David Lane Wellington NZ

DAVID LANE Hataitai Wellington New Zealand – Author and Editor of Apologia

“FOCUS ON JOHN SHELBY SPONG”

Apologia Volume 7 (3/3) 2000 ISSN 1171-5863

Published by The Wellington Christian Apologetics Society Inc. (“WCAS”)

Editor and major contributor – David H. Lane M.Sc. (Hons.), Dip. Tchg.

[Author of “The Phenomenon of Teilhard: Prophet for a New Age”

(Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1996)].

DAVID LANE Hataitai Wellington New Zealand – Author and Editor of Apologia

Focus on John Shelby Spong has been republished by the Wellington Christian Apologetics Society (“WCAS”) to mark 25 years since the Society was founded and commenced publications of its journal Apologia. This work is a major critique of the published work of retired Episcopalian Bishop – John Shelby Spong – and deals with the man and his message. It thoroughly strips away the intellectual façade surrounding this provocateur who has bamboozled audiences with his rhetoric and become a darling with the liberal secular media for his espousal of a redefined version of Christianity which jettisons all traditional understanding of the Faith including the doctrines of God as Creator and Man made in the image of God.

A range of thought-provoking scholarly essays are provided by contributors including: the late Dr. George Duggan SM, one of New Zealand’s leading Catholic theologians; Dr Jonathan Sarfati, author of Refuting Evolution (1999); Michael Bott, former Vice-President of WCAS; David H. Lane, current WCAS President and author of The Phenomenon of Teilhard (1996); Prof. Gerald O’Collins, the late Archbishop of NZ Brian Davis; Dr Frank Mobbs; Kathleen Loncar; David Mills; The Very Rev. Dr Peter C. Moore (Dean and President of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry); Dr Stephen M. Smith , Prof. of Theology & Ethics, Trinity Episcopal School of Ministry; Wayne Jackson and others. The work includes a commentary on Spong’s 1997 lecture tour of NZ, a number of in-depth analyses of Spong’s theology and world-view, and reviews of Spong’s books: Resurrection: Myth or Reality?, Why Christianity Must Change or Die, and Here I Stand.

How to purchase your copy Focus on John Shelby Spong

For orders of “”, from outside New Zealand, please contact “WCAS Publications” – C/- The Editor – Apologia” by e-mail – (spcs.org@gmail.com) providing your postal address and number of copies required. Our administrator will quote you a price taking account of postage rates and negotiate payment details etc via email.

For orders from within New Zealand please send a cheque for $29.95 NZ (per copy ordered) made out to “Wellington Christian Apologetics Society” and send it to “WCAS Editor” C/- P.O. Box 13-683 Johnsonville 6440. Please provide your postal address and number of copies required.

Please note: Bulk discounts are available on request. For more details on the Journal visit www.christian-apologetics.org

Special Note: The republication of this work Focus on John Shelby Spong has been undertaken with the approval of SPCS Inc. which has as one of its objectives from Section 2 of its constitution: 2.(c) To encourage self-respect and the dignity of the human person, made in the image of God.

David Lane, Wellington New Zealand – Author

The Phenomenon of Teilhard: Prophet for a New Age.

By David H. Lane.Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press (1996). 189 pages

In The Phenomenon of Teilhard, David Lane makes a thorough and well-documented case for the thesis that a relatively obscure Jesuit priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), exerted a major influence on the evolving modernist theology of the church as well as the New Age movement within Western civilization. Teilhard’s numerous writings of a philosophical or theological nature were considered so harmful by the Roman Catholic Church that they were banned in 1947. This only added to his prestige as Teilhard “seemed to delight in seeing himself as a modern-day Galileo” (p. 13). Throughout his life, Teilhard privately wrote a succession of essays and letters revealing his evolving synthesis of philosophy and theology with the theory of evolution. He wrote in a lyrical, evocative style laced with highly personalized neologisms and ephemeral imagery lulling his followers along a mystical pathway toward what he called the “Omega Point,” where allegedly all reality, consciousness, and mankind in general spirituality unite in perfect godhead. Teilhard believed that: “Science, in all probability, will be progressively more impregnated by mysticism” (p. 83).

David Lane, Wellington NZ. Author

(photo inset copyright D. Lane)

Teilhard de Chardin’s marked influence as an “evolutionary natural philosopher” was largely due to his degrees in geology and paleontology (p. 11). He wrote at a time in history when society was fascinated by all that claimed to be “scientific.” Teilhard was determined to reconcile the doctrine of evolution with Christianity, and Lane shows how he changed the Christ presented in Scripture into a universal redeemer, the “cosmic emergence of the Spirit” (p. 20). [Read more…]

DAVID LANE Wellington NZ – Author and Editor FOCUS ON JOHN SHELBY SPONG

David Lane, Wellington, NZ – Author: The Phenomenon of Teilhard – Mercer University Press

Share this:

Share this: