Methodist Panel Clears Liberal Bishop of Heresy

CHICAGO —  The United Methodist bishop of Chicago has been cleared of heresy charges by a special investigative panel after church conservatives accused him of abandoning historic Christian teaching.

The panel asked Bishop C. Joseph Sprague, a prominent liberal within the church, to issue a clarifying statement reaffirming his beliefs about Jesus. It said the 28 clergy and lay members who had filed the charge against Sprague should “offer a public apology” because such complaints are supposedly private.

Sprague came under fire for his new book, “Affirmations of a Dissenter,” and a speech to a seminary in Denver in which he said the “myth of the virgin birth was not intended as historical fact” and added that “I cannot believe that [Jesus’] resurrection involved the resuscitation of his physical body.” He also questioned the doctrine of salvation only through Jesus.

A committee headed by Bishop Bruce Ough of Worthington, Ohio, found the charges without merit.

The Rev. Thomas Lambrecht of Greenville, Wis., spokesman for the complainants, told United Methodist News Service that the panel “did not objectively consider our perspective, but was heavily weighted against our point of view.”