john-shelby-spong Quotes About thinking

“Plenty of people out there think of me as the Antichrist or the devil incarnate because I do not affirm the literal patterns of the Bible. But the fact is I can no more abandon the literal patterns than I could fly to the moon. I just go beyond them.”

People Thinking I Can Facts Moon Devil Patterns Plenty Abandon Literal Think Of Me Antichrist

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I don't think hell exists. I happen to believe in life after death but I don't think it's got a thing to do with reward and punishment. Religion is always in the control business and that's something which people don't really understand.”

People Thinking Believe Happens Hell Rewards Punishment Things To Do After Death Life After Death Reward And Punishment

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I think human beings are almost, by definition, religious people,in the sense that we ask questions of meaning, we anticipate future events, we deal with the issues of mortality from the first time we see a dead bird as a little child.”

People Thinking Firsts Humans Children Littles Asks Religious Human Beings Deals Issues Events Bird First Time Definitions Mortality Anticipate Future Events

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 powers of nature are so great, and our power is so inept. So,in order to cope with the incredible anxiety that human self-consciousness produced, I think we created God in our own image, and then portrayed this God as having supernatural power that we didn't have.”

Thinking Humans Self Order Consciousness Anxiety Incredibles Self Consciousness Supernatural Powers Power Of Nature

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

“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

“What happened in the Western world was that Plato ceased to be the way people thought. Aristotle was rediscovered, and the modern, educated world moved toward Aristotelian thinking.”

People Thinking World Way Happened Modern Moved Western Educated Plato Western World

Author:John Shelby Spong

“Some people think prayer is telling God what to do. I don't think that's the case.”

People Thinking Prayer Cases

Author:John Shelby Spong

“Some people think prayer stops bullets or rockets or land mines. It doesn't. That's magic, that's not God. Sometimes, you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

People Thinking Sometimes Prayer Magic Land Mines Bullets Rockets Wrong Time

Author:John Shelby Spong

“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. Are they people who no one prayed for? Are they people who God just didn't like? I don't think so.”

People Ifs Thinking Asks Prayer Bullets Rockets

Author:John Shelby Spong

“We have to start at ground zero and ask what it means to have a real connection with God and what it means to pray. We have to recast our whole understanding of God. We live on the other side of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Steven Hawking, a whole group of people who have recast the way we think about reality.”

People Thinking Way Mean Real Whole Reality Asks Understanding Sides Groups Praying Connections Zero Newton Isaac Copernicus Kepler Ground Zero Real Connection

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

“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

“If you're going to live in a community, you have to refrain from killing one another and stealing from one another. You must have honor and honesty in your dealings with one another. But I think the deeper thing that we need to do is to become so fully human that we don't grasp at life; we give life away. We give love away. We give being away. That is the ultimate work of religion.”

Ifs Thinking Needs Giving Humans Community Honesty Honor Ultimate Killing Deeper Stealing Refrain Dealings

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I think the story of the Christian faith is how you can become more deeply and fully human, not how you can become religious. And I don't see any indication that being religious makes you more moral.”

Thinking Humans Stories Christian Religious Moral Indication Christian Faith

Author:John Shelby Spong

“We didn't educate women, because the leaders then didn't think they were educable. That changed when a shortage of teachers developed, because men didn't get paid enough to teach school. Then men, who held the positions of power, sent women to teachers' colleges.”

Thinking Men Enough School Leader Teach Teacher Position Changed College Paid Educate Shortage Position Of Power

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 think if you're convinced that you're evil, and that God has had to rescue you, then the best you can be is grateful. But nobody ever loves the person they have to be perpetually grateful to. That's just not the way it works in humanity. You need to be set free. You need to be loved just as you are so that you can become all that you can be. That's the direction we have to turn the Christian message; when we do, it becomes universal.”

Ifs Thinking Way Needs Persons Christian Humanity Turns Evil Messages Universal Grateful Convinced Rescue

Author:John Shelby Spong

“We have a democracy within the bounds of a constitution which provides certain guarantees related to the basic humanity of every person. I think that's the best way to go.”

Thinking Way Persons Certain Humanity Democracy Constitution Bounds Best Way Related Guarantees

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I think the worst way to go is to have somebody think they speak for God. If you look at history, every nation that has operated as if it spoke for God has become violently destructive.”

Ifs Thinking Way Looks Speak Nations Worst Destructive Spokes

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I have no problem with anybody who wants to bear public witness to their religion, but I don't think they can do it on public property. They have to do it on private property. There's nothing unconstitutional about that.”

Thinking Want Problem Can Do Bears Property Witness No Problem Private Property Unconstitutional

Author:John Shelby Spong

“If I want to put a Christmas tree in my yard, or three crosses for the crucifixion story, that's fine. But if I try to use public property or a public school as a way to impress my religion on other people, I think that violates the constitution.”

People Ifs Thinking Way Want Trying Stories Use School Three Tree Fine Crosses Constitution Property Impress Yards Public School Crucifixion Christmas Tree

Author:John Shelby Spong

“We live in a very pluralistic society today. There are Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, atheists, Roman Catholics, Evangelical Christians, and Christians like me. There are a wide variety of religious expressions in this country. I think they all must be treated with respect and none of them must be given priority in the public arena.”

Thinking Country Today Christian Given Religious Expression Catholic Atheist Jew Wide Priorities Treated Like Me Buddhist Variety Arena Evangelical Roman Catholic Society Today

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 still hope. I wouldn't be in this position if I didn't. I love the church. I love the Bible. But I think we're in a time where we're desperately in need of a great reformation.”

Ifs Thinking Needs Stills Church Position Reformation

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I'm not writing for fundamentalists. I'm writing for the people who have been repelled by that kind of thinking and yet who think there might be something they haven't yet discovered.”

People Thinking Writing Kind Has Beens Might Havens

Author:John Shelby Spong

“Nobody in the scientific or medical world thinks that homosexuality is something that people choose. It's something we are. Now, I didn't choose to be heterosexual. I just woke up when I was about twelve years old and girls didn't look obnoxious to me any longer, but I didn't make a choice about the matter. I just responded to my own hormones.”

People Thinking World Years Looks Matter Choices Girl My Own Medical Twelve Homosexuality Hormones Obnoxious

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I go to a church here in New Jersey that is just a very exciting place, and I just love to be there on Sunday morning - I just sit there in a pew with my wife, that's all I do, but I'm very much a part of that congregation. We've got a fantastic rector,she brings in people from places like the United Theological Seminary in New Brighton, Minnesota, where you've got good teaching, and our people are being introduced to great material and they really respond. They're able to believe without crossing their fingers. And I think that's a real step forward.”

“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

“I think one of the things we've got to look out for is human beings claiming that they know how God operates.”

Thinking Knows Humans Looks Human Beings Know How

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God.”

People Thinking Giving God Dignity

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I admire our ancestors, whoever they were. I think the first self-conscious person must have shaken in his boots. Because as he becomes self-conscious, he's no longer part of nature. He sees himself against nature. He looks at the vastness of the universe and it looks hostile.”

Thinking Firsts Looks Persons Self Universe Conscious Admire Ancestor Boots Hostile Self Conscious Vastness

Author:John Shelby Spong

“The God of the Hebrews is a God that human language, we're not even supposed to speak the holy name. We were told in the Second Commandment we could make no images of this God, and I don't think that means just building idols, I think that means also trying to believe you've captured God in your words, in the Creeds, in the Scriptures.”

Thinking Trying Believe Humans Mean Names Speak Language Building Holy Scripture Idols Creeds Commandments Captured Hebrew Human Language

Author:John Shelby Spong

“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. 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.”

Thinking Trying Humans God Helping Christian Religion Human Beings Walks Mystery Honor Walking Tradition Jew Buddhist Theologian Defining Bishops Christian God Mystery Of God

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I do not think of God theistically, that is, as a being, supernatural in power, who dwells beyond the limits of my world. 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.”

Thinking World Love I Can Willing Source Calling Limits Mindfulness Phrases Theologian Source Of Life

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I don't think much about my physical body going off into the long, green fairways of heaven to play golf.”

Thinking Long Play Body Heaven Green Golf Physical Body

Author:John Shelby Spong

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