It's a group of essays by mostly womanly scholars looking at Matthew's gospel through feminists' eyes - very exciting. var ue_mid = "A1PQBFHBHS6YH1"; //]]> Spong's calendar had him lecturing around the world. Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends. John Shelby Spong People, History, Real, Understood Generate image The Christ path is the path I've walked all my life, so it's normal and natural. 5:44) and never to call others by demeaning or hurtful names (Matt. url = "https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/mobile/phone_hd_images-2b89833762f600506d44865a33582d11.css"; [18], During a speaking tour in Australia in 2001, Spong was banned by Peter Hollingworth, the Archbishop of Brisbane, from speaking at churches in the diocese. The way you become divine is to become wholly human. var ue_id = "TXPX0XF032R2WV9SNJQY"; As a leading spokesperson for an open, scholarly, and progressive Christianity, Bishop Spong has taught at Harvard and at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. Rev. Every day we present the best quotes! Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. A = p.createElement(s); !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)? All we can ever say is how we believe we have experienced God, doing our best to dispel our human delusions. All you can do is define the human experience of God, and that might be delusional. setDisplayBids: function() {}, stylesheet.rel = "stylesheet"; The Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible's Texts of Hate to Reveal the God of Love, p.12, Harper Collins. //=0){return}if("ue_https" in e){f=e.ue_https}else{f=e.location&&e.location.protocol=="https:"?1:0}i=f? 14 "John Shelby Spong" Quotes And Sayings. 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). Why dont we understand that? I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. But the fact is I can no more abandon the literal patterns than I could fly to the moon. In a 2013 interview with Religion News Service, Spong spoke about his own spirituality and beliefs, which he said had grown deeper as he aged. There is no longer male nor female. Rev. // page settings I was taught that it was okay to hate other religions, and especially the Jews, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. The Bible was quoted to keep women silent, and the Bible lost. "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! It caused his followers to regard his teaching as worthy of being preserved. It is rather an invitation into a journey that leads one toward the mystery of God. There's an awful lot of biblical ignorance, and the church perpetuates that ignorance. 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. var googletag = googletag || {}; I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. If that is a requirement of my commitment to Jesus, I find it difficult to stretch my mind outside the capacities of my world view. From 1979 to 2000 he was Bishop of Newark (based in Newark, New Jersey). 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. So if God is a source of life, then the only way I can appropriately worship God is by living fully.. I do not think so. googletag.pubads().setTargeting("gr_author", "false"); 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. 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. John Shelby Spong (2009). It's just not easy enough to say that I pray and God will accomplish. I believe that I live my life every day inside the reality of this God. Because as he becomes self-conscious, he's no longer part of nature. 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 think the worst way to go is to have somebody think they speak for God. I describe God as the source of life and the source of love and the ground of being." John Shelby Spong Life Love God Day "Mother Nature is not sweet." And thats immoral. 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 . 12:34), "sons of vipers" (Matt. try { They amuse themselves by playing an irrelevant ecclesiastical game called "Let's Pretend." 12 Vaganova Ballet Famous Sayings, Quotes and Quotation. That's not Christianity. }, John Shelby Spong 25. He was the eleventh Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester, New York from 1988 until 2000. Contents 1 Quotes 1.1 Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (1991) 1.2 Resurrection: Myth or Reality? Jesus could not have imagined such an idea as Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. 1. That is not within human competence. node.parentNode.insertBefore(gads, node); Introducing John Shelby Spong the Rt. Prayer is entering into the pain or joy of another person. John Shelby Spong I Am 21st Century Child Am "I believe that God is very real. } else { I was married before the church's altar; trained at the church's seminaries, ordained deacon and priest at age 24. return true; var source = getCookieWithoutJQuery("source"); 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 . Christ must be served in every person, he said. //]]> 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 that's when you get religious wars and persecutions and burning heretics at the stake. And so Christians began to define themselves over against the orthodox party of the Jews as a way of surviving against the Roman onslaught. Prayer is being present, sharing love, opening life to transcendence. I do not think of God theistically, that is, as a being, supernatural in power, who dwells beyond the limits of my world. "[2], Spong served as rector of St. Joseph's Church in Durham, North Carolina, from 1955 to 1957; rector of Calvary Parish, Tarboro, North Carolina, from 1957 to 1965; rector of St. John's Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, from 1965 to 1969; and rector of St. Paul's Church in Richmond, Virginia, from 1969 to 1976. It was for me a holy moment for I was certain that I was kneeling on holy ground.I will not make any further attempt to convert the Buddhist, the Jew, the Hindu or the Moslem. 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. 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. There's a Psalm that says "Happy will you be when you take your enemy's children and dash their heads against the stones." Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers. " John Shelby Spong 84. Prayer is what I am doing when I love wastefully, passionately and wondrously and invite others to do so. He claims he is a Christian yet he champions causes that historic Christianity has often . } An Episcopal court ruled that homosexuality was not counter to its principles in 1996, and the church recognized same-sex marriages in 2015.[4]. You can't go to church without praying ten or fifteen times for God to have mercy on you. 25:30)? As the smell of incense filled the air, I knelt before three images of the Buddha, feeling that the smoke could carry my prayers heavenward. I learned early in life that you get places by having the right enemies. I think religion in general and Christianity in particular must always be evolving. He has also lectured at universities, conference centers, and churches in North . }, 23:17). I just go beyond them. "Q&A on The Parliament of the World's Religions," weekly mailing, 2007-SEP-05, as reported on. function isShowingBuyableFeatures() { return cookiePair[1]; The Christian story did not drop from heaven fully written. if (sourcesToHideBuyFeatures[i] == source) googletag.pubads().enableSingleRequest(); You cant have a world where 50 percent of the people are dieting and 50 percent of the people are starving if you want stability. These are people for whom life has been so negative that they're willing to die if they can take down some of their enemies. "The older I get, the more deeply I believe but the. I don't see Jesus as rescuing the fallen; I see Jesus as expanding the potential of life. stylesheet.type = "text/css"; According to Spong, when Matthew said to go and make disciples of all nations, he placed words in the mouth of the risen Jesus. Rev. "Whatever it was that people experience in Jesus has today come to be identified with medieval doctrines based on premodern assumptions that are no longer believable. I was taught that it was okay to hate other religions, and especially the Jews, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. As I look at the history of religion, I observe that new religious insights always and only emerge from the old traditions as they begin to die. Deeply I believe that I live my life every day inside the reality of this God experience of God of! 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