var ue_furl = "fls-na.amazon.com"; No one can finally say. } After love, he shared his beliefs about experiencing God. I prepare for death by living. " John Shelby Spong 2. stylesheet.rel = "stylesheet"; He believed that theism had lost credibility as a valid conception of God's nature. Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. [7] Spong was the cousin of the United States Senator from Virginia William B. Spong Jr. John Shelby Spong Quotes. Both papal infallibility and biblical inerrancy require widespread and unchallenged ignorance to sustain their claims to power. googletag.pubads().setTargeting("signedin", "false"); "Christ must be served in every person," he said. I don't think that's the case. The biblical texts that we Christians have used for centuries to justify our hostility toward the Jews need to be banished forever from the sacred writings of the Christian church. I cannot possibly conceive of my planet Earth as the centre of a three-tiered universe. I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. It calls us beyond our limits into the fullness of life - into a capacity to love people we are not taught to love - and into an ability to be who we are. Every day we present the best quotes! googletag.pubads().setTargeting("resource", "author_45659"); // googletag.pubads().collapseEmptyDivs(true); By popular demand, here are his conservations with Tapestry from 2007 and 2009. url = "https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/mobile/phone_hd_images-2b89833762f600506d44865a33582d11.css"; John Shelby Spong > Quotes (?) I think the first self-conscious person must have shaken in his boots. I hope I am not ungracious if in return I remark that I do not think that a single NT author would recognize Spong's Jesus as the figure being proclaimed or written about. Whatever diminishes life is evil, and whatever enhances life is good. }); Matthew was sounding the call to a universal humanity, Spong said. John Shelby "Jack" Spong (June 16, 1931 September 12, 2021) was an American bishop of the Episcopal Church. Robinson, who is the first openly gay priest to be elected bishop in Christendom, attributes the opportunity he had to serve as a leader in the church to Spong, who he said supported LGBT rights before it was popular. I do assert that one prepares for eternity not by being religious and keeping the rules, but by living fully, loving wastefully, and daring to be all that each of us has the capacity to be. No religion does that. Favorite John Shelby Spong Quotes. I find that children have very little trouble understanding non-literal stories. [CDATA[ How divine is the message that says for your finite failings you will be cast into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. I live on the other side of Copernicus and Galileo; I can no longer conceive of God as sort of above the sky, looking down and keeping record books. "[2], Spong served as rector of St. Joseph's Church in Durham, North Carolina, from 1955 to 1957; rector of Calvary Parish, Tarboro, North Carolina, from 1957 to 1965; rector of St. John's Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, from 1965 to 1969; and rector of St. Paul's Church in Richmond, Virginia, from 1969 to 1976. 1. Integrity and honesty, not objectivity and certainty, are the highest virtues to which the theological enterprise can aspire. www.huffingtonpost.com. All you can do is define the human experience of God, and that might be delusional. The creeds were 3rd- and 4th-century love songs that people composed to sing to their understanding of God. I was taught that women were by nature in inferior to men, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. Use them as an inspiration. With the passing of retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong in September 2021, the movement known as Progressive Christianity has lost one of its most revered writers. Spong, Resurrection Myth or Reality, p. 287. When the dust settles and the pages of history are written, it will not be the angry defenders of intolerance who have made the difference. Rather "we are part of what God is and we are at one with all that God is." We. " Our English language really says if youre not a theist, the only alternative is to be an atheist. stylesheet.type = "text/css"; And the way they did it was to say, the Jews killed our hero too. It's just not easy enough to say that I pray and God will accomplish. Last edited on 13 September 2021, at 21:11, "Why We Must Reclaim The Bible From Fundamentalists", https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=John_Shelby_Spong&oldid=3004716. John Shelby Spong You can't have a world where 50 percent of the people are dieting and 50 percent of the people are starving if you want stability. The Bible was quoted to defend slavery and the bible lost. 25:30)? init: function() { True religion is not about possessing the truth. Christianity is not about the divine becoming human so much as it is about the human becoming divine. Oh, my God, teach him rather to think like other people! Learn more. It grew and developed year by year over a period of forty-two to seventy years. John Shelby Spong passed away at his home in North Carolina according to an announcement from the Richmond, Virginia parish he once pastored. I learned early in life that you get places by having the right enemies. var gptAdSlots = gptAdSlots || []; Previously, she recapped the Chautauqua Lecture Series in 2019 and the Interfaith Lecture Series in 2018. And so Christians began to define themselves over against the orthodox party of the Jews as a way of surviving against the Roman onslaught. I believe God is real, but I believe God calls me beyond myself to take responsibility for my life and to try top work to allow other people to be themselves and to take responsibility for their lives. Then there was Paul. John Shelby Spong I cannot say my yes to legends that have been clearly and fancifully created. Behind the supernatural framework of the first century, behind the language of myth, magic, and superstition, I discovered a life I wanted to know; a life that possessed a power I wanted to possess; a freedom, a wholeness for which I had yearned for years. A liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator, and author, he called for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away from theism and traditional doctrines.[1]. John Shelby Spong 26. All of those are human systems which human beings have created to try to help us walk into the mystery of God. For the reformation to work, Spong said creeds can no longer be used to bring Christians together. Rev. Above all, words must be recognized as symbolic pointers to truth, not objective containers of truth. There is no longer male nor female. It is not by pitching the old insights out but by journeying deeply through them into new visions that we are able to change religion's direction. Shelby Harris. True religion is not about possessing the truth. I experience God as the source of life calling me to live fully and thus to respect life in every form as embodying the holy. If you begin to give people hope that there is a brighter future, there is a new tomorrow, then the people who were yesterday's terrorists become tomorrow's elected officials and they're part of the system. It is not necessarily words addressed heavenward. node.parentNode.insertBefore(gads, node); function q(c, r) { Tweets by @chqdaily The Bible says that women are property, that homosexuals ought to be put to death, that anybody who worships a false God ought to be executed, that a child that talks back to his parents ought to be stoned at the gates of the city. I know rather that the sun, around which my planet Earth revolves, is a middle sized star in a galaxy called the Milky Way that has over a hundred billion other suns or stars within it. According to Spong, when Matthew said to go and make disciples of all nations, he placed words in the mouth of the risen Jesus. How tasteless and ill-bred it is! }; " I go where I'm invited. Rev. That is a paradigm shift of the first order. The author of this book is not a single individual, but is at least three different writers/editors, who did their layered work over a period of 25 to 30 years. J.B. Heller Quotes James Whitfield Thomson Quotes Jeanne A. Estes Quotes John Shelby Spong Quotes Julien Temple Quotes Lenny Kravitz Quotes Merrell Fankhauser Quotes Nicole Green Quotes Nicole Y. Dennis-Benn Quotes Priya Rawal Quotes S. Andrew Swann Quotes Scott F. Gilbert Quotes , words must be recognized as symbolic pointers to truth, not containers! 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