It is not by pitching the old insights out but by journeying deeply through them into new visions that we are able to change religion's direction. Shelby Harris. John Shelby Spong 27. Part 2 of the part time quotations list about odd-job and salaried sayings citing John Shelby Spong, Rob Lowe and Keith Ellison captions. In the fall of 1988, I worshipped God in a Buddhist temple. That is what Jesus meant and thats what the original Christ experience was, before we became Scripture defenders, and before the creeds became the essence of our faith.. if (a[a9]) return; "Q&A on The Parliament of the World's Religions". John Shelby Spong Quotes. "Walking into the Mystery of God" by John Shelby Spong, www.uua.org. The author made sure that it was understood as a universal happening, Spong said. Oh the Christian church has encouraged enormous immaturity among the peoples who are its primary adherence. Matthew was sounding the call to a universal humanity, Spong said. Both are doomed as viable alternatives for the long- range future of anyone. All of those are human systems which human beings have created to try to help us walk into the mystery of God. The church is like a swimming pool. "https:" : "http:") + The priesthood in many ways is the ultimate closet in Western civilization, where gay people particularly have hidden for the past two thousand years. note: he retired years after this article was first written]. I was married before the church's altar; trained at the church's seminaries, ordained deacon and priest at age 24. Let's pretend that we possess the objective truth of God in our inerrant Scriptures or in our infallible pronouncements or in our unbroken apostolic traditions. "[23], Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, described Spong's teaching as constituting the historic definition of heresy, having "denied virtually every major Christian doctrine. John Shelby Spong. 5:22), yet he called his enemies a "brood of snakes" (Matt. function q(c, r) { [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. I think the first self-conscious person must have shaken in his boots. " True religion is not about possessing the truth. Prayer is entering into the pain or joy of another person. I do not think so. I call this God by different words. init: function() { 51. It has nothing to do with resuscitated bodies that appear and disappear or that finally exit this world in a heavenly ascension. He is as radically liberal as it is possible to be and still maintain a nominal identification with the name "Christian.". Spong, Resurrection Myth or Reality, p. 287. But before he talked too much about the end, he went back to the Jewish roots of Matthews Gospel. 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. John Shelby Spong passed away at his home in North Carolina according to an announcement from the Richmond, Virginia parish he once pastored. Hollingworth said that it was not an appropriate moment for Spong to "engage congregations in matters that could prove theologically controversial". That is not what most Christians have been taught to think, but it is factual. (wikipedia) Born On June 16, 1931. The question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel. And I have no reason to abandon it because it leads to where I want to go. The more deeply I can be all that I can be, the more I can make God visible.. October 13, 2011. 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 May your reign come. John Shelby Spong was the Episcopal bishop of Newark before his retirement in 2000. He sees himself against nature. God is a presence that I can never define but I could never deny. 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. All religion seems to need to prove that it's the only truth. I don't see Jesus as rescuing the fallen; I see Jesus as expanding the potential of life. I think the first self-conscious person must have shaken in his boots. It has nothing to do with time periods, whether three days, forty days, or fifty days. Now they are people who have not found in institutional religion a God big enough to be God for their world. I believe that I live my life every day inside the reality of this God. That identification means . The Bible was quoted to keep women silent, and the Bible lost. The Christianity of the future cannot live inside the doctrines of the past, Spong said. Prayer is entering into the pain or joy of another person. } Christianity is, I believe, about expanded life, heightened consciousness and achieving a new humanity. Rev. var node = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; Spong claimed that his writings evoked both great support and great condemnation from differing segments of the Christian church. Bishop John Shelby Spong, an Episcopal Church prelate whose liberal views rankled orthodox Episcopalians and others, died in his sleep Sunday morning, St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Morris. 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. John Shelby Spong Quotes. There is no longer Jew nor Greek. He was the Bishop of Newark, New Jersey from 1979 to 2000. 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.. 25:30)? Kelly assists on a wide variety . Spong was born in North Carolina in 1931. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers. If the resurrection of Jesus cannot be believed except by assenting to the fantastic descriptions included in the Gospels, then Christianity is doomed. According to Spong, when Matthew said to go and make disciples of all nations, he placed words in the mouth of the risen Jesus. "ObfuscatedMarketplaceId": "A1PQBFHBHS6YH1" John Shelby Spong > Quotes (?) //]]> Some people think prayer is telling God what to do. 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 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. Forcing the evolution is the dialog between yesterday's words and today's knowledge. "Another [book on Matthew] is Amy-Jill Levine, who is a Jewish woman who teaches New Testament at the Vanderbilt School of Religion. googletag.pubads().disableInitialLoad(); John Shelby Spong 26. _Q: [] return cookiePair[1]; He called for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away from theism and traditional doctrines. I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. 12 Vaganova Ballet Famous Sayings, Quotes and Quotation. Chautauqua Institution is a non-profit organization, dependent upon your gifts to fulfill its mission. 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. Prayer is being present, sharing love, opening life to transcendence. God is not a noun, that demands to be defined, God is a verb that invites us to live, to love and to be. In addition, she is a rising senior at The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism in Phoenix, Arizona, where she most recently served as a breaking news reporter for The Arizona Republic, as well as a documentary producer for Arizona PBS. God Is Real. } Use them as an inspiration. - John Shelby Spong. In [the story of Jesus] I found a center for my being. 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. I don't think so. I think religion in general and Christianity in particular must always be evolving. I think the worst way to go is to have somebody think they speak for God. John Shelby Spong, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture . throw new Error("could not load device-specific stylesheet : " + err.message); Terrorism is a real despair. He held visiting positions and gave lectures at major American theological institutions, most prominently at Harvard Divinity School. Is there a different Bible? John Shelby Spong I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. The Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible's Texts of Hate to Reveal the God of Love, p.12, Harper Collins. He sees himself against nature. There's a Psalm that says "Happy will you be when you take your enemy's children and dash their heads against the stones." Introducing John Shelby Spong the Rt. Spong, Resurrection . As far as we know, a creaturewho can: define life, contemplates its beginning, anticipates its termination and raise the question of its meaning, is a rare thing, he said. The Christian story did not drop from heaven fully written. Rather "we are part of what God is and we are at one with all that God is." We. for(var i=0; i
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