John Harrower, the Bishop of Tasmania, has joined the chorus of protest against the teachings of Bishop John Spong to coincide with the retired US Bishop’s recent visit to Australia.

Bishop Spong’s approach to Christianity is similar to an Australian Rules player deciding that playing soccer is more satisfying than playing football, and wanting to change the rules, claims Bishop Harrower.

He likened Bishop Spong to a dissatisfied player who begins to argue that the rules of football should be changed to soccer – a round ball should be used; the playing field should be rectangular, not oval shaped; the goal posts reduced to two.

“Traditional fans are unimpressed, but are called ‘fundamentalists’,” he continued. “When asked why he does not join a soccer club, the reform-minded member replies that he is committed to playing Aussie football and that his rules are neither pro-soccer, nor anti-football, but a new game for a new age.

“I agree with John Spong’s assertion that [the church] need[s] to change and adapt to 21st century life,” the Bishop admitted. “However, I am deeply offended by [his] parody of Orthodox Christianity, and the recklessness of his teachings.”

Bishop Spong is the former head of the Episcopal Church in Newark, New Jersey. He was in the country last month for a promotional tour. During his long career, he has earned as many enthusiastic fans as he has enflamed critics by debunking core biblical concepts such as the resurrection and divinity of Christ, the Holy Spirit, prayer and eternal life.

But there appears to be little praise for his teaching at the most senior level of the Anglican Church. In 1998, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, then Primate of Wales, responded vehemently to Bishop Spong’s ‘12 theses’ that were posted on the internet for debate.

“While I believe Bishop Spong has done an indispensable task in focusing our attention on questions unexamined and poorly thought through, these theses represent a level of confusion and misinterpretation that I find astonishing,” Dr Williams said.

“The Christian religion is one of those subjects about which it is cool to be ignorant. Spong … simply colludes with such ignorance in a way that cannot surely reflect his own knowledge of it.”

>> Bishop Spong: a case of old lies in winsome dress - Mark Thompson