ilk. If you've not read much in biblical criticism or philosophy of religion, Spong's book(s) admittedly will be an eye-opener. But I think that in the end you'd be better off to go directly to his sources, and formulate your own response for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Hypocracy
Review: Spong attacks and denies every distinctive point of Christianity while continuing to draw the salary and enjoy the privileges of, and generally trade on being, a Christian bishop. That is rank hypocracy. The errors and silliness of fundamentalism are beside the point. I laugh at fundamentalists but would rather be an honest if mistaken fundamentalist than in the state of this bishop.
Rating:
Summary: Don't let Spong kid you; don't kid yourselves
Review: If you don't want to be a Christian, then don't be. No one, in the world we live in today, can force you to be. But don't fool yourselves into thinking that you can simultaneously be a "panentheist"/pantheist/non-theist and also a Christian. It's just a pointless exercise in self delusion and doublethink. Better to state honestly to yourself: "I don't believe in old Jewish myths and first century zealots." Some may argue that self-delusion is quite acceptable, as long as that person is happy living a lie. The reviwers who give this book five stars seem to all fall into this category. I disagree; self-delusion will keep you from progressing spiritually. I encourage you five-star reviewers to abandon Christianity formally, instead of abandoning it in all but name.
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