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John Shelby Spong

John Shelby Spong Quotes

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John Shelby Spong is an American author and theologian known for his modern interpretations of Christian doctrine and his challenges to traditional religious beliefs. His work spans multiple fields, including religion, theology, history, and literature.

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Famous John Shelby Spong Quotes

“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.”

Religious Christianity Capacity Eternity Daring Living Fully

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I ... look at Jesus and see a humanity open to all that God is--open to life, open to love and open to being.”

Looks Humanity Jesus Christianity

Author:John Shelby Spong

“Every institution places its ultimate weight on preserving its own life. That is why the Church emphasizes loving God over loving one's neighbor.... The push for justice on the other hand might be at the center of the Gospel but it also attacks the balance of power in the society. Since the rich always exploit the poor, to give the poor power, dignity and humanity makes them less pliable, less cooperative.”

Giving Hands Might Humanity Church Justice Poor Christianity Rich Balance Dignity Ultimate Weight Institutions Neighbor Exploits Loving God Cooperatives Balance Of Power

Author:John Shelby Spong

“Theism, as a way of conceiving God, has become demonstrably inadequate, and the God of theism not only is dying but is probably not revivable. If the religion of the future depends on keeping alive the definitions of theism, then the human phenomenon that we call religion will have come to an end. If Christianity depends on a theistic definition of God, then we must face the fact that we are watching this noble religious system enter the rigor mortis of its own death throes.”

Ifs Way Humans Ends Facts Faces Religious Christianity Alive Atheism Dying Depends Definitions Positive Atheism Noble Phenomenon Inadequate Theism Rigor Conceiving Rigor Mortis

Author:John Shelby Spong

“Christianity is, I believe, about expanded life, heightened consciousness and achieving a new humanity. It is not about closed minds, supernatural interventions, a fallen creation, guilt, original sin or divine rescue.”

Mind Believe Humanity I Believe Sin Consciousness Christianity Achieve Creation Divine Originals Guilt Fallen Rescue Intervention Original Sin Closed Mind

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I think I could make the case for any kind of organized religion, but I'm not an expert in those, so let me narrow my focus to talk about Christianity.”

Thinking Kind Christianity Cases Focus Let Me Experts Organized Organized Religion

Author:John Shelby Spong

“The time has come for us to think of Christianity in a different way. Instead of thinking of God entering human life from outside in the person of Jesus, we have to begin to see human life evolving to the place where it opens itself into an experience of divinity.”

Thinking Way Humans Persons Different Jesus Christianity Evolve Human Life Different Ways Divinity Entering

Author:John Shelby Spong

“As for the status of Western Christianity, we are in a place where our task is to redefine the primary symbols of our faith or tradition in a more human direction. That's the thing I spend my time doing.”

Humans Christianity Tradition Tasks Western Symbols Primaries My Time

Author:John Shelby Spong

“We were born in a Jewish world, as part of a Jewish faith tradition. We had to translate ourselves into the neo-Platonic thinking Greek world; that took us about 400 years. Then, finally a man named Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo, recast Christianity in terms of neo-Platonic thought.”

Thinking Men World Years Term Born Christianity Tradition Greek Translate Bishops Platonic Augustine Hippo Jewish Faith

Author:John Shelby Spong

“There are some great values in Christianity, but I think the values are located more deeply in our humanity than they are in our religion. There are certainly some survival values.”

Thinking Values Humanity Christianity Survival Great Value

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I see Christianity in very humanistic terms.”

Term Christianity Humanistic

Author:John Shelby Spong

“The demolishment of the power of organized Christianity in the Western world to finally realize the emancipation of women and give them the vote in 1920. Women couldn't even own property in their own names until the last quarter of the 19th century in America.”

World Giving Lasts America Names Realizing Christianity Century Vote Property Western Organized Quarters 19th Century Emancipation Western World

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I look at American Christianity and I'm almost in despair. I don't want to be identified with it. The Christian vote in America is an anti-abortion, anti-homosexual vote. I consider that to be anti-female and anti-gay, and I don't want to be identified with a God who is anti-anything.”

Want Looks Christian America Christianity Gay Despair Female Vote Abortion Homosexual Anti Abortion Anti Gay

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I think we have to recover our spiritual nature. The way we have interpreted Christianity does not do that.”

Thinking Way Doe Spiritual Christianity Spiritual Nature

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I want to see Christianity enhance our humanity instead of rescue us from some fall. I don't want us to be depending on this supernatural God up in the sky; I want us to recognize that God is part of who we are and that we have to live out the meaning of God with other people. That means we must live in mutual respect and interdependence; it means we have to limit our own desires in order for the body politic to survive.”

People Want Mean Body Desire Humanity Order Fall Christianity Sky Limits Who We Are Mutual Rescue Want U Interdependence Mutual Respect

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I know that Arnold Toynby, the great historian, said he had always hoped the religions of the world would evolve until they began to bring the very best of each tradition into one tradition. He hoped that Christianity would be the one religion that finally incorporated the values of Hinduism and Buddhism, and enriched itself with them.”

Knows World Said Would Be Values Christianity Buddhism Tradition Evolve Historian Hinduism Hinduism And Buddhism

Author:John Shelby Spong

“Toward the end of his life, [Arnold] Toynby said the Christianity he saw developing was brittle, imperialistic and incapable of reforming itself.”

Said Ends Christianity Saws Developing Incapable

Author:John Shelby Spong

“You can't go to church without praying ten or fifteen times for God to have mercy on you. You can't sing "Amazing Grace" without reminding yourself that the reason God's grace is amazing is it saves a wretch like you. This self-denigration stuff - Jesus died for my sins - is nothing but a guilt message. That's the thing we've got to get out from under. That's not Christianity. That's sort of fourth-century Christianity that got turned into doctrines and dogmas that we've never been able to escape.”

“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 commentaries on the gospels were gentiles who were simply ignorant of the Jewish background, and I just thought they were prejudiced.”

People Writing Christian Lasts Reading Left Church Christianity Trouble Century Jew Backgrounds Ignorant Twentieth Century Commentary Interpreting Christian Church Gentiles

Author:John Shelby Spong

“The way that I see Christianity is that its role is to enhance the life of every person.”

Way Persons Christianity Roles

Author:John Shelby Spong

“If the resurrection of Jesus cannot be believed except by assenting to the fantastic descriptions included in the Gospels, then Christianity is doomed. 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.”

Ifs Religion Jesus Views Christianity Atheism Depends Authenticity Fantastic Description Resurrection Doomed Believable Jesus Resurrection

Book:Resurrection: myth or reality? : a bishop's search for the origins of Christianity

Source: Resurrection: myth or reality? : a bishop's search for the origins of Christianity