John Shelby Spong, a charismatic Episcopal bishop who pushed his followers to accept women and L.G.B.T.Q. clergy, and who later called on them to reject sacrosanct ideas like Jesus’ virgin, Spong made headlines as the bishop of the Diocese of Newark, where he served for more than two decades and in 1989 ordained the first openly gay male priest in the Episcopal Church., In 1977, Spong became one of the first American bishops to ordain a woman into the clergy. In 1989, he was the first to ordain an openly gay man. Spong died Sept. 12. Originally broadcast in, Once described as “the most prominent theological provocateur of the religious left”, John Shelby Spong was an author, academic and activist thinker as well as a Bishop in the Anglican Communion in the USA., One of the best-known and most controversial Episcopal bishops in the last half century, the Rt. Rev. John Shelby Spong, died in his sleep September 12 at the age of 90. He served as the VIII Bishop of Newark from 1979 to 2000., .