What's your take on Marcus Borg, and TEC clergy that endorse his ideas? I think his influence is far greater among the reappraisers; if reasserters are looking for convenient label for the theological left, 'Borgian' might actually have some descriptive accuracy.
In my 15 years in the TEC, I never met one clergy who preached Spong from the pulpit, although I had one rector that grew fond of his Beliefnet columns and organized a discussion of Spongian theodicy around the time of the Indonesian tsunami, based on one of these columns. But those who discussed him were clear to indicate that they didn't go along with all of his ideas. He was treated as a figure worthy of a great deal of respect, never as a crazy uncle. Perhaps in deference to his small but vocal fan club, perhaps because 'he asks the right questions' or 'makes you think' as someone I can't remember put it, perhaps out of a desire to have a roomy enough church to include even the most extreme skepticism.
Much was made at one point of KJS inviting Jack Spong to run a clergy retreat in Nevada, but other than that it hasn't been evident she is on board with his program, unless she is speaking in coded language. She is probably quite heretical on a number of points, but not in the same way as Spong.
Well, I think Borg's approach relies on the preconception that either scripture doesn't report Jesus accurately, or that Jesus isn't divine; otherwise he cannot get rid of at least some divine inspiration in scripture. It seems to me that he suffers from the common mid-to-late-20th century malady of having to much faith in his own skepticism. When someone claims that (for instance) the royal imagery of scripture is outmoded, I expect a pretty strong defense of that; and given all the people I know who have no problem relating to the wealth of fantastic fiction which abounds in such imagery, I think the claim is indefensible. And such claims are ripe with that popular 20th century sin: chronological snobbery.
There's also a particular intellectual snobbery in Spong's writings that unfortunately gives him respect among the unwary (or for that matter, among his fellow snobs). I've not forced myself to read much of his stuff, largely because reading Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalism was so irritating in its intellectual dishonesty. Real Fundamentalism (and Spong grew up in a genuinely fundy church) is just not something you ever see in Anglicanism; and especially, our literalism isn't their literalism. To that respect he was already attacking a strawman, but he also presents a fake version of fundamentalism anyway. And his tone is always "no right-thinking, intelligent person would believe that claptrap." It gladdens the hearts of right-thinking, intelligent people to agree.
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