• An iconoclast gathers his heretical flock

• Jesus was not born of a virgin;
• His father Joseph was a literary construct, as was Judas;
• His family thought he was out of his mind;
• There were probably not 12 disciples;
• There were no miraculous healings, no crown of thorns, no tomb, no angel; and
• Jesus did not rise from the dead.

The publishers of John Shelby Spong's latest book, Jesus for the Non-Religious, had originally wanted it to be called Freeing Jesus from the Shackles of Religion, and that's essentially what the iconoclastic retired Episcopal bishop claims to do. He portrays the supernatural elements of Jesus's life, the very cornerstones of Christian doctrine, as fabrications woven into the biblical narrative decades after Jesus's death. First-century Jewish interpretations of the Jesus experience had served to distort the very essence of Christianity, he says. And it's the reason institutional Christianity has no future.

So here's my question: why has Spong not been defrocked, and why are the African Bishops of the Anglican Communion not calling for him to be excommunicated even moreso than Gene Robinson?