About to embark on a whirlwind, worldwide trip to discuss his controversial book, "Jesus for the Non-Religious," John S. Spong, the former Episcopal bishop of Newark, N.J., is making a stop in Honolulu.

The 76-year-old author will give at least 80 lectures before his travels finish in early November, but he still made time to answer five questions.

Q. Describe your groundbreaking views of Jesus.

A. "The time has come that we have to look at the figure of Jesus outside the mythological framework of the first century, when people assumed the earth was center of universe and God lived just above the sky. In the life of Jesus, when human beings believed they had a God experience, they had to develop a means by which to explain how God got out of heaven and into Jesus. That's when you got virgin birth stories. At the end of Jesus' life, there had to be a means to get him out of earth and into the sky, and that's how you got cosmic ascension stories. So virgin birth on one side and cosmic ascension on the other were the interpretive framework in which people told the Jesus story. Behind that framework was the experience that there was something about this man that convinced them that they met God in him.

"The question was, what was that Jesus experience? I find Jesus a boundary-breaking presence, calling me into a new humanity."

Q. Your views that the ascension and virgin birth stories are mythological must get you criticized quite a bit.

A. "It does by people who are pre-modern, and ill-informed."

Q. How do you respond to your critics?

A. "I don't spend a lot of my time debating with members of the flat-earth society. In my book, 'Jesus for the Non-Religious,' I try to show the meaning of the Jesus experience behind the myths of the first century. I am deeply committed to that meaning. I don't know of a single biblical theologian who still thinks the virgin birth is a literal fact."

Q. What are you working on now?

A. "I'm trying to find a way to talk about life beyond death without using the afterlife as behavior control tactics.

"You can't raise an effective child using reward and punishment — and it's not a good way to do life after death. We ought to live a good life because a good life is worth living. We serve God because God is, not to get a reward after we die."

Q. If you leave one mark on postmodern Christianity, what would it be?

A. I think Christianity is real, and I'm deeply committed to it, but not necessarily to the way it was explained in the first century. I hope to find a way to explain Jesus, as a boundary breaker who calls me beyond my debilitating human prejudices. I want to be so deeply human that I don't have to build myself up by tearing others down. I can't be fully human if I carry prejudices (whether it be against other religions, gay people, women or people of color)."

The retired Episcopalian Bishop of Newark, N.J., gives a workshop on his book, "Jesus for the Non-Religious"