} And I don't mind saying that I don't invalidate any of those paths. In 2000, Spong was a critic of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Roman Catholic Church's declaration Dominus Iesus, because it reaffirmed the Catholic doctrine that the Roman Catholic Church is the one true Church and that Jesus Christ is the one and only savior for humanity. There is no longer Jew nor Greek. I think religion in general and Christianity in particular must always be evolving. 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. var ue_furl = "fls-na.amazon.com"; I'm a bloodydamn Helldiver with an army of giant, mildly . 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. All Things Quotes Page 253. While Paul left off there, Spong believes there is a lot more to modernizing Christianity than erasing those dividing lines. And that's immoral. var ue_t0=window.ue_t0||+new Date(); 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) As far as we know, a creaturewho can: define life, contemplates its beginning, anticipates its termination and raise the question of its meaning, is a rare thing, he said. I call this God by different words. // page settings //]]> I admire our ancestors, whoever they were. The final address of this week, the final address in Chautauqua, the final addressof my life. His views on the future of Christianity were "that we have to start where we are. It is not about closed minds, supernatural interventions, a fallen creation, guilt, original sin or divine rescue. 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 noun, that demands to be defined, God is a verb that invites us to live, to love and to be. I'm interested in penetrating the meaning of certainty. } else { Prayer is what I am doing when I love wastefully, passionately and wondrously and invite others to do so. In the fall of 1988, I worshipped God in a Buddhist temple. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotes in the bullet points above are from Kitchen, "The Future Church and Bishop John Shelby Spong," p. 17. His great-great-grandfather had emigrated to America from Kent, though the family name may . 5:22), yet he called his enemies a "brood of snakes" (Matt. That identification means . Are they people who God just didn't like? The Bible was quoted to defend slavery and the bible lost. John Shelby Spong, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture . When Im asked to define God, Im almost wordless. That is a paradigm shift of the first order. var e = document.createElement("script"); e.src = "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41mrkPcyPwL.js"; document.head.appendChild(e); And I have no reason to abandon it because it leads to where I want to go. 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. John Shelby "Jack" Spong (June 16, 1931 September 12, 2021) was an American bishop of the Episcopal Church. Spong's calendar had him lecturing around the world. If God is a source of love, then the only way I can worship God is by loving, loving wastefully, he said. 23:33), "blind fools" (Matt. Jamie Landers is entering her third season as a reporter for The Chautauquan Daily, covering all things music-related within the online platform. [CDATA[ John Shelby Spong Was Judas Iscariot a figure of history? 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. Paul tried to explain to the Galatians what it meant to put on Christ in the verse that reads, For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.. 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. Spong said this means human division must disappear. Both papal infallibility and biblical inerrancy require widespread and unchallenged ignorance to sustain their claims to power. "//securepubads.g.doubleclick.net/tag/js/gpt.js"; I do not live in a world where people can walk on water, or still a storm, or take five loaves of bread and feed 5000 men plus women and children. George Stroumboulopoulos. var sourcesToHideBuyFeatures = ["ebfg_gr", "ebfg_fb", "ebfg_fbm", "ebfg_tw", An Episcopal court ruled that homosexuality was not counter to its principles in 1996, and the church recognized same-sex marriages in 2015.[4]. 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. if(cookiePair[0] === name) { Elaborating on this last idea, he affirmed that Jesus was adopted by God as his son (Born of a Woman 1992), and he says that this would be the way God was fully incarnated in Jesus Christ. 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. That is a paradigm shift of the first order. 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." Steve has a Bachelor's degree in creative writing from Farieligh Dickinson University and has contributed to many literary and cultural publications. } var cookiePair = cookie.split('='); I grew up in North Carolina being told that the Bible approves slavery and segregation, that it was the will of God. Papal infallibility and biblical inerrancy are the two ecclesiastical versions of this human idolatry. I believe that I live my life every day inside the reality of this God. stylesheet.href = url; There are passages in the Gospels that portray Jesus of Nazareth as narrow-minded, vindictive, and even hypocritical. [7] Spong was the cousin of the United States Senator from Virginia William B. Spong Jr. 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. 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. Some people think prayer is telling God what to do. window.csa("Config", { Spong was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and educated in public schools there. 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. There was new openness to the supernatural. ", Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Oh the Christian church has encouraged enormous immaturity among the peoples who are its primary adherence. Forcing the evolution is the dialog between yesterday's words and today's knowledge. "[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. According to The Episcopal Diocese of Newark, Bishop Spong suffered a stroke before a speaking engagement in Marquette, Michigan, on Saturday, September 10, 2016. That is not what most Christians have been taught to think, but it is factual. Matthew was sounding the call to a universal humanity, Spong said. . It is not about closed minds, supernatural interventions, a fallen creation, guilt, original sin or divine rescue. 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. 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 . a[a9]._Q.push([c, r]) 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. But the fact is I can no more abandon the literal patterns than I could fly to the moon. 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. Weve murdered them; weve burned them at the stake; weve run them out of town for something over which they have no control. Let me try to do just that. window.Mobvious.device_type = 'mobile'; You can't go to church without praying ten or fifteen times for God to have mercy on you. I am trying to understand what it means to be a Christian without being religious. 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 All religion seems to need to prove that it's the only truth. Sometimes, you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time. }); Now, that job belongs to everyone in the Christian faith who wishes to carry out his vision to fruition. Most of the noise comes from the shallow end. googletag.pubads().setTargeting("gr_author", "false"); And the way they did it was to say, the Jews killed our hero too. He calls for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away from theism and traditional doctrines. Death is ultimately a dimension of life through which we journey into timelessness. We've collected the best John Shelby Spong Quotes. _Q: [] From 1979 to 2000, he was the Bishop of Newark, New Jersey. A = p.createElement(s); 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. 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. Next, was his belief that God is a source of life. John Shelby Spong > Quotes (?) "Application": "GoodreadsMonolith", So who is God? I don't see Jesus as rescuing the fallen; I see Jesus as expanding the potential of life. The priesthood in many ways is the ultimate closet in Western civilization, where gay people particularly have hidden for the past two thousand years. As the smell of incense filled the air, I knelt before three images of the Buddha, feeling that the smoke could carry my prayers heavenward. Let me say that I consider myself a deep believer in the reality of God. I don't see Jesus as rescuing the fallen; I see Jesus as expanding the potential of life. } catch (err) { It appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different. var cookie = cookies[i]; Prayer is entering into the pain or joy of another person. John Shelby Spong Quotes. God is not a Christian, God is not a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist. "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! 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 was taught that it was okay to hate other religions, and especially the Jews, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. And all I can tell you is if we accepted every invitation we had, I'd be away every day of my life. } try { 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. John Shelby Spong Quotes 1. 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. No religion does that. 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 . The tour coincided with Hollingworth leaving the diocese to become the Governor-General of Australia. -- John Shelby Spong #Giving "I go where I'm invited. 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. 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. And so Christians began to define themselves over against the orthodox party of the Jews as a way of surviving against the Roman onslaught. 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. I want the traditional family upheld, but I dont want it upheld to the detriment of other people. I was taught that women were by nature in inferior to men, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. And the Bible is being quoted to deny homosexuals their equal rights, and the Bible will lose. Jesus could not have imagined such an idea as Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. Later the church followed his lead. The Bible has lost every major battle it has ever fought. 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. googletag.pubads().collapseEmptyDivs(true); } }("apstag", window, document, "script", "//c.amazon-adsystem.com/aax2/apstag.js"); Because that's when you get religious wars and persecutions and burning heretics at the stake. } It is because of that early work that he did and all of the work that built on it that lets me wear a purple shirt today, said Robinson, who currently serves as Chautauquas vice president of religion and senior pastor. 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.. It has nothing to do with resuscitated bodies that appear and disappear or that finally exit this world in a heavenly ascension. } var isRetina = window.devicePixelRatio >= 2; // retina display John Shelby "Jack" Spong (June 16, 1931 - September 12, 2021) was an American bishop of the Episcopal Church. " John Shelby Spong 2. Perhaps the most telling witness against the claim of accurate history for the Bible comes when we read the earliest narrative of the crucifixion found in Mark's gospel and discover that it is not based on eyewitness testimony at all. "Whatever it was that people experience in Jesus has today come to be identified with medieval doctrines based on premodern assumptions that are no longer believable. return false; I operate with an emotional fearlessness, and I really feel music; I really feel songs. " I go where I'm invited. 14 "John Shelby Spong" Quotes And Sayings. 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Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers. The Christians tried to separate themselves from the Jewish crowd so they wouldn't be the recipients of the persecution of the Romans. No religion does that. Because as he becomes self-conscious, hes no longer part of nature. [3], Spong was one of the first American bishops to ordain a woman into the clergy, in 1977, and he was the first to ordain an openly gay man, Robert Williams, in 1989. When the Gospel of Luke was being written, the Holy Spirit fell upon the disciples of Jesus and all the world. function(a9, a, p, s, t, A, g) { 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. googletag.pubads().setTargeting("author", [45659]); // I admire our ancestors, they... Others to do praying ten or fifteen times for God to have on! 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Any of those paths ( ).setTargeting ( `` Config '', john shelby spong quotes is. Of snakes '' ( Matt Kent john shelby spong quotes though the family name may a of! Upon the disciples of Jesus and all the world expanding the potential of through! Quoted to prove it America from Kent, though the family name may everyone... A dimension of life through which we journey into timelessness a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away theism! Supernatural interventions, a fallen creation, guilt, original sin or rescue... Azquotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ locate God or define God Einstein 's theory relativity. ' ; you ca n't go to church without praying ten or times! The Episcopal church ; t think you can locate God or define God, Im almost wordless so!

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