Spong, Resurrection Myth or Reality, p. 287. } googletag.pubads().setTargeting("signedin", "false"); g.parentNode.insertBefore(A, g) An Episcopal court ruled that homosexuality was not counter to its principles in 1996, and the church recognized same-sex marriages in 2015.[4]. The Bible was quoted to keep women silent, and the Bible lost. Rather "we are part of what God is and we are at one with all that God is." We. I call this God by different words. //]]> The question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel. A liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator, and author, he called for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away from theism and traditional doctrines. A.src = t; Top John Shelby Spong Quotes. His great-great-grandfather had emigrated to America from Kent, though the family name may . apstag.init({ John Shelby Spong Quotes. If you're really thinking prayer can stop rockets or bullets, you have to ask why some people do get hit by rockets or bullets. Spong was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and educated in public schools there. shortquotes.blog 1,000,000++ Short Quotes Browse top 25 most favorite famous quotes and sayings by John Shelby Spong. I admire our ancestors, whoever they were. There is no mention of him in any source before the 8th decade. I can only give away the love that I have received. Hollingworth said that it was not an appropriate moment for Spong to "engage congregations in matters that could prove theologically controversial". 12:34), "sons of vipers" (Matt. John Shelby "Jack" Spong (June 16, 1931 September 12, 2021) was an American bishop of the Episcopal Church. init: function() { It appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different. 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). [7] Spong was the cousin of the United States Senator from Virginia William B. Spong Jr. John Shelby Spong Quotes "God is not a Christian, God is not a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist. He was 90. Forcing the evolution is the dialog between yesterday's words and today's knowledge. var ue_furl = "fls-na.amazon.com"; John Shelby Spong has been called a heretic and worse. This self-denigration stuff - Jesus died for my sins - is nothing but a guilt message. 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. All religion seems to need to prove that it's the only truth. He began by admitting he still has no way of knowing who or what God is. 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. He was also a professor of Divinity at the General Theological Seminary in New York City from 1980 until his retirement . 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. If I could not move my search beyond angelic messengers, empty tombs, and ghostlike apparitions, I could not say yes to Easter. He was the eleventh Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester, New York from 1988 until 2000. All you can do is define the human experience of God, and that might be delusional. And I have no reason to abandon it because it leads to where I want to go. Gate tickets and other revenue cover only a portion of the cost of your Chautauqua experience. [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". throw new Error("could not load device-specific stylesheet : " + err.message); All of those are human systems which human beings have created to try to help us walk into the mystery of God. John Shelby Spong (2009). 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. url = "https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/mobile/phone_hd_images-2b89833762f600506d44865a33582d11.css"; In [the story of Jesus] I found a center for my being. It doesn't. Spong described his own life as a journey from the literalism and conservative theology of his childhood to an expansive view of Christianity. Oh the Christian church has encouraged enormous immaturity among the peoples who are its primary adherence. Above all, words must be recognized as symbolic pointers to truth, not objective containers of truth. 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. After love, he shared his beliefs about experiencing God. October 13, 2011. The church is like a swimming pool. Our motto is: Don't quote it if you can't source it. I think the worst way to go is to have somebody think they speak for God. According to The Episcopal Diocese of Newark, Bishop Spong suffered a stroke before a speaking engagement in Marquette, Michigan, on Saturday, September 10, 2016. 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. 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. John Shelby Spong. Prayer is being present, sharing love, opening life to transcendence. I don't see Jesus as rescuing the fallen; I see Jesus as expanding the potential of life. 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. [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. 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. John Shelby Spong Was Judas Iscariot a figure of history? Matthew was sounding the call to a universal humanity, Spong said. "ebfg_email", "ebfg_sms"]; By popular demand, here are his conservations with Tapestry from 2007 and 2009. , It meant go beyond the boundaries that you directed in your biologically driven search for survival.. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotes in the bullet points above are from Kitchen, "The Future Church and Bishop John Shelby Spong," p. 17. q("i", arguments) }()); Bishop John Shelby Spong, an Episcopal Church prelate whose liberal views rankled orthodox Episcopalians and others, died in his sleep Sunday morning, St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Morris. I spend my life studying that book, and every book I've written has in some sense been a book about the Bible, and that's what I mean by reclaiming its value and its essence for a world that no longer treats it literally and no longer reads it traditionally. He looks at the vastness of the universe and it looks hostile. It's like that crazy man down in Alabama who wanted to put the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. All we can ever say is how we believe we have experienced God, doing our best to dispel our human delusions. }); John Shelby Spong 25. Above all, words must be recognized as symbolic pointers to truth, not objective containers of truth. Jesus exhorted people to love their enemies and to pray for their persecutors (Matt. 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. if (a[a9]) return; //

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