Not really, no. Sorry, but you do rather have a tendency to make sweeping and indiscriminate generalisations!
C'mon! Spong and Jesus in the same breath?
Jesus, agreed, was persecuted and executed.
Luther too was persecuted, but also protected by 'the powers that be' and indeed sided with the powers that be when it came to the peasant's revolt. He founded a church, got married, had six kids, was the dean of his local university... not too shabby a life, all in all.
But the Buddha, as far as my brief look round informs me, was never persecuted at all. If anything his excesses at austere asceticism nearly killed him, it was his friends who staged 'an intervention'! He did not too badly, I think.
Spong courts controversy and, I think, revels in it, but persecuted? He claims he is, but I think it's largely in his head. I think he thinks anyone who questions his opinions is persecuting him.
Well sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't ... you can't apply that rule willy-nilly. Context!
In some instances. In others, he was a wacko then, and he's still a wacko now. And again, some are seen as saints then, and wacko now. So again, without a context ...
