john-shelby-spong Quotes About way

“My hope is that a religious consciousness will begin to rise, one based on enhancing humanity, grasping life in all of its complex wonder, having the courage to live fully, to love wastefully and to be all that each of us can be and that it will express itself in our national life in more earth centered, justice enhancing and humane ways.”

Way Love Earth Humanity Religious Justice Consciousness Wonder Complexes Humane Grasping Humane Way

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.”

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Author:John Shelby Spong

“A major function of fundamentalist religion is to bolster deeply insecure and fearful people. This is done by justifying a way of life with all of its defining prejudices. It thereby provides an appropriate and legitimate outlet for one's anger. The authority of an inerrant Bible that can be readily quoted to buttress this point of view becomes an essential ingredient to such a life. When that Bible is challenged, or relativized, the resulting anger proves the point categorically.”

Source: Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks this Meaning of Script

“Biblical higher criticism is preserved in the particular enclave of academic Christian scholarship and is thought to be too unfruitful to share with the average pew-sitter, for it raises more questions than the church can adequately answer. So the leaders of the church would protect the simple believers from concepts they were not trained to understand. In this way that ever-widening gap between academic Christians and the average pew-sitter made its first appearance.”

Way Firsts Made Christian Religion Church Simple Answers Leader Share Particular Higher Protect Concepts Criticism Raises Average Appearance Believer Gaps Academic Biblical Scholarship

Author:John Shelby Spong

“Hysterical fundamentalism is not the way into the future; it is the last gasp of the past.”

Way Lasts Past Fundamentalism Hysterical

Author:John Shelby Spong

“When we unravel the theological tomes of the ages, the makeup of God becomes quite clear. God is a human being without human limitations who is read into the heavens. We disguised this process by suggesting that the reason God was so much like a human being was that the human beings were in fact created in God's image. However, we now recognize that if was the other way around. The God of theism came into being as a human creation. As such, this God, too, was mortal and is now dying.”

Ifs Way Humans Reason Facts Age Heaven Process Human Beings Clear Dying Creation Mortals Limitation Makeup Theological Suggesting Theism

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

“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

“There's no way a human being can escape his or her human-ness to be able to imagine God. We can talk about how we've experienced God, not what or who God is.”

Way Humans Able Human Beings Imagine Who God Is

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

“[Charles] Darwin, for example, is the one who made us face the fact that the primary way we tell the Christ story doesn't work anymore.”

Way Made Facts Stories Faces Christ Example Primaries

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

“[Apostol Paul's] views were translated as, "Your rule is to be kind to black people; you don't beat them." It's very much the way we treated women in the 14th and 15th centuries. A woman was not human, and you should be kind to your wife like you are to all dumb animals. That was the mentality.”

People Way Should Humans Kind Black Animal Views Wife Century Like You Beats Treated Dumb Be Kind Black People Mentality

Author:John Shelby Spong

“Men didn't like to empty bedpans, so we made women nurses. Then men didn't like to do the administrative stuff, so women were allowed to become secretaries. That's the way they entered the work force. Then we began to educate them because they had to be educated. But it wasn't until after World War II that most of the great universities of this country became coeducational.”

Men World Way Made War Country Force Stuff Empty University Educated War Of The Worlds Educate World War Ii Nurse World War I Secretary Administrative

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

“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.”

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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

“If you want to be a Roman Catholic scholar and write, you've got to write in such a way that nobody understands what you're saying, and then you're thought to be profound.”

Ifs Way Want Writing Catholic Profound Scholar Roman Catholic

Author:John Shelby Spong

“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.'”

World Way Mean Different States Whole Left Police Terrorist Different Ways Police State Getting Along

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

“The Christians tried to separate themselves from the Jewish crowd so they wouldn't be the recipients of the persecution of the Romans. And the way they did it was to say, the Jews killed our hero too. And so Christians began to define themselves over against the orthodox party of the Jews as a way of surviving against the Roman onslaught.”

Way Christian Party Hero Jew Crowds Orthodox Persecution Surviving

Author:John Shelby Spong

“Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.”

Way Humans Made Religion Prayer Atheism Particular Human History Deities Request

Author:John Shelby Spong

“The way you become divine is to become wholly human”

Way Humans Divine

Author:John Shelby Spong

“The priesthood in many ways is the ultimate closet in Western civilization, where gay people particularly have hidden for the past two thousand years.”

People Way Years Two Past Religion Civilization Gay Thousand Ultimate Western Thousand Years Closets Gay People Priesthood Western Civilization

Author:John Shelby Spong

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