Spong is a paradox. He is universally acknowledged as a featherweight intellect who is at the same time a heavyweight performer. For this he is envied by his peers in the HOB on both the left and the right. Very few are immune to the sycophantic adulation that comes with the purple shirt. Upon obtaining their exalted positions many redefine their values in terms of what maintains their status and position. They become politicians, not apostles. Hence the unwillingness of the typical American bishop to take up a cross -- any cross.

Spong's latest literary adventure is a stunning portrayal of the hubris of the leftward leaning intelligentsia. His prose has always been excellent, but his recent letter even has an element of inspiration. More than a sample of literary craft, the letter displays the surfacing of an archetype. There are certain things about it that nobody, even a gifted writer, could have made up.

First, the letter is one of the most unguarded displays of the manifest rightness of the liberal cause ever displayed in public and gives meaning to the term "hubris". Second, due to the unguarded quality of his presentation, Spong makes the case for the of the supposed "honesty" by gay advocates in the church so succinctly that it can be answered. Let me take these points in order.

First, John Shelby Spong has achieved a high water mark for self-assurance by a public figure. In his comments to the Archbishop of Canterbury Spong is indignant that the liberal agenda of the Church would warrant discussion. He is outraged that Rowan Williams, whose "intellectual gifts" he respects, would give the "hostile" Primates the time of day, given their "amazing ignorance of the last 250 years of biblical scholarship", which Spong considers an oracle. He scolds the Archbishop for allowing public discussion of positions on homosexuality which "learned persons" (like himself and the Archbishop) rejected long ago. Furthermore, he is certain -- with a fervor that can only be called religious, since scientists are generally guarded in their exposition of known facts -- that homosexuality in the current debate is the moral equivalent of slavery. The liberal cause is thus an open and shut case.

According to Bishop Spong, Rowan Williams was "appointed to lead", by which Spong means to manipulate the political process of the Anglican Communion. Such after all is the birthright of Westerners. They lead; others follow. His attitude toward the majority of Anglicans, and thus toward the majority of people on earth, is one of monumental condescension. This is one of the things that couldn't have been made up, except perhaps by a White Supremacist in another era: by virtue of their inferior nonwestern socialization the majority of the Anglican primates are inferior nonetheless, and they ought to be treated so by their betters. That their pre-scientific animist "prejudices" should be given credence in the councils of the Church is indecent and shows a failure of moral leadership.

The bitter irony of the Episcopal Church, even if it is not yet recognized by the majority, is that it has become the quintessential Ugly American. There is an instinctive sense of cultural, if not racial, superiority that is unobscured by fashionable rhetoric and staged moral confrontations. Everyone else can see it. Americans cannot. The Asian and African Primates clearly see the Western Primates as the latest expression of the White Man's Burden voicing its indignation that its genius and good intentions are being questioned. This is the hubris of the present Episcopal Church which the retired Bishop of Newark has spread out on the world's table.

The second item from the letter which merits attention is the naïve honesty which Spong ascribes to the gay movement in the American and English churches. In a tantalizing bit of tabloid narrative he reminds Williams that "I can name the gay bishops who have, during my active career, served in both the Episcopal Church and in the Church of England." Clearly this is a man "in the know". He then castigates Williams, who knows these same bishops, for inviting "closeted" bishops to next year's Lambeth Conference while refusing to invite Gene Robinson, whose only failing is his honesty. "Are you suggesting," he writes rhetorically, "that dishonesty is a virtue?"

This same question has been raised countless times by proponents of the gay movement. It has become axiomatic that because there have always been gays in the church and they have generally served the church well that their gayness is no impediment to ministry. This is taken as proof that the Bible is wrong in what it says about homosexuality. Don't ask don't tell is only a formula for hypocrisy. It is a form of liberation for the church to openly permit what it has tacitly permitted for centuries.

Here's the difference. When gays were closeted in the church, no one was forced to choose between them and the Bible. Tolerance was possible even if morally it was not exactly commendable. Those who personally disapproved of the gay lifestyle could keep it to themselves and not make waves. Those who lived the gay lifestyle, while wishing they could be open, could at least practice their preferred lifestyle. In spite of the several facets of moral compromise, this may have been as close as we would ever get to a "win win" situation. Live and let live.

What would have been more honest would have been for the church to practice its own discipline, with the hope that those living a self-destructive lifestyle would be motivated to change and restored to a renewed fellowship in the church. As it happens, no one practices discipline without an agenda. There are too many other hypocrisies in the church for discipline to have any other purpose than as a random expression of vindictiveness. Besides that, the church lives in a time and place where religious competition is the norm. Any Christian who objects to his church's discipline can simply choose to buy another brand. Again there were many reasons why "live and let live" became an expedient solution to the latent contradictions of Christian sexual practice and the church's pastoral response.

Live and let live is very different when it becomes ideology. When homosexuality became politicized, people were forced to choose between the Bible and the demands of a political agenda. People were no longer permitted to be honestly confused, undecided, or ambivalent. The church had been cornered by a carefully orchestrated lobbying effort, just as the American Psychiatric Association had been a few decades earlier when, in response to disruptions to their national meetings, it voted to amend the diagnosis of homosexuality in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. So much, Bishop Spong, for the unassailable truths of science.

One would think Bishop Spong was honest in saying, as he did in his letter, that the Bible was wrong and he and other liberals are right. Regrettably there is nothing honest about the liberal left in the church. If they were honest they would abandon Christianity as a hopelessly flawed ideology and move on, as many honest thinkers have done since the Enlightenment. The liberal intelligentsia are after all the natural heirs of the Enlightenment. Their worldview has no room for a supernaturalist philosophy and a divinely ordered morality. The Christian kerygma -- the Lord is risen in fact and indeed -- is simply impossible for a post-Enlightenment view of reality. The honest thing would be to reject it and replace it with something more credible.

Didn't Spong himself do just that with his Twelve Theses? Doesn't he, and others like him, do this repeatedly with their unabashed questioning and denying of traditional Christianity? Emphatically not. Spong and others like him would have been honest if they had left the Church and started a new movement. The fact is Bishop Spong would be nothing without the Church but a second rate mind trafficking in cliches, as Dr. Williams himself said years ago. Spong's ritual defecations in the halls of his own sacred tradition are what make him who he is.

This is what must be understood about revisionist Christianity. It is anything but courageous, principled and honest. If anything it is opportunistic and parasitic. It attaches itself to a host -- the archaic, moralistic Christianity which it decries -- and then rides it around it through a perpetual game of moral one-up-manship. What does the Episcopal Church stand for? It stands for improving upon the gaffs of St. Paul and everyone who has followed him, for denouncing the Crusaders and the slave traders and the war mongers and whomever else it becomes fashionable to denounce. Lately it stands for denouncing homophobia, a term invented by activists in a new season of moral self-promotion.

If you think that this doesn't sound much like a religion, then you're being honest. If you think this doesn't sound like Christianity as it appears in the Bible and throughout history, then you're being honest. If you have scruples about attaching yourself to a movement with such dubious moral and philosophical credentials, then you're being honest. Let it rest in peace, or good riddance. That's honest.

Turning a shallow religion into a career opportunity may be clever. It certainly shows creativity. But it's anything but honest.

---The Rev. Canon J. Gary L'Hommedieu is Canon for Pastoral Care at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, Florida, and a regular columnist for VirtueOnline.