Singing a New Song or Rehashing Old Heresies?

Barton Gingerich
August 30, 2011

This past weekend, United Methodist advocates for liberalizing sexual ethics met at Sawmill Creek Resort in Ohio to discuss the furtherance of LGBTQ agendas within their denomination. The event claimed the moniker “Sing a New Song.” This phrase acted as the leitmotif of the entire conference schedule. Speakers prophesied not only new customs and policies; the conference hosts also envisaged a completely new way of theology and approach to life.

For doctrinal and Scriptural guidance, SANS participants looked to retired Bishop C. Joseph Sprague. What they actually received was a worn-out lesson in theological liberalism and even ancient heresies. A decade ago, Sprague publicly denied the eternal deity of Jesus Christ, asserting that Jesus became divine only gradually through his good works. His direct denial of Christian orthodoxy made him no stranger to IRD’s attentions. And it also provoked other bishops, especially Timothy Whitaker of Florida, publicly to dispute Sprague’s theology, a rarity among United Methodist prelates who prioritize collegiality. Sprague published his heterodox beliefs in a 2002 book, Affirmations of a Dissenter. He retired from his Chicago post in 2004, earlier than required, and expected to become a chaplain at the United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill. The resulting controversy effectively spiked his plans, and the once high profile bishop has been surprisingly quiet over the last seven years.

Now resurfaced, Sprague spoke in both a SANS workshop and evening plenary. He presented two main concerns: activism and theology. The former was nothing less than a radical Big Government program touching on nearly every hot-button political issue. Besides glorifying the LGBT cause, he praised pacifism and the Keynesian top-down approach to economics. Sprague exclaimed, “Make jobs, not war anymore!” Not only did he condemn “immoral preemptive strikes and attacks” and ancient just war theory that “contaminated the soul of this nation” but also “demeaning jobs” without benefits. Putting a hardened union boss to shame, Sprague derided difficult and menial jobs and called for “honorable work and decent wages.” This is all to give “the opportunity to catch up.” He continued to point out the means for this economic transformation, declaring “It is the responsibility of the government to provide such jobs…The private sector has proven…that it will not put the unemployed and underemployed to work.” For Sprague, the nation must solve a moral crisis, namely “the theological rupture of the American dream.” America’s economic woes can be mitigated by reenacting the 1930’s New Deal, with the bishop urging America to “establish a new WPA.” the rest