This self-denigration stuff - Jesus died for my sins - is nothing but a guilt message. There is no way that the Fourth Gospel was written by John Zebedee or by any of the disciples of Jesus. God is not a Christian, God is not a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist. It was for me a holy moment for I was certain that I was kneeling on holy ground.I will not make any further attempt to convert the Buddhist, the Jew, the Hindu or the Moslem. shortquotes.blog 1,000,000++ Short Quotes I think religion in general and Christianity in particular must always be evolving. If I could not move my search beyond angelic messengers, empty tombs, and ghostlike apparitions, I could not say yes to Easter. (wikipedia) Born On June 16, 1931. 23:17). 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. "The older I get, the more deeply I believe but the. Next, was his belief that God is a source of life. John Shelby Spong 1 Mother Nature is not sweet. "[23], Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, described Spong's teaching as constituting the historic definition of heresy, having "denied virtually every major Christian doctrine. All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. a[a9] = { John Shelby "Jack" Spong (June 16, 1931 September 12, 2021) was an American bishop of the Episcopal Church. After love, he shared his beliefs about experiencing God. Jesus could not have imagined such an idea as Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. !function(){function n(n,t){var r=i(n);return t&&(r=r("instance",t)),r}var r=[],c=0,i=function(t){return function(){var n=c++;return r.push([t,[].slice.call(arguments,0),n,{time:Date.now()}]),i(n)}};n._s=r,this.csa=n}(); And the Bible is being quoted to deny homosexuals their equal rights, and the Bible will lose. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1952. var cookiePair = cookie.split('='); His views on the future of Christianity were "that we have to start where we are. The question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel. He calls for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away from theism and traditional doctrines. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers. The God of the Hebrews is a God that human language, we're not even supposed to speak the holy name. No one can do that, Spong said. [15], New Testament Catholic scholar Raymond E. Brown was critical of Spong's scholarship, referring to his studies as "amateur night". Williams described Spong's Twelve Points for Reform as embodying "confusion and misinterpretation". I'm a bloodydamn Helldiver with an army of giant, mildly . var node = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; Incarnation will never give us that.. By popular demand, here are his conservations with Tapestry from 2007 and 2009. John Shelby Spong > Quotes (?) John Shelby Spong, whose books have sold more than a million copies, was bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark for 24 years before his retirement in 2001. Giving It All Quotes Page 34 Part 2 of the giving it all quotations list about premature-birth and baby-shower sayings citing John Shelby Spong, Eve Ensler and Milo Ventimiglia captions Now, the fourth gospel says that the moment that Jesus is glorified is the moment he's put to death on the cross, not the resurrection. This is an opportune time for those who identify with liberal Christianity to take a critical look at his legacy. function getCookieWithoutJQuery(name) { But before he talked too much about the end, he went back to the Jewish roots of Matthews Gospel. "[17], Spong's ideas have been criticized by some other theologians, notably in 1998 by Rowan Williams, the Bishop of Monmouth, who later became the Archbishop of Canterbury. 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 It has been a wonderful trip, and I am sad it is coming to an end.. Prayer is not adult letters written to Santa Claus, and God is not some parent-like figure up in the sky who's going to take care of us. googletag.pubads().setTargeting("resource", "author_45659"); The way you become divine is to become wholly human. Previously, she recapped the Chautauqua Lecture Series in 2019 and the Interfaith Lecture Series in 2018. I was taught that women were by nature in inferior to men, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. He called for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away from theism and traditional doctrines. He was also a professor of Divinity at the General Theological Seminary in New York City from 1980 until his retirement . throw new Error("could not load device-specific stylesheet : " + err.message); But the fact is I can no more abandon the literal patterns than I could fly to the moon. } The Bible has lost every major battle it has ever fought. John Shelby Spong Quotes "God is not a Christian, God is not a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist. He sees himself against nature. Sometimes, you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It doesn't. 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. As a leading spokesperson for an open, scholarly, and progressive Christianity, Bishop Spong has taught at Harvard and at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. That identification means . url = "https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/mobile/phone_hd_images-2b89833762f600506d44865a33582d11.css"; It is not necessarily words addressed heavenward. 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. John Shelby Spong (born November 29, 1935) is an American Episcopal priest and author. A = p.createElement(s); stylesheet.type = "text/css"; 50. [7] Spong was the cousin of the United States Senator from Virginia William B. Spong Jr. With the need for constant evolution in mind, Spong created his personal mantra. Is there a different Bible? Every day we present the best quotes! I could not believe that anyone who has read this book would be so foolish as to proclaim that the Bible in every literal word was the divinely inspired, inerrant word of God. [19][20] After Spong's book Jesus for the Non-Religious was published in 2007, Peter Jensen, the Archbishop of Sydney, banned Spong from preaching at any churches in his diocese. "Another [book on Matthew] is Amy-Jill Levine, who is a Jewish woman who teaches New Testament at the Vanderbilt School of Religion. url = "https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/mobile/phone_images-9e9093f0cfddba8c2b1e815375d976a3.css"; [22] Following Spong's death, Tooley told The Washington Times that "he [Spong] claimed that he was making religion relevant for a new generation who could not believe in the supernatural, often citing his daughters. I think the first self-conscious person must have shaken in his boots. //=0){return}if("ue_https" in e){f=e.ue_https}else{f=e.location&&e.location.protocol=="https:"?1:0}i=f? Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends. 25:30)? var ue_t0=window.ue_t0||+new Date(); His great-great-grandfather had emigrated to America from Kent, though the family name may . session: { id: "242-2972433-4130551" }, "ebfg_email", "ebfg_sms"]; The Christ path is the path I've walked all my life, so it's normal and natural. I think one of the things we've got to look out for is human beings claiming that they know how God operates. The Christians tried to separate themselves from the Jewish crowd so they wouldn't be the recipients of the persecution of the Romans. } Weve got to deal with the fact that the church has been violently prejudiced against gay people. When the Gospel of Luke was being written, the Holy Spirit fell upon the disciples of Jesus and all the world. John Shelby Spong Quotes. Praying and living deeply, richly and fully have become for me almost indistinguishab le. I admire our ancestors, whoever they were. note: he retired years after this article was first written]. He received his Master of Divinity degree from the Virginia Theological Seminary in 1955. I do not think of God theistically, that is, as a being, supernatural in power, who dwells beyond the limits of my world. And all I can tell you is if we accepted every invitation we had, I'd be away every day of my life." -- John Shelby Spong #Accepted #Invitations "When I grew up in the South, I was taught that segregation was the will of God, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. As I look at the history of religion, I observe that new religious insights always and only emerge from the old traditions as they begin to die. function isShowingBuyableFeatures() { If God is the ground of being, then the only way I can worship God is by having the courage to be all that I can be, Spong said. If you look at history, every nation that has operated as if it spoke for God has become violently destructive. They amuse themselves by playing an irrelevant ecclesiastical game called "Let's Pretend." And thats immoral. Because as he becomes self-conscious, he's no longer part of nature. apstag.init({ The former Episcopal Bishop of Newark (N.J.) has been writing for years for those he calls "believers in exile," people who feel like modern versions of Christianity demand blind faith and require adherents to check their brains at the door. Oh this age! "One day Jesus was praying, and when he had finished, one of the disciples asked, "Rabbi, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples." Jesus said to them, "When you pray, say, 'Abba God, hallowed be your Name! I call this God by different words. //]]> Integrity and honesty, not objectivity and certainty, are the highest virtues to which the theological enterprise can aspire. Both papal infallibility and biblical inerrancy require widespread and unchallenged ignorance to sustain their claims to power. return false; I was taught that it was okay to hate other religions, and especially the Jews, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. In academia, I discovered that issues and insights, commonplace among the scholars, are viewed as highly controversial and even as 'heresy' in the churches. }("apstag", window, document, "script", "//c.amazon-adsystem.com/aax2/apstag.js"); John Shelby Spong has been called a heretic and worse. My sense is if the Episcopal Church can't stand challenge within its own ranks, then it is not a church I would want to be a member of anyway. [25] The notice was announced by the St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia, where Spong had once been rector.[26][27]. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers. I was taught that women were by nature in inferior to men, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. Don't read that to me on Sunday morning and say "This is the word of the Lord." If the resurrection of Jesus cannot be believed except by assenting to the fantastic descriptions included in the Gospels, then Christianity is doomed. I live on the other side of Charles Darwin and I can no longer see human light as having been created perfect and falling into sin, I see us rather emerging into higher and higher levels of consciousness and higher and higher levels of complication. Papal infallibility and biblical inerrancy are the two ecclesiastical versions of this human idolatry. He believed in a more nuanced approach to scripture, informed by scholarship and compassion, which can be consistent with both Christian tradition and contemporary understandings of the universe. It appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different. In addition, she is a rising senior at The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism in Phoenix, Arizona, where she most recently served as a breaking news reporter for The Arizona Republic, as well as a documentary producer for Arizona PBS. gads.src = (useSSL ? Hollingworth said that it was not an appropriate moment for Spong to "engage congregations in matters that could prove theologically controversial". I want to say something positively, something about the conclusion that I presently hold and bear witness to why I continue to be a member of this community.. I honor my tradition, I walk through my tradition, but I don't think my tradition defines God, I think it only points me to God. - John Shelby Spong. I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. I describe God as the source of life and the source of love and the ground of being. These are people for whom life has been so negative that they're willing to die if they can take down some of their enemies. googletag.pubads().setTargeting("grsession", "osid.a1fff312af8a1d2b3b241fa9193829a2"); By contrast, Phillip Aspinall, the Primate of Australia, invited Spong in 2007 to deliver two sermons at St John's Cathedral, Brisbane. V. Gene Robinson was able to publicly thank the man he said are the shoulders on which (Robinson) stands.. Thats where I think God is made visible.. Ibid., p. 288. The Christian story did not drop from heaven fully written. I live on the other side of Charles Darwin and I can no longer see human light as having been created perfect and falling into sin, I see us rather emerging into higher and higher levels of consciousness and higher and higher levels of complication. I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. John Shelby Spong has long been known as the "nightmare" of the more conservative element of the Anglican Church in America. Let's pretend that we possess the objective truth of God in our inerrant Scriptures or in our infallible pronouncements or in our unbroken apostolic traditions. // He is a liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator and author. "[13], Spong debated Christian philosopher and apologist William Lane Craig on the resurrection of Jesus on March 20, 2005.[14]. Christ must be served in every person, he said. [9], A prominent theme in Spong's writing was that the popular and literal interpretations of Christian scripture are not sustainable and do not speak honestly to the situation of modern Christian communities. var ue_sn = "www.goodreads.com"; John Shelby Spong Related Authors var cookie = cookies[i]; I don't have any interest in doing that. ", Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Spong was born in North Carolina in 1931. In a 2013 interview with Religion News Service, Spong spoke about his own spirituality and beliefs, which he said had grown deeper as he aged. Prayer is what I am doing when I love wastefully, passionately and wondrously and invite others to do so. I admire our ancestors, whoever they were. Death is ultimately a dimension of life through which we journey into timelessness. Let me say that I consider myself a deep believer in the reality of God. How tasteless and ill-bred it is! Give us today tomorrow's bread. Above all, words must be recognized as symbolic pointers to truth, not objective containers of truth. John Shelby Spong is an American retired bishop of the Episcopal Church. John Shelby Spong Buddhist, Prayer, Believe Praying and living deeply, richly and fully have become for me almost indistinguishab le. The Bible is full of dreadful things. Doctrines are never a description or definitionof our God experience. 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