Bishop John Shelby Spong (1931-2021) One of the Episcopal Church's most controversial liberal bishops, whom IRD frequently critiqued, has died. John Shelby Spong. He was a liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator and author. He is a liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator and author. John Shelby Spong I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. The biblical texts that we Christians have used for centuries to justify our hostility toward the Jews need to be banished forever from the sacred writings of the Christian church. Because as he becomes self-conscious, he's no longer part of nature. Every day we present the best quotes! Almost any poll of regular churchgoers will reveal that their favorite book in the New Testament is the Gospel of John. window.csa("Events")("setEntity", { window.csa("Config", { // page settings 25:30)? " John Shelby Spong 83. I believe that I live my life every day inside the reality of this God. 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. I think religion in general and Christianity in particular must always be evolving. It has nothing to do with resuscitated bodies that appear and disappear or that finally exit this world in a heavenly ascension. Christianity is not about the divine becoming human so much as it is about the human becoming divine. It's just not easy enough to say that I pray and God will accomplish. Our English language really says if you're not a theist, the only alternative is to be an atheist. With the need for constant evolution in mind, Spong created his personal mantra. Both are doomed as viable alternatives for the long- range future of anyone. " We walk into the mystery of God; we do not define that mystery. It has not only to do with erasing human divisions, but about revitalizing our most cherished beliefs.. John Shelby Spong Quotes - BrainyQuote American - Clergyman Born: June 16, 1931 Mother Nature is not sweet. John Shelby Spong Quotes. It is not about closed minds, supernatural interventions, a fallen creation, guilt, original sin or divine rescue. The Bible tells me that every life is holy; the Bible tells me that every life is loved; the Bible tells me that every life is called to be all that it can be. If you look at history, every nation that has operated as if it spoke for God has become violently destructive. googletag.pubads().setTargeting("gr_author", "false"); (function() { John Shelby Spong is an influential public speaker, writer and media figure. } "[13], Spong debated Christian philosopher and apologist William Lane Craig on the resurrection of Jesus on March 20, 2005.[14]. In the way Jesus, whether being praised with flattery or diminished by the threat of death, remained unchanged, Spong was moved to affirm his faith. Integrity and honesty, not objectivity and certainty, are the highest virtues to which the theological enterprise can aspire. My sense is if the Episcopal Church can't stand challenge within its own ranks, then it is not a church I would want to be a member of anyway. It is not about closed minds, supernatural interventions, a fallen creation, guilt, original sin or divine rescue. 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 . 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. Chapter seven begins with quotations from the Pauline Epistles, including Gal 5:12, "I wish those who unsettle you would mutilate themselves", Col 3:22, "Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthy masters, not with eye service, as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart", and from 1 Cor 14:35, "It is shameful for a woman to speak in There is no way that the Fourth Gospel was written by John Zebedee or by any of the disciples of Jesus. Browse top 25 most favorite famous quotes and sayings by John Shelby Spong. if (isRetina) { 1. 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 . God Is Real. John Shelby Spong Bio, Wife, Kids, Career, 12 Theses, Books and Quotes - Buddywikis Thats where I think God is made visible.. As a retired bishop, he was a member of the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops. John Shelby "Jack" Spong (June 16, 1931 September 12, 2021) was an American bishop of the Episcopal Church. Prayer is entering into the pain or joy of another person. John Shelby Spong has long been known as the "nightmare" of the more conservative element of the Anglican Church in America. 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. Prayer is not adult letters written to Santa Claus, and God is not some parent-like figure up in the sky who's going to take care of us. Christianity has always been an evolving story. Christianity is, I believe, about expanded life, heightened consciousness and achieving a new humanity. I think the first self-conscious person must have shaken in his boots. url = "https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/mobile/phone_hd_images-2b89833762f600506d44865a33582d11.css"; throw new Error("could not load device-specific stylesheet : " + err.message); There is a mistake in the text of this quote. God is also a source of love, Spong said. We've murdered them; we've burned them at the stake; we've run them out of town for something over which they have no control. He held visiting positions and gave lectures at major American theological institutions, most prominently at Harvard Divinity School. 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. It appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different. John Shelby Spong 82. Last edited on 13 September 2021, at 21:11, "Why We Must Reclaim The Bible From Fundamentalists", https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=John_Shelby_Spong&oldid=3004716. var ue_id = "TXPX0XF032R2WV9SNJQY"; Jesus exhorted people to love their enemies and to pray for their persecutors (Matt. 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. In academia, I discovered that issues and insights, commonplace among the scholars, are viewed as highly controversial and even as heresy in the churches. And I don't mind saying that I don't invalidate any of those paths. 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. [25] The notice was announced by the St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia, where Spong had once been rector.[26][27]. I know rather that the sun, around which my planet Earth revolves, is a middle sized star in a galaxy called the Milky Way that has over a hundred billion other suns or stars within it. He is as radically liberal as it is possible to be and still maintain a nominal identification with the name "Christian.". Rev. } // John Shelby Spong 2 I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. 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. And so Christians began to define themselves over against the orthodox party of the Jews as a way of surviving against the Roman onslaught. It is simply a fact of his upbringing, along with a personal desire to continue being a disciple of Jesus. There can be no one regarded as unclean, no prejudice allowed to operate inside this vision of Christianity., Since then, he has answered the call to try to transform the world so that every person living in it will have a better opportunity to live fully, love wastefully and be all each of them was created to be.. 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. If I could not move my search beyond angelic messengers, empty tombs, and ghostlike apparitions, I could not say yes to Easter. Jerry Falwell says, on Pat Robertson's program, that the reason we got attacked on 9/11 is that we were accommodating the ACLU and abortion and homosexuals and feminists in America, so God smacked us down. 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. I want the traditional family upheld, but I dont want it upheld to the detriment of other people. "[17], Spong's ideas have been criticized by some other theologians, notably in 1998 by Rowan Williams, the Bishop of Monmouth, who later became the Archbishop of Canterbury. In a 2013 interview, Spong credited the Anglican bishop John Robinson as his mentor in this journey and said reading Robinson's writings in the 1960s led to a friendship and mentoring relationship with him over many years. I know rather that the sun, around which my planet Earth revolves, is a middle sized star in a galaxy called the Milky Way that has over a hundred billion other suns or stars within it. Prayer is being present, sharing love, opening life to transcendence. That's sort of fourth-century Christianity that got turned into doctrines and dogmas that we've never been able to escape. I live on the other side of Charles Darwin and I can no longer see human light as having been created perfect and falling into sin, I see us rather emerging into higher and higher levels of consciousness and higher and higher levels of complication. 5:44) and never to call others by demeaning or hurtful names (Matt. From 1979 to 2000, he was the Bishop of Newark, New Jersey. 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. }); The church is like a swimming pool. The author made sure that it was understood as a universal happening, Spong said. I was taught that women were by nature in inferior to men, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. I don't see Jesus as rescuing the fallen; I see Jesus as expanding the potential of life. The Rt. " John Shelby Spong 2. He looks at the vastness of the universe and it looks hostile. Spong's calendar had him lecturing around the world. I was taught that women were by nature in inferior to men, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. John Shelby Spong 1 Mother Nature is not sweet. })(); That is not what most Christians have been taught to think, but it is factual. I don't think that's the case. And that's where it turns demonic. " Live life to it's fullest, love wastefully, and be all we can be. I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. The Bible interprets life from its particular perspective; it does not record in a factual way the human journey through history. "Another [book on Matthew] is Amy-Jill Levine, who is a Jewish woman who teaches New Testament at the Vanderbilt School of Religion. The biblical texts that we Christians have used for centuries to justify our hostility toward the Jews need to be banished forever from the sacred writings of the Christian church. You learn that you either are going to have a police state where you dont have any freedom left, or youre going to build a world that doesnt create terrorists and that means a whole different way of getting along.. It appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different. JOHN SHELBY SPONG: The first homosexual person that I ordained knowingly was a man named Robert Williams. It's a group of essays by mostly womanly scholars looking at Matthew's gospel through feminists' eyes - very exciting. "ebfg_email", "ebfg_sms"]; Doctrines are never a description or definitionof our God experience. }); fetchBids: function() { There's a Psalm that says "Happy will you be when you take your enemy's children and dash their heads against the stones." Oh this age! init: function() { The Bible has lost every major battle it has ever fought. 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. He died peacefully in his sleep on Sunday morning," St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond . I do not think of God theistically, that is, as a being, supernatural in power, who dwells beyond the limits of my world. The question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel. And thats immoral. The priesthood in many ways is the ultimate closet in Western civilization, where gay people particularly have hidden for the past two thousand years. George Stroumboulopoulos. "ObfuscatedMarketplaceId": "A1PQBFHBHS6YH1" If God is the ground of being, then the only way I can worship God is by having the courage to be all that I can be, Spong said. It grew and developed year by year over a period of forty-two to seventy years. Chautauqua Institution is a non-profit organization, dependent upon your gifts to fulfill its mission. try { shortquotes.blog 1,000,000++ Short Quotes - John Shelby Spong. He was the eleventh Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester, New York from 1988 until 2000. That's magic, that's not God. The ultimate meaning of the Bible escapes human limits and calls us to a recognition that every life is holy, every life is loved, and every life is called to be all that that life is capable of being. We must move beyond the now irrelevant dualistic patterns and discover the holy at the heart of the human. But the fact is I can no more abandon the literal patterns than I could fly to the moon. It has been a wonderful trip, and I am sad it is coming to an end.. John Shelby Spong Related Authors What Im 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. "One day Jesus was praying, and when he had finished, one of the disciples asked, "Rabbi, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples." Jesus said to them, "When you pray, say, 'Abba God, hallowed be your Name! Giving It All Quotes Page 34 Part 2 of the giving it all quotations list about premature-birth and baby-shower sayings citing John Shelby Spong, Eve Ensler and Milo Ventimiglia captions 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 question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel. 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. [CDATA[ I think the best way to view the Gospels is to view them as a magnificent portrait being painted by Jewish artists to try to capture the essence of a God experience that they believe they had with Jesus of Nazareth. }, The way that I see Christianity is that its role is to enhance the life of every person. Papal infallibility and biblical inerrancy are the two ecclesiastical versions of this human idolatry. John Shelby Spong (2009). He sees himself against nature. Matthew was sounding the call to a universal humanity, Spong said. Above all, words must be recognized as symbolic pointers to truth, not objective containers of truth. " I go where I'm invited. In [the story of Jesus] I found a center for my being. gads.src = (useSSL ? }()); J.B. Heller Quotes James Whitfield Thomson Quotes Jeanne A. Estes Quotes John Shelby Spong Quotes Julien Temple Quotes Lenny Kravitz Quotes Merrell Fankhauser Quotes Nicole Green Quotes Nicole Y. Dennis-Benn Quotes Priya Rawal Quotes S. Andrew Swann Quotes Scott F. Gilbert Quotes An Episcopal court ruled that homosexuality was not counter to its principles in 1996, and the church recognized same-sex marriages in 2015.[4]. Inequality for gay and lesbian people is no longer a debatable issue in either church or state. (wikipedia) Born On June 16, 1931. Weve murdered them; weve burned them at the stake; weve run them out of town for something over which they have no control. 12 Vaganova Ballet Famous Sayings, Quotes and Quotation. I learned early in life that you get places by having the right enemies. }; Unless otherwise indicated, all quotes in the bullet points above are from Kitchen, "The Future Church and Bishop John Shelby Spong," p. 17. I don't see Jesus as rescuing the fallen; I see Jesus as expanding the potential of life. "//securepubads.g.doubleclick.net/tag/js/gpt.js"; Spong, Resurrection Myth or Reality, p. 287. May your reign come. gads.async = true; Because that's when you get religious wars and persecutions and burning heretics at the stake. John Shelby Spong I Am 21st Century Child Am "I believe that God is very real. It is the book that is most often used at Christian funerals. I was taught that it was okay to hate other religions, and especially the Jews, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. From this perspective, all human claims to possess objectivity, certainty, or infallibility are revealed as nothing but the weak and pitiable pleas of frantically insecure people who seek to live in an illusion because reality has proved to be too difficult. John Shelby Spong Believe, Trying, Calling 45 Copy quote I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. What the mind cannot believe the heart can finally never adore. It is rather an invitation into a journey that leads one toward the mystery of God. I was confirmed as an adolescent; I was active in my church's youth group and in my university student group. return cookiePair[1]; I call this God by different words. But the irony was that as he was making his case, modernity was ending and postmodernity starting, and his rationalist perspective became pass. And the Bible is being quoted to deny homosexuals their equal rights, and the Bible will lose. Spong, Resurrection . googletag.cmd = googletag.cmd || []; "Bishop John Shelby Spong On: The Resurrection" The Christian Faith was born in the experience that we have come to call Easter. g = p.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; [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). var ue_mid = "A1PQBFHBHS6YH1"; I admire our ancestors, whoever they were. I never really liked the Gospel of John because I never could find the humanity of Jesus in it. The way you become divine is to become wholly human. [CDATA[ He believed that theism had lost credibility as a valid conception of God's nature. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers. I don't see Jesus as rescuing the fallen; I see Jesus as expanding the potential of life. window.Mobvious = {}; window.Mobvious.device_type = 'mobile'; The Christian story did not drop from heaven fully written. There is no longer male nor female. It doesn't. Give us today tomorrow's bread. The tour coincided with Hollingworth leaving the diocese to become the Governor-General of Australia. [11] Towards these ends, he called for a new Reformation, in which many of Christianity's basic doctrines should be reformulated.[1]. Rev. . "It is with great sadness that we announce the death of the Rt. 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. Then there was Paul. I thought it presented Jesus as a visitor from another planet; in addition, Johns gospel is and has been interpreted as a document that fuels anti-Semitism in the church. There's an awful lot of biblical ignorance, and the church perpetuates that ignorance. "[24], Spong died in sleep at his home in Richmond, Virginia, on September 12, 2021, at the age of 90. He began by admitting he still has no way of knowing who or what God is. And that's immoral. It caused his followers to regard his teaching as worthy of being preserved. It was never, even in the New Testament, a finished story. For the reformation to work, Spong said creeds can no longer be used to bring Christians together. 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. I think one of the things we've got to look out for is human beings claiming that they know how God operates. " The biblical texts that we Christians have used for centuries to justify our hostility toward the Jews need to be banished forever from the sacred writings of the Christian church. var ue_t0=window.ue_t0||+new Date(); Tweet. There are more than 14 quotes written by John Shelby Spong on our site. Previously, she recapped the Chautauqua Lecture Series in 2019 and the Interfaith Lecture Series in 2018. From 1979 to 2000 he was Bishop of Newark (based in Newark, New Jersey). God is a presence that I can never define but I could never deny. googletag.pubads().enableAsyncRendering(); googletag.enableServices(); Rev. Spong was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and educated in public schools there. Steve is an accomplished poet and social media expert based in Brooklyn, New York. "Events.Namespace": "csa", . He called for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away from theism and traditional doctrines. apstag.init({ //
