14 "John Shelby Spong" Quotes And Sayings. The church is like a swimming pool. Spong claimed that his writings evoked both great support and great condemnation from differing segments of the Christian church. googletag.pubads().enableSingleRequest(); I was taught that it was okay to hate other religions, and especially the Jews, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. stylesheet.rel = "stylesheet"; I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. He is as radically liberal as it is possible to be and still maintain a nominal identification with the name "Christian.". Spong described his own life as a journey from the literalism and conservative theology of his childhood to an expansive view of Christianity. The Bible has lost every major battle it has ever fought. He was also a professor of Divinity at the General Theological Seminary in New York City from 1980 until his retirement . 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. February 7, 2019 You learn that you either are going to have a police state where you don't have any freedom left, or you're going to build a world that doesn't create terrorists - and that means a whole different way of 'getting along.' John Shelby Spong/ freedom shortquotes.blog 1,000,000++ Short Quotes Spong proffers a third way, one that involves being "fully human." We are not really separated from God, he asserts. I cannot say my yes to legends that have been clearly and fancifully created. The God of the Hebrews is a God that human language, we're not even supposed to speak the holy name. And I have no reason to abandon it because it leads to where I want to go. I think the worst way to go is to have somebody think they speak for God. 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." Weekly mailing, September 5, 2007. var node = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; I am content to learn from them and to walk with them side by side toward the God who lives, I believe, beyond the images that bind and blind us. "https:" : "http:") + So who is God? 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. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers. (1994) 2 External links Quotes [ edit] ! So if God is a source of life, then the only way I can appropriately worship God is by living fully.. Because as he becomes self-conscious, hes no longer part of nature. . John Shelby Spong I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. The final address of this week, the final address in Chautauqua, the final addressof my life. V. Gene Robinson was able to publicly thank the man he said are the shoulders on which (Robinson) stands.. return false; window.Mobvious.device_type = 'mobile'; if (a[a9]) return; 23:33), "blind fools" (Matt. (function() { The audience that I try to reach are members of what I call the church alumni association. 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. }); throw new Error("could not load device-specific stylesheet : " + err.message); 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. That's sort of fourth-century Christianity that got turned into doctrines and dogmas that we've never been able to escape. 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. googletag.pubads().setTargeting("sid", "osid.a1fff312af8a1d2b3b241fa9193829a2"); 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. return true; [7] Spong was the cousin of the United States Senator from Virginia William B. Spong Jr. 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 Bible interprets life from its particular perspective; it does not record in a factual way the human journey through history. //]]> That's not Christianity. John Shelby Spong I Am 21st Century Child Am "I believe that God is very real. 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 And I dont mind saying that I dont invalidate any of those paths. It appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different. 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I describe God as the source of life and the source of love and the ground of being. I am trying to understand what it means to be a Christian without being religious. He looks at the vastness of the universe and it looks hostile. I call this God by different words. At 82, retired and enjoying life, Bishop John Shelby Spong doesn't have to be the liberal enfant terrible whose pronouncements for gay rights and against traditional dogmas once . With the need for constant evolution in mind, Spong created his personal mantra. His views on the future of Christianity were "that we have to start where we are. 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. Most of the noise comes from the shallow end. And thats immoral. JOHN SHELBY SPONG: The first homosexual person that I ordained knowingly was a man named Robert Williams. 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. if (window.Mobvious === undefined) { Matthew was not alone in his understanding of Jesus message. 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 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. It is not about closed minds, supernatural interventions, a fallen creation, guilt, original sin or divine rescue. Gate tickets and other revenue cover only a portion of the cost of your Chautauqua experience. 50. I don't have any interest in doing that. I think the first self-conscious person must have shaken in his boots. 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. The trouble with Christianity was that by about 150, there were hardly any Jews left in the Christian church, and so from that time until the last part of the twentieth century, the only people reading the gospels and interpreting the gospels and writing . John Shelby Spong passed away at his home in North Carolina according to an announcement from the Richmond, Virginia parish he once pastored. setDisplayBids: function() {}, Oh, my God, teach him rather to think like other people! [8], Spong's writings rely on Biblical and non-Biblical sources and were influenced by modern critical analysis of these sources (see especially Spong, 1991). In [the story of Jesus] I found a center for my being. True religion is not about possessing the truth. 'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+"://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); Copyright 2018 Chautauqua Institution Prayer is entering into the pain or joy of another person. Jesus could not have imagined such an idea as Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. Our motto is: Don't quote it if you can't source it. A liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator, and author, he called for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away from theism and traditional doctrines.[1]. The Rt. " John Shelby Spong 2. return null; He held visiting positions and gave lectures at major American theological institutions, most prominently at Harvard Divinity School. After love, he shared his beliefs about experiencing God. I think the first self-conscious person must have shaken in his boots. He is a liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator and author. 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. 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. !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}(); I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. [5] Spong also honors Robinson as a mentor in the opening pages of his 2002 book A New Christianity for a New World. "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); George Stroumboulopoulos. var gads = document.createElement("script"); I was married before the church's altar; trained at the church's seminaries, ordained deacon and priest at age 24. God is a presence that I can never define but I could never deny. googletag.cmd = googletag.cmd || []; 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. Showing 1-30 of 46 "God is not a Christian, God is not a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist. 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 84. Theism is dead, I joyfully proclaim, but God is real. All of those are human systems which human beings have created to try to help us walk into the mystery of God. Spong said the only way his mission can be successful is if his mantra is carried out without any set of boundaries. God Is Real. You can't go to church without praying ten or fifteen times for God to have mercy on you. John Shelby Spong has been called a heretic and worse. [CDATA[ I think that's not only tough, but ultimately disappointing to most people. } catch (err) { The question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel. stylesheet.href = url; 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 . "[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. 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). There are more than 14 quotes written by John Shelby Spong on our site. (wikipedia) Born On June 16, 1931. October 13, 2011. I want the traditional family upheld, but I dont want it upheld to the detriment of other people. No religion does that. "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! [Religion News Service] Retired Newark Bishop John Shelby Spong, a bestselling author and cleric known for his progressive theology and his support of LGBTQ+ clergy in The Episcopal Church, has died. 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. It is simply a fact of his upbringing, along with a personal desire to continue being a disciple of Jesus. The ultimate meaning of the Bible escapes human limits and calls us to a recognition that every life is holy, every life is loved, and every life is called to be all that that life is capable of being. 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. "[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. States Senator from Virginia William B. Spong Jr from Virginia William B. Spong Jr on site. 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