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. The priesthood in many ways is the ultimate closet in Western civilization, where gay people particularly have hidden for the past two thousand years. Steve is an accomplished poet and social media expert based in Brooklyn, New York. 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. I admire our ancestors, whoever they were. //]]> stylesheet.href = url; [7] Spong was the cousin of the United States Senator from Virginia William B. Spong Jr. Now, that job belongs to everyone in the Christian faith who wishes to carry out his vision to fruition. node.parentNode.insertBefore(gads, node); He was a liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator and author. God Is Real. stylesheet.type = "text/css"; var gads = document.createElement("script"); return true; Introducing John Shelby Spong the Rt. var node = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; There is no longer Jew nor Greek. Hollingworth said that it was not an appropriate moment for Spong to "engage congregations in matters that could prove theologically controversial". Weekly mailing, September 5, 2007. There is no way that the Fourth Gospel was written by John Zebedee or by any of the disciples of Jesus. God is not a Christian, God is not a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist. a[a9] = { Papal infallibility and biblical inerrancy are the two ecclesiastical versions of this human idolatry. googletag.pubads().collapseEmptyDivs(true); -- John Shelby Spong #Giving "I go where I'm invited. He received his Master of Divinity degree from the Virginia Theological Seminary in 1955. 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.. 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 John Shelby Spong (born November 29, 1935) is an American Episcopal priest and author. V. Gene Robinson was able to publicly thank the man he said are the shoulders on which (Robinson) stands.. And I have no reason to abandon it because it leads to where I want to go. Are they people who God just didn't like? The audience that I try to reach are members of what I call the church alumni association. [CDATA[ And I dont mind saying that I dont invalidate any of those paths. Tweets by @chqdaily In 2000, Spong was a critic of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Roman Catholic Church's declaration Dominus Iesus, because it reaffirmed the Catholic doctrine that the Roman Catholic Church is the one true Church and that Jesus Christ is the one and only savior for humanity. I do assert that one prepares for eternity not by being religious and keeping the rules, but by living fully, loving wastefully, and daring to be all that each of us has the capacity to be. That is a paradigm shift of the first order. 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. Spong's calendar had him lecturing around the world. "Q&A on The Parliament of the World's Religions," weekly mailing, 2007-SEP-05, as reported on. 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. John Shelby Spong Bio, Wife, Kids, Career, 12 Theses, Books and Quotes - Buddywikis The way you become divine is to become wholly human. //]]> var isRetina = window.devicePixelRatio >= 2; // retina display The tour coincided with Hollingworth leaving the diocese to become the Governor-General of Australia. John Shelby Spong Related Authors If that is a requirement of my commitment to Jesus, I . John Shelby Spong 82. 12:34), "sons of vipers" (Matt. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers. var googletag = googletag || {}; "Christ must be served in every person," he said. 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. !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)? Tweet. Gate tickets and other revenue cover only a portion of the cost of your Chautauqua experience. It appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different. It was never, even in the New Testament, a finished story. })(); "CacheDetection.RequestID": "TXPX0XF032R2WV9SNJQY", 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. John Shelby Spong (16 June 1931 - 12 September 2021) Introduction. 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. He called for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away from theism and traditional doctrines. Above all, words must be recognized as symbolic pointers to truth, not objective containers of truth. John Shelby Spong Buddhist, Prayer, Believe Praying and living deeply, richly and fully have become for me almost indistinguishab le. He has also lectured at universities, conference centers, and churches in North . It's like that crazy man down in Alabama who wanted to put the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. God is also a source of love, Spong said. 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 is an influential public speaker, writer and media figure. The way you become divine is to become wholly human. I call this God by different words. The Christ path is the path I've walked all my life, so it's normal and natural. Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (1991), Remarkable Last Words (or Near-Last Words), Why Christianity Must Change or Die (1998), A New Christianity for a New World (2001), The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic (2013). 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. }; 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 cannot say my yes to legends that have been clearly and fancifully created. In [the story of Jesus] I found a center for my being. var gptAdSlots = gptAdSlots || []; The Bible says that women are property, that homosexuals ought to be put to death, that anybody who worships a false God ought to be executed, that a child that talks back to his parents ought to be stoned at the gates of the city. There is no longer male nor female. It appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different. Christ must be served in every person, he said. googletag.pubads().setTargeting("gr_author", "false"); 23:33), "blind fools" (Matt. So if God is a source of life, then the only way I can appropriately worship God is by living fully.. function q(c, r) { 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. Spong said this means human division must disappear. No religion does that. Rather "we are part of what God is and we are at one with all that God is." We. Christianity has always been an evolving story. apstag.init({ } He is a liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator and author. The question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel. They amuse themselves by playing an irrelevant ecclesiastical game called "Let's Pretend." The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed. It appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different. 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. Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. 23:17). 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. 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 was new openness to the supernatural. function getCookieWithoutJQuery(name) { With the passing of retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong in September 2021, the movement known as Progressive Christianity has lost one of its most revered writers. John Shelby Spong 2 I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. However, there was one last thing he wanted to add. If I could not move my search beyond angelic messengers, empty tombs, and ghostlike apparitions, I could not say yes to Easter. Christianity is, I believe, about expanded life, heightened consciousness and achieving a new humanity. "[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. I mean the kind of love that never stops to calculate, never stops to wonder whether the object of its love is worthy to its recipient. 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.. 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." "Events.Namespace": "csa", He retired in 2000. A.async = !0; It is love that loves not because it has been earned. I was taught that women were by nature in inferior to men, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. "[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. 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. John Shelby Spong 25. John Shelby Spong is an American retired bishop of the Episcopal Church. "Events.SushiEndpoint": "https://unagi.amazon.com/1/events/com.amazon.csm.csa.prod", But the irony was that as he was making his case, modernity was ending and postmodernity starting, and his rationalist perspective became pass. Prayer is being present, sharing love, opening life to transcendence. According to The Episcopal Diocese of Newark, Bishop Spong suffered a stroke before a speaking engagement in Marquette, Michigan, on Saturday, September 10, 2016. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers. 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. George Stroumboulopoulos. Most of the noise comes from the shallow end. John Shelby Spong was the Episcopal bishop of Newark before his retirement in 2000. Some people think prayer stops bullets or rockets or land mines. All religion seems to need to prove that it's the only truth. window.Mobvious.device_type = 'mobile'; // Mr Singh Would Like Drug Coverage, Steward Health Care Not Paying Bills, Articles J