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John Shelby Spong
14 quotes
“In [the story of Jesus] I found ... a center for my being. Behind the supernatural framework of the first century, behind the language of myth, magic, and superstition, I discovered a life I wanted to know; a life that possessed a power I wanted to possess; a freedom, a wholeness for which I had yearned for years.”
John Shelby Spong (1931–2021) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: This Hebrew Lord (1974), p. 13
“I am convinced that Paul of Tarsus was a gay man, deeply repressed, self-loathing, rigid in denial, bound by the law that he hoped could keep this thing, that he judged to be so unacceptable, totally under control, a control so profound that even Paul did not have to face this fact about himself.”
John Shelby Spong (1931–2021) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Sins of Scripture (2005), p. 140
“All religion seems to need to prove that it's the only truth.”
John Shelby Spong (1931–2021) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Deborah Caldwell for Beliefnet.com (May 2005)
“True religion is not about possessing the truth. No religion does that. It is rather an invitation into a journey that leads one toward the mystery of God. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers.”
John Shelby Spong (1931–2021) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Q&A on The Parliament of the World's Religions," weekly mailing, 2007-SEP-05, as reported on Religious Tolerance.org
“Christianity is, I believe, about expanded life, heightened consciousness and achieving a new humanity. It is not about closed minds, supernatural interventions, a fallen creation, guilt, original sin or divine rescue.”
John Shelby Spong (1931–2021) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Why We Must Reclaim The Bible From Fundamentalists", The Huffington Post (13 October 2011)
“The Christian story did not drop from heaven fully written. It grew and developed year by year over a period of forty-two to seventy years. That is not what most Christians have been taught to think, but it is factual. Christianity has always been an evolving story. It was never, even in the New Testament, a finished story.”
John Shelby Spong (1931–2021) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy (2016)
“There are passages in the Gospels that portray Jesus of Nazareth as narrow-minded, vindictive, and even hypocritical. Jesus exhorted people to love their enemies and to pray for their persecutors (Matt. 5:44) and never to call others by demeaning or hurtful names (Matt. 5:22), yet he called his enemies a "brood of snakes" (Matt. 12:34), "sons of vipers" (Matt. 23:33), "blind fools" (Matt. 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. 25:30)?”
John Shelby Spong (1931–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What the mind cannot believe the heart can finally never adore.”
John Shelby Spong (1931–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Jesus could not have imagined such an idea as Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.”
John Shelby Spong (1931–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel.”
John Shelby Spong (1931–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Above all, words must be recognized as symbolic pointers to truth, not objective containers of truth.”
John Shelby Spong (1931–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Integrity and honesty, not objectivity and certainty, are the highest virtues to which the theological enterprise can aspire. 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 (1931–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]he discovery of an empty tomb would never have issued in an Easter faith. If there had been a tomb, and if that tomb had been found empty, it would have meant only that one more insult had been delivered to the leader of the tiny Jesus movement. The disciples, whoever they were, would have concluded that not even the dead body of this Jesus had been spared degradation. No Easter faith would have resulted from an empty tomb. Therefore such a tradition could not have been primary. It was but a story incorporated later into the narrative.”
John Shelby Spong (1931–2021) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 228 — as quoted by Keith M. Parsons in "Why I Am Not a Christian" (Roswell, GA: Freethought Press, 2000), p. 20
“If the resurrection of Jesus cannot be believed except by assenting to the fantastic descriptions included in the Gospels, then Christianity is doomed. 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.”
John Shelby Spong (1931–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source