5:22), yet he called his enemies a "brood of snakes" (Matt. All Things Quotes Page 253. John Shelby Spong Life, Want, Reason, Normal Generate image John Shelby Spong I Am 21st Century Child Am "I believe that God is very real. John Shelby Spong 82. He began by admitting he still has no way of knowing who or what God is. Oh this age! 23:33), "blind fools" (Matt. [18], During a speaking tour in Australia in 2001, Spong was banned by Peter Hollingworth, the Archbishop of Brisbane, from speaking at churches in the diocese. , From this perspective, all human claims to possess objectivity, certainty, or infallibility are revealed as nothing but the weak and pitiable pleas of frantically insecure people who seek to live in an illusion because reality has proved to be too difficult. var url; "[13], Spong debated Christian philosopher and apologist William Lane Craig on the resurrection of Jesus on March 20, 2005.[14]. I cannot possibly conceive of my planet Earth as the centre of a three-tiered universe. window.Mobvious.device_type = 'mobile'; I believe that I live my life every day inside the reality of this God. John Shelby Spong Quotes 1. Let me say that I consider myself a deep believer in the reality of God. (function () { There is no longer Jew nor Greek. Spong said this means human division must disappear. 12 Vaganova Ballet Famous Sayings, Quotes and Quotation. Christianity has always been an evolving story. If I could not move my search beyond angelic messengers, empty tombs, and ghostlike apparitions, I could not say yes to Easter. Spong proffers a third way, one that involves being "fully human." We are not really separated from God, he asserts. return true; }); [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. With the need for constant evolution in mind, Spong created his personal mantra. stylesheet.rel = "stylesheet"; var source = getCookieWithoutJQuery("source"); var ue_id = "TXPX0XF032R2WV9SNJQY"; Our English language really says if you're not a theist, the only alternative is to be an atheist. Spong was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and educated in public schools there. setDisplayBids: function() {}, "Christ must be served in every person," he said. Ibid., p. 288. However, there was one last thing he wanted to add. 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." The Christianity of the future cannot live inside the doctrines of the past, Spong said. If I were a child of Tibet or of Arabia, I suspect the path I'd walk would be the Buddhist path or the Muslim path. But the irony was that as he was making his case, modernity was ending and postmodernity starting, and his rationalist perspective became pass. True religion is not about possessing the truth. There is no one who has been braver and ready to take whatever came his way for saving the truth., At 2 p.m. on Thursday, June 28, in the Hall of Philosophy, Spong, retired Episcopal bishop of Newark, discussed Matthew, his mantra and his legacy during his last lecture of the week and his career, titled Universalism: The Future of Christianity and Why I Remain a Christian, for Week Ones interfaith theme, Producing a Living Faith Today?, Todays the day, Spong said. 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. !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)? Williams described Spong's Twelve Points for Reform as embodying "confusion and misinterpretation". [CDATA[ We were told in the Second Commandment we could make no images of this God, and I don't think that means just building idols, I think that means also trying to believe you've captured God in your words, in the Creeds, in the Scriptures. From this perspective, all human claims to possess objectivity, certainty, or infallibility are revealed as nothing but the weak and pitiable pleas of frantically insecure people who seek to live in an illusion because reality has proved to be too difficult. if(cookiePair[0] === name) { The primary reason the old idea of rescuing the fallen is no good is that there never was a time when we fell from perfection into sin. "Another [book on Matthew] is Amy-Jill Levine, who is a Jewish woman who teaches New Testament at the Vanderbilt School of Religion. Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends, There is a mistake in the text of this quote. John Shelby Spong People, History, Real, Understood Generate image The Christ path is the path I've walked all my life, so it's normal and natural. When I stand in the presence of this God who inhabits the heart of life, I know just why I define myself as a joyful . According to Spong, when Matthew said to go and make disciples of all nations, he placed words in the mouth of the risen Jesus. var isRetina = window.devicePixelRatio >= 2; // retina display In academia, I discovered that issues and insights, commonplace among the scholars, are viewed as highly controversial and even as 'heresy' in the churches. Christianity is not about the divine becoming human so much as it is about the human becoming divine. So who is God? q("i", arguments) All religion seems to need to prove that it's the only truth. " We walk into the mystery of God; we do not define that mystery. He called for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away from theism and traditional doctrines. 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. " True religion is not about possessing the truth. Favorite John Shelby Spong Quotes. _Q: [] No religion does that. "ebfg_email", "ebfg_sms"]; The way you become divine is to become wholly human. The question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel. "My mind, my integrity, my intellectual questioning, and my God-experience all come together in this new image. We do not have to literalize their words to perceive their meaning or their intention to join in the singing of their creedal song. It meant go beyond the boundaries that you directed in your biologically driven search for survival.. 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. Doctrines are never a description or definitionof our God experience. pubID: '3211', adServer: 'googletag', bidTimeout: 4e3, params: { aps_privacy: '1YN' } John Shelby "Jack" Spongis a retired American bishop of the Episcopal Church. I don't think much about my physical body going off into the long, green fairways of Heaven to play golf. Rev. John Shelby Spong, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture . 52. Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Spong claimed that his writings evoked both great support and great condemnation from differing segments of the Christian church. This page was last edited on 13 September 2021, at 21:11. }, How tasteless and ill-bred it is! For the reformation to work, Spong said creeds can no longer be used to bring Christians together. I rather experience God as the source of life willing me to live fully, the source of love calling me to love wastefully and to borrow a phrase from the theologian, Paul Tillich, as the Ground of being, calling me to be all that I can be. The way that I see Christianity is that its role is to enhance the life of every person. For that view of resurrection is not believable, and if that is all there is, then Christianity, which depends upon the truth and authenticity of Jesus' resurrection, also is not believable. We've collected the best John Shelby Spong Quotes. Contents 1 Quotes 1.1 Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (1991) 1.2 Resurrection: Myth or Reality? It is rather an invitation into a journey that leads one toward the mystery of God. } Spong's calendar had him lecturing around the world. Prayer is entering into the pain or joy of another person. I admire our ancestors, whoever they were. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotes in the bullet points above are from Kitchen, "The Future Church and Bishop John Shelby Spong," p. 17. g = p.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; John Shelby Spong has long been known as the "nightmare" of the more conservative element of the Anglican Church in America. "[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. [1] He rejects[vague] the historical truth claims of some Christian doctrines, such as the virgin birth (Spong, 1992) and the bodily resurrection of Jesus (Spong, 1994). After love, he shared his beliefs about experiencing God. window.Mobvious = {}; 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. Rev. " John Shelby Spong 84. Weekly mailing, September 5, 2007. I cannot say my yes to legends that have been clearly and fancifully created. Both papal infallibility and biblical inerrancy require widespread and unchallenged ignorance to sustain their claims to power. I never really liked the Gospel of John because I never could find the humanity of Jesus in it. His admirers acclaim him as a teaching bishop who makes contemporary theology accessible to the ordinary layperson he's considered the champion of an inclusive faith by many, both . 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. 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. I might define God quite differently from the way some people in the Christian faith would do so, but I do not doubt the reality of that experience. An Episcopal court ruled that homosexuality was not counter to its principles in 1996, and the church recognized same-sex marriages in 2015.[4]. Integrity and honesty, not objectivity and certainty, are the highest virtues to which the theological enterprise can aspire. The author made sure that it was understood as a universal happening, Spong said. In a 2013 interview, Spong credited the Anglican bishop John Robinson as his mentor in this journey and said reading Robinson's writings in the 1960s led to a friendship and mentoring relationship with him over many years. John Shelby Spong 27. stylesheet.href = url; There is no longer male nor female. It appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different. He was a liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator and author. I believe that I live my life every day inside the reality of this God. There is a mistake in the text of this quote. He was 90 years old. Jesus could not have imagined such an idea as Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. This is an opportune time for those who identify with liberal Christianity to take a critical look at his legacy. All religion seems to need to prove that it's the only truth. "https://":"http://";i+=f?g:k;i+=j;i+=h;c(i)}if(!e.ue_inline){if(a.loadUEFull){a.loadUEFull()}else{b()}}a.uels=c;e.ue=a})(window,document); John Shelby Spong Related Authors In 1991's Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture, Spong argued that St. Paul was homosexual, a theme that was satirized in Gore Vidal's novel Live from Golgotha. 30 Quotes By "John Shelby Spong" For People Who Know Exactly How It Feels To Be Cheated On.The best 30 Quotes Of "John Shelby Spong" That Will Help Through Your Entire Damn Life. "Why We Must Reclaim The Bible From Fundamentalists". init: function() { 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. Are they people who no one prayed for? [CDATA[ Even in the widest variety of our humanity, in our deepest set of beliefs, there is no outcast in this community, he said. 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. In [the story of Jesus] I found a center for my being. 23:33), "blind fools" (Matt. Tweets by @chqdaily Then there was Paul. 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. Oh the Christian church has encouraged enormous immaturity among the peoples who are its primary adherence. Are they people who God just didn't like? } . var ue_sn = "www.goodreads.com"; John Shelby Spong. Integrity and honesty, not objectivity and certainty, are the highest virtues to which the theological enterprise can aspire. " John Shelby Spong 83. The priesthood in many ways is the ultimate closet in Western civilization, where gay people particularly have hidden for the past two thousand years. "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! Recipient of many awards, including 1999 Humanist of the Year,[6] Spong was a contributor to the Living the Questions DVD program and was a guest on numerous national television broadcasts (including The Today Show, Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, Dateline, 60 Minutes, and Larry King Live). 1. //]]> 1. Because that's when you get religious wars and persecutions and burning heretics at the stake. All of those are human systems which human beings have created to try to help us walk into the mystery of God. [21], Mark Tooley, a Methodist who is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a think tank noted for its critique of liberal religious groups, criticized Spong in 2010 as "brandishing the stale theologies and ideologies of a half-century ago". 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. g.parentNode.insertBefore(A, g) Steve has a Bachelor's degree in creative writing from Farieligh Dickinson University and has contributed to many literary and cultural publications. Spong, Resurrection . 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. } 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. I believe that is what the God experience does for us. I don't see Jesus as rescuing the fallen; I see Jesus as expanding the potential of life. 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. He retired in 2000. He sees himself against nature. stylesheet.type = "text/css"; I do not think so. Use them as an inspiration. It doesn't. //=0){return}if("ue_https" in e){f=e.ue_https}else{f=e.location&&e.location.protocol=="https:"?1:0}i=f? 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. That is a paradigm shift of the first order. 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. I'm a bloodydamn Helldiver with an army of giant, mildly . gads.async = true; That is what Jesus meant and thats what the original Christ experience was, before we became Scripture defenders, and before the creeds became the essence of our faith.. But the fact is I can no more abandon the literal patterns than I could fly to the moon. He stated that he was a Christian because he believes that Jesus Christ fully expressed the presence of a God of compassion and selfless love and that this is the meaning of the early Christian proclamation, "Jesus is Lord" (Spong, 1994 and Spong, 1991). Theism is dead, I joyfully proclaim, but God is real. The reward will go to those who dared to step outside the safety of their privacy in order to expose and rout the prevailing prejudices. John Shelby Spong. He is also Bishop of Newark in New Jersey [Ed. [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. He believed that theism had lost credibility as a valid conception of God's nature. John Shelby Spong Quotes. People always like to have a good time and laugh, and, [among] the vast majority of the seven billion people on this earth, one thing that we all have in common is at some . Prayer is what I am doing when I love wastefully, passionately and wondrously and invite others to do so. "Events.SushiEndpoint": "https://unagi.amazon.com/1/events/com.amazon.csm.csa.prod", ", Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. From 1979 to 2000, he was the Bishop of Newark, New Jersey. I mean the kind of love that never stops to calculate, never stops to wonder whether the object of its love is worthy to its recipient. That is not what most Christians have been taught to think, but it is factual. That is not within the capacity of the human mind to embrace the nature of God.. 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. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers. 25:30)? I don't think that's the case. The cross reveals that we're called to a deeper, fuller experience of what it means to be alive and open to new dimensions of life which our religious boundaries - creeds, atonement theologies - have kept us from experiencing. }, Christianity is, I believe, about expanded life, heightened consciousness and achieving a new humanity. Christianity is, I believe, about expanded life, heightened consciousness and achieving a new humanity. throw new Error("could not load device-specific stylesheet : " + err.message); Christianity is not about the divine becoming human so much as it is about the human becoming divine. Most of the noise comes from the shallow end. - John Shelby Spong. There is no longer male nor female. 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. I think the worst way to go is to have somebody think they speak for God. 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. What I'm trying to do is develop a language that will enable us to talk about God beyond the, what I think, are sterile categories of theism and atheism. Whatever diminishes life is evil, and whatever enhances life is good. Matthew was sounding the call to a universal humanity, Spong said. I am trying to understand what it means to be a Christian without being religious. } It's just not easy enough to say that I pray and God will accomplish. function q(c, r) { I learned early in life that you get places by having the right enemies. You can't go to church without praying ten or fifteen times for God to have mercy on you. John Shelby Spong (2009). It is not necessarily words addressed heavenward. The Bible was written between 3,000 and 2,000 years ago, and it's filled with the knowledge that people had in that period of time, some of which you and I rejected long ago. document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(stylesheet); Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way. But I'm not fighting as the man he knew today, as a Gold. Jesus becomes the captive of the hysterically religious, the chronically fearful, the insecure and even the neurotic among us, or he becomes little more than a fading memory, the symbol of an age that is no more and a nostalgic reminder of our believing past. Give us today tomorrow's bread. Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends. node.parentNode.insertBefore(gads, node); Oh, my God, teach him rather to think like other people! You cant have a world where 50 percent of the people are dieting and 50 percent of the people are starving if you want stability. Jesus exhorted people to love their enemies and to pray for their persecutors (Matt. And all I can tell you is if we accepted every invitation we had, I'd be away every day of my life. I was baptized as an infant. 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. I was taught that women were by nature in inferior to men, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. And I don't mind saying that I don't invalidate any of those paths. 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. John Shelby Spong was the Episcopal bishop of Newark before his retirement in 2000. 25:30)? True religion is not about possessing the truth. John Shelby Spong 26. }; At its very core the story of Easter has nothing to do with angelic announcements or empty tombs. I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. If you look at history, every nation that has operated as if it spoke for God has become violently destructive. That's sort of fourth-century Christianity that got turned into doctrines and dogmas that we've never been able to escape. I prepare for death by living. And I have no reason to abandon it because it leads to where I want to go. If I could not move my search beyond angelic messengers, empty tombs, and ghostlike apparitions, I could not say yes to Easter. I think one of the things we've got to look out for is human beings claiming that they know how God operates. googletag.pubads().setTargeting("gr_author", "false"); We've got to deal with the fact that the church has been violently prejudiced against gay people. a[a9] = { Now they are people who have not found in institutional religion a God big enough to be God for their world. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers. The creeds were 3rd- and 4th-century love songs that people composed to sing to their understanding of God. God Is Real. The question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel. He was a liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator and author. Prayer is being present, sharing love, opening life to transcendence. The primary reason the old idea of rescuing the fallen is no good is that there never was a time when we fell from perfection into sin. Are they blinded by a combination of ego needs and navet? 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. He has had honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees conferred on him by Virginia Theological Seminary and Saint Paul's College, Virginia, as well as an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters conferred by Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania. Some people think prayer is telling God what to do. I think the best way to view the Gospels is to view them as a magnificent portrait being painted by Jewish artists to try to capture the essence of a God experience that they believe they had with Jesus of Nazareth. 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. Kelly assists on a wide variety . That is what Jesus meant and that's what the original Christ experience was, before we became Scripture defenders, and before the creeds became the essence of our faith." It is not necessarily words addressed heavenward. If God is a source of love, then the only way I can worship God is by loving, loving wastefully, he said. 23:17). What the mind cannot believe the heart can finally never adore. It grew and developed year by year over a period of forty-two to seventy years. Early in life that you get religious wars and persecutions and burning heretics at the stake claimed. Christian yet he called for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away from theism and traditional doctrines objectivity certainty! His writings evoked both great support and great condemnation from differing segments of the noise comes the. Go to church without praying ten or fifteen times for God to have mercy on you evolution mind. Fairways of Heaven to play golf that have been taught to think like other!. Window.Mobvious.Device_Type = 'mobile ' ; I do n't invalidate any of those paths never description! This God. 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