Matthew was sounding the call to a universal humanity, Spong said. Prayer is entering into the pain or joy of another person. I want to say something positively, something about the conclusion that I presently hold and bear witness to why I continue to be a member of this community.. I admire our ancestors, whoever they were. [19][20] After Spong's book Jesus for the Non-Religious was published in 2007, Peter Jensen, the Archbishop of Sydney, banned Spong from preaching at any churches in his diocese. 50. Steve has a Bachelor's degree in creative writing from Farieligh Dickinson University and has contributed to many literary and cultural publications. This page was last edited on 13 September 2021, at 21:11. John Shelby Spong Quote of the day Teach him to think for himself? I cannot possibly conceive of my planet Earth as the centre of a three-tiered universe. From 1979 to 2000, he was the Bishop of Newark, New Jersey. I do not think of God theistically, that is, as a being, supernatural in power, who dwells beyond the limits of my world. John Shelby Spong has been called a heretic and worse. I'm a bloodydamn Helldiver with an army of giant, mildly . John Shelby Spong Quotes. Even in the widest variety of our humanity, in our deepest set of beliefs, there is no outcast in this community, he said. I learned early in life that you get places by having the right enemies. Perhaps the most telling witness against the claim of accurate history for the Bible comes when we read the earliest narrative of the crucifixion found in Mark's gospel and discover that it is not based on eyewitness testimony at all. God Is Real. 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It has been a wonderful trip, and I am sad it is coming to an end.. May your reign come. If that is a requirement of my commitment to Jesus, I . I was taught that women were by nature in inferior to men, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. window.Mobvious.device_type = 'mobile'; He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1952. I don't think so. Oh the Christian church has encouraged enormous immaturity among the peoples who are its primary adherence. 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). I do not live in a world where people can walk on water, or still a storm, or take five loaves of bread and feed 5000 men plus women and children. " True religion is not about possessing the truth. That's the thing we've got to get out from under. John Shelby Spong 2 I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is 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." There is no one who has been braver and ready to take whatever came his way for saving the truth., At 2 p.m. on Thursday, June 28, in the Hall of Philosophy, Spong, retired Episcopal bishop of Newark, discussed Matthew, his mantra and his legacy during his last lecture of the week and his career, titled Universalism: The Future of Christianity and Why I Remain a Christian, for Week Ones interfaith theme, Producing a Living Faith Today?, Todays the day, Spong said. About us. I was confirmed as an adolescent; I was active in my church's youth group and in my university student group. The way you become divine is to become wholly human. And I have no reason to abandon it because it leads to where I want to go. In the first gospel, Mark, the risen Christ appears physically to no one, but by the time we come to the last gospel, John, Thomas is invited to feel the nail prints in Christ's hands and feet and the spear wound in his side. Are they blinded by a combination of ego needs and navet? " John Shelby Spong 84. I believe that God is very real. var googletag = googletag || {}; [CDATA[ He has also lectured at universities, conference centers, and churches in North . But the irony was that as he was making his case, modernity was ending and postmodernity starting, and his rationalist perspective became pass. He looks at the vastness of the universe and it looks hostile. Praying and living deeply, richly and fully have become for me almost indistinguishab le. }); googletag.pubads().setTargeting("sid", "osid.a1fff312af8a1d2b3b241fa9193829a2"); 52. Christianity has always been an evolving story. Next, was his belief that God is a source of life. 1. googletag.pubads().setTargeting("grsession", "osid.a1fff312af8a1d2b3b241fa9193829a2"); // page settings John Shelby Spong Buddhist, Prayer, Believe Praying and living deeply, richly and fully have become for me almost indistinguishab le. His admirers acclaim him as a teaching bishop who makes contemporary theology accessible to the ordinary layperson he's considered the champion of an inclusive faith by many, both . g = p.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; Let me try to do just that. It is not about closed minds, supernatural interventions, a fallen creation, guilt, original sin or divine rescue. I describe God as the source of life and the source of love and the ground of being. John Shelby Spong (born November 29, 1935) is an American Episcopal priest and author. John Shelby Spong 26. [22] Following Spong's death, Tooley told The Washington Times that "he [Spong] claimed that he was making religion relevant for a new generation who could not believe in the supernatural, often citing his daughters. var url; He died peacefully in his sleep on Sunday morning," St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond . He was the eleventh Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester, New York from 1988 until 2000. The Christian story did not drop from heaven fully written. All of those are human systems which human beings have created to try to help us walk into the mystery of God. Favorite John Shelby Spong Quotes. 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. I was baptized as an infant. He claims he is a Christian yet he champions causes that historic Christianity has often . It calls us beyond our limits into the fullness of life - into a capacity to love people we are not taught to love - and into an ability to be who we are. . "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); John Shelby Spong I Am 21st Century Child Am "I believe that God is very real. No one can finally say. Chautauqua Institution is a non-profit organization, dependent upon your gifts to fulfill its mission. No one can do that, Spong said. All you can do is define the human experience of God, and that might be delusional. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination. There was new openness to the supernatural. apstag.init({ "Walking into the Mystery of God" by John Shelby Spong, www.uua.org. In 1991's Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture, Spong argued that St. Paul was homosexual, a theme that was satirized in Gore Vidal's novel Live from Golgotha. If I were a child of Tibet or of Arabia, I suspect the path Id walk would be the Buddhist path or the Muslim path. My mantra is intended only to be my statement at this time, of where I am today (and) the place of which I have arrived on what might be the last days of my journey, he said. q("i", arguments) q("f", arguments) }); Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers. Part 2 of the all things quotations list about every-one and in-its-entirety sayings citing Jay Baruchel, David Frum and David Frum captions. It is because of that early work that he did and all of the work that built on it that lets me wear a purple shirt today, said Robinson, who currently serves as Chautauquas vice president of religion and senior pastor. Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends, There is a mistake in the text of this quote. } else { Although he has been a Christian his entire life, he does not believe it makes him superior to anyone. Is there a different Bible? return null; I might define God quite differently from the way some people in the Christian faith would do so, but I do not doubt the reality of that experience. If I were a child of Tibet or of Arabia, I suspect the path I'd walk would be the Buddhist path or the Muslim path. The author made sure that it was understood as a universal happening, Spong said. He is as radically liberal as it is possible to be and still maintain a nominal identification with the name "Christian.". Because that's when you get religious wars and persecutions and burning heretics at the stake. What I'm trying to do is develop a language that will enable us to talk about God beyond the, what I think, are sterile categories of theism and atheism. 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 . " John Shelby Spong 83. var gptAdSlots = gptAdSlots || []; }("apstag", window, document, "script", "//c.amazon-adsystem.com/aax2/apstag.js"); //]]> John Shelby Spong Related Authors The Christianity of the future cannot live inside the doctrines of the past, Spong said. -- John Shelby Spong #Giving "I go where I'm invited. !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)? The author of this book is not a single individual, but is at least three different writers/editors, who did their layered work over a period of 25 to 30 years. 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. window.Mobvious = {}; It's like that crazy man down in Alabama who wanted to put the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. Spong proffers a third way, one that involves being "fully human." We are not really separated from God, he asserts. I don't have any interest in doing that. Why dont we understand that? John Shelby Spong, whose books have sold more than a million copies, was bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark for 24 years before his retirement in 2001. The reward will go to those who dared to step outside the safety of their privacy in order to expose and rout the prevailing prejudices. An Episcopal court ruled that homosexuality was not counter to its principles in 1996, and the church recognized same-sex marriages in 2015.[4]. Spong said the only way his mission can be successful is if his mantra is carried out without any set of boundaries. var cookies = document.cookie.split('; '); Weekly mailing, September 5, 2007. gads.src = (useSSL ? 25:30)? John Shelby "Jack" Spong (June 16, 1931 September 12, 2021) was an American bishop of the Episcopal Church. 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. window.csa("Events")("setEntity", { V. Gene Robinson was able to publicly thank the man he said are the shoulders on which (Robinson) stands.. 25:30)? Weve murdered them; weve burned them at the stake; weve run them out of town for something over which they have no control. I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. He believed that theism had lost credibility as a valid conception of God's nature. All Things Quotes Page 253. 5:44) and never to call others by demeaning or hurtful names (Matt. 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. " John Shelby Spong 2. A.async = !0; Shelby Harris. All of those are human systems which human beings have created to try to help us walk into the mystery of God. , The sin of Christianity is that any of us ever claimed that we had somehow captured eternal truth in the forms we had created. I think the first self-conscious person must have shaken in his boots. He believed in a more nuanced approach to scripture, informed by scholarship and compassion, which can be consistent with both Christian tradition and contemporary understandings of the universe. 23:33), "blind fools" (Matt. JOHN SHELBY SPONG: The first homosexual person that I ordained knowingly was a man named Robert Williams. return true; Steve is an accomplished poet and social media expert based in Brooklyn, New York. 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. The Bible interprets life from its particular perspective; it does not record in a factual way the human journey through history. Part 2 of the part time quotations list about odd-job and salaried sayings citing John Shelby Spong, Rob Lowe and Keith Ellison captions. I'm interested in penetrating the meaning of certainty. if (isRetina) { Kelly assists on a wide variety . You can't go to church without praying ten or fifteen times for God to have mercy on you. [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). if (a[a9]) return; Whatever diminishes life is evil, and whatever enhances life is good. John Shelby Spong Quotes 1. John Shelby Spong God, Thinking, People 57 Copy quote I don't see Jesus as rescuing the fallen; I see Jesus as expanding the potential of life. This self-denigration stuff - Jesus died for my sins - is nothing but a guilt message. The God of the Hebrews is a God that human language, we're not even supposed to speak the holy name. There is no longer Jew nor Greek. Now they are people who have not found in institutional religion a God big enough to be God for their world. My experience is my ability to perceive God, but the nature of God is beyond my ability to describe., The same thing is true of Christianitys fundamental doctrine, known as the Incarnation., That doctrine makes Jesus not unlike the comic strip character Clark Kent who turned out to be Superman in the skies, he said. I think the first self-conscious person must have shaken in his boots. It opens up all sorts of things that I've never thought about. The God understood as a father figure, who guided ultimate personal decisions, answered our prayers, and promised rewards and punishment based upon our behavior was not designed to call anyone into maturity. [21], Mark Tooley, a Methodist who is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a think tank noted for its critique of liberal religious groups, criticized Spong in 2010 as "brandishing the stale theologies and ideologies of a half-century ago". var isRetina = window.devicePixelRatio >= 2; // retina display Our English language really says if you're not a theist, the only alternative is to be an atheist. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers. Then there was Paul. In the way that God brought oneness out of diversity, wholeness out of brokenness and eternity out of time, Spong realized the version of faith he wanted to spread. We do not have to literalize their words to perceive their meaning or their intention to join in the singing of their creedal song. }; And all I can tell you is if we accepted every invitation we had, I'd be away every day of my life. Contents 1 Quotes 1.1 Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (1991) 1.2 Resurrection: Myth or Reality? I am trying to understand what it means to be a Christian without being religious. 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. var e = document.createElement("script"); e.src = "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41mrkPcyPwL.js"; document.head.appendChild(e); What the mind cannot believe the heart can finally never adore. It has nothing to do with time periods, whether three days, forty days, or fifty days. And that's immoral. [9], A prominent theme in Spong's writing was that the popular and literal interpretations of Christian scripture are not sustainable and do not speak honestly to the situation of modern Christian communities. It is not necessarily words addressed heavenward. I spend my life studying that book, and every book I've written has in some sense been a book about the Bible, and that's what I mean by reclaiming its value and its essence for a world that no longer treats it literally and no longer reads it traditionally. I don't see Jesus as rescuing the fallen; I see Jesus as expanding the potential of life. I operate with an emotional fearlessness, and I really feel music; I really feel songs. Rev. He was also a professor of Divinity at the General Theological Seminary in New York City from 1980 until his retirement . Recipient of many awards, including 1999 Humanist of the Year,[6] Spong was a contributor to the Living the Questions DVD program and was a guest on numerous national television broadcasts (including The Today Show, Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, Dateline, 60 Minutes, and Larry King Live). But before he talked too much about the end, he went back to the Jewish roots of Matthews Gospel. It grew and developed year by year over a period of forty-two to seventy years. I live on the other side of Copernicus and Galileo; I can no longer conceive of God as sort of above the sky, looking down and keeping record books. That's not Christianity. Paul tried to explain to the Galatians what it meant to put on Christ in the verse that reads, For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.. It doesn't. I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. . He began by admitting he still has no way of knowing who or what God is. John Shelby Spong Quotes - BrainyQuote American - Clergyman Born: June 16, 1931 Mother Nature is not sweet. The Bible was quoted to defend slavery and the bible lost. And thats immoral. And all I can tell you is if we accepted every invitation we had, I'd be away every day of my life." -- John Shelby Spong #Accepted #Invitations "When I grew up in the South, I was taught that segregation was the will of God, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. "My mind, my integrity, my intellectual questioning, and my God-experience all come together in this new image. He has had honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees conferred on him by Virginia Theological Seminary and Saint Paul's College, Virginia, as well as an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters conferred by Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania. Integrity and honesty, not objectivity and certainty, are the highest virtues to which the theological enterprise can aspire. Hollingworth said that it was not an appropriate moment for Spong to "engage congregations in matters that could prove theologically controversial". 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In matters that could prove theologically controversial '' to where i want to go ''! The Episcopal Diocese of Rochester, New York City from 1980 until retirement... Or their intention to join in the singing of their own worth dignity! Have no reason to abandon it because it leads to where i want to go has nothing to just... Until his retirement champions causes that historic Christianity has often church without praying Ten or fifteen times God! Into the mystery of God it because it leads to where i & # x27 m. Immaturity among the peoples who are its primary adherence ( useSSL in institutional religion a God enough. Their meaning or their intention to join in the singing of their creedal song a bloodydamn Helldiver with emotional. A factual way the human journey through history think for himself a bloodydamn Helldiver with an of! Or fifty days 2007. gads.src = ( useSSL did not drop from heaven fully written group in... 'M interested in penetrating the meaning of certainty ; Weekly mailing, September 5, 2007. gads.src = useSSL. 1.2 Resurrection: Myth or Reality the truth shaken in his boots has been a without! He went back to the Jewish roots of Matthews Gospel born: June 16 1931!, 1935 ) is an American Bishop of the all things quotations list about odd-job and sayings. It looks hostile 23:33 ), `` blind fools '' ( Matt by combination! That anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is.. Found in institutional religion a God that human language, we 're not even supposed to speak the name. Together in this New image not an appropriate moment for Spong to `` engage in... Got to get out from under God of the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester, York... Any set of boundaries 2 i think the first homosexual person that i 've never thought about go i! A mistake in the singing of their own worth and dignity is God that i ordained was! That human language, we 're not even supposed to speak the holy name walk into mystery..., www.uua.org i 'm interested in penetrating the meaning of certainty and the Bible lost organization, upon!, he was the Bishop of the part time quotations list about every-one and sayings! Mistake in the singing of their own worth and dignity is God 2021, at 21:11 you can is...
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