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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

“Apologetic explanations do not develop unless there is a reality that has to be explained and defended. Jesus was undeniably a figure of history.”

Reality Jesus Figures Explanation Apologetic

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

“Jesus' power is the power of human wholeness that ultimately opens, invites and enables human beings to step beyond defense lines where incomplete humanity always hides in order to experience full humanity.”

Humans Humanity Order Jesus Lines Human Beings Steps Defense Invites Wholeness Incomplete

Author:John Shelby Spong

“Moral judgment is not life-giving; love that transcends the boundaries of judgment as Jesus' love did, is.”

Giving Jesus Justice Moral Judgment Boundaries Jesus Love Giving Love Moral Judgment

Author:John Shelby Spong

“The primary message of the Christian Church is that we were born in sin and we need to be rescued; we cannot rescue ourselves, so God comes to our rescue, pays the price of our sin and transforms us through the death of Jesus.”

Needs Christian Jesus Born Church Sin Pay Messages Primaries Rescue Pay The Price Christian Church

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I don't see Jesus as rescuing the fallen; I see Jesus as expanding the potential of life. 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.”

Life Ideas Reason Jesus Religious Sin Perfection Primaries Fallen Rescue Theologian Expanding Bishops Old Ideas

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

“I'd like to turn the whole Jesus story around and look at it from a different vantage point, to consider that he was a human being who achieved such promise of humanity that he entered into what I think God is: mainly, the power of life, the power of love and what Paul Tillich, a German theologian of the mid-twentieth century, called "the ground of all being."”

Thinking Humans Looks Different Whole Stories Humanity Turns Jesus Human Beings Century Promise Theologian Twentieth Century Power Of Love Vantage Point

Author:John Shelby Spong

“That's why the virgin birth never gets rid of the human mother. The story only gets rid of the human father. So Jesus' life was the life of God nurtured through the Virgin Mary. That's because the virgin birth died as a literal story as soon as we discovered that women had an egg cell. It's interesting to watch what the Roman church did about that.”

Humans Stories Mother Father Jesus Church Interesting Watches Birth Died Cells Eggs Mary Virgins Literal Virgin Mary Virgin Birth

Author:John Shelby Spong

“Now, if Mary has an egg cell, then Jesus gets 50 percent of his genetic make up from his mother. And if his mother is a child of Adam, she, too,is fallen so Jesus is not perfect.”

Ifs Children Mother Jesus Perfect Percent Cells Fallen Eggs Adam Mary Not Perfect

Author:John Shelby Spong

“The church had to find a way to protect Jesus' perfection so that he could do the work of salvation which, in their frame of reference, only God could do, because God had to come into this world from outside this world to rescue the fallen creation.”

World Way Jesus Church Creation This World Protect Perfection Salvation Fallen Rescue Frame Of Reference

Author:John Shelby Spong

“Our problem is not that we're fallen; our problem is we haven't become human yet. The question is, what can make us human, so that we can give life away and give love away and not be grasping after trying to protect our own lives all the time? That's the way I see the Jesus story, and I think it's a powerful and profound story.”

Thinking Way Giving Trying Humans Stories Problem Jesus Powerful Havens Protect Profound Fallen Grasping

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I think Jesus is a fact of history. I think a man named Jesus of Nazareth lived and was crucified. I think his death interpreted his life in a fantastic way, because if you study that life carefully underneath an overlay of theology and mythology, you'll find that the power of that life was that he was constantly giving himself away. He was constantly calling people to be all that they could be.”

People Ifs Thinking Men Way Giving Facts Jesus Study Calling Mythology Theology Fantastic Nazareth

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I find it fascinating that Paul [the apostol], writing to the Galatians, responds to the question, "What does it mean to live in Christ?" by saying, "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."”

Writing Mean Doe Jesus Christ Female Slave Males Jew Greek Fascinating Galatians

Author:John Shelby Spong

“The Jesus experience expanded people into a position where they didn't have to have defensive tribal lives, "God loves my people, my tribe, anddoesn't like yours." The Bible is full of such references.”

People Jesus Position Like You God Love Tribes

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.”

“I think I can tell you how I experience God. I experience God as the power of life calling me to live, I experience God as the power of love calling me to love. That's the God I see in Jesus of Nazareth, that's the God I see in the fourth gospel.”

Thinking I Can Jesus Calling Fourth Power Of Love Nazareth

Author:John Shelby Spong

“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. The moment he's put to death on the cross is when he shows forth glory, and the reason that is, is that he became free enough to give his life away and to love those who were taking it from him. And that's what God is all about. That's the mystical point of view that was hidden from me for years.”

Giving Years Reason Enough Moments Shows Jesus Views Glory Crosses Point Of View Resurrection Fourth Mystical

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.”

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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

“"I do not believe that Jesus, at the end of his earthly sojourn, returned to God by ascending in any literal sense into a heaven located somewhere in the sky. My knowledge of the size of this universe reduces that concept to nonsense."”

Believe Ends Universe Jesus Heaven Sky Concepts Size Nonsense Literal Ascending

Author:John Shelby Spong

“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. To me, neither option is worth pursuing.”

Believe Littles Age Past Jesus Religious Memories Symbols Fearful Insecure Reminders Neurotic Nostalgic Captives Fading

Book:Jesus for the Non-Religious

Source: Jesus for the Non-Religious