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" 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
Looking
Live
Down
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" It's just not easy enough to say that I pray and God will accomplish. "
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" 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. 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. "
John Shelby Spong
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Women
" The cross reveals that we're called to a deeper, fuller experience of what it means to be alive and open to new dimensions of life which our religious boundaries - creeds, atonement theologies - have kept us from experiencing. "
John Shelby Spong
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" Many of the characters who appear in the pages of the Fourth Gospel are literary creations of its author and were never intended to be understood as real people, who actually lived in history. "
John Shelby Spong
Who
Never
Real
" Terrorism is a real despair. 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. "
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Die
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" Apologetic explanations do not develop unless there is a reality that has to be explained and defended. Jesus was undeniably a figure of history. "
John Shelby Spong
Jesus
Reality
Explained
" Plenty of people out there think of me as the Antichrist or the devil incarnate because I do not affirm the literal patterns of the Bible. But the fact is I can no more abandon the literal patterns than I could fly to the moon. I just go beyond them. "
John Shelby Spong
Moon
Devil
Bible
" Christianity is not about the divine becoming human so much as it is about the human becoming divine. That is a paradigm shift of the first order. "
John Shelby Spong
Divine
Shift
Much
" The Christ path is the path I've walked all my life, so it's normal and natural. And I have no reason to abandon it because it leads to where I want to go. "
John Shelby Spong
Reason
Want
Path
" My basis of morality is this: does this action enhance life, or does it denigrate life? Does it build up or does it tear down? "
John Shelby Spong
Up
Life
Build
" The way you become divine is to become wholly human. "
John Shelby Spong
Way
Human
You
" I am a child of the 21st century. "
John Shelby Spong
Am
I Am
Child
" Mother Nature is not sweet. "
John Shelby Spong
Environmental
Mother
Nature
" I believe God is real, but I believe God calls me beyond myself to take responsibility for my life and to try top work to allow other people to be themselves and to take responsibility for their lives. "
John Shelby Spong
Responsibility
Myself
Life
" I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. "
John Shelby Spong
Think
Worth
God
" I never really liked the Gospel of John because I never could find the humanity of Jesus in it. I thought it presented Jesus as a visitor from another planet; in addition, John's gospel is and has been interpreted as a document that fuels anti-Semitism in the church. "
John Shelby Spong
Never
Church
Find
" The way that I see Christianity is that its role is to enhance the life of every person. "
John Shelby Spong
See
Way
Life
" 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
Believe
Experience
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. "
John Shelby Spong
Limits
Bible
Recognition
" When I'm asked to define God, I'm almost wordless. "
John Shelby Spong
Define
Almost
Asked
" I believe that God is very real. I believe that I live my life every day inside the reality of this God. I call this God by different words. I describe God as the source of life and the source of love and the ground of being. "
John Shelby Spong
Live
God
Day
" Inequality for gay and lesbian people is no longer a debatable issue in either church or state. "
John Shelby Spong
Lesbian
People
Church
" When I grew up in the South, I was taught that segregation was the will of God, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. I was taught that women were by nature in inferior to men, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. I was taught that it was okay to hate other religions, and especially the Jews, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. "
John Shelby Spong
God
Women
Nature
" The Christians tried to separate themselves from the Jewish crowd so they wouldn't be the recipients of the persecution of the Romans. And the way they did it was to say, the Jews killed our hero too. And so Christians began to define themselves over against the orthodox party of the Jews as a way of surviving against the Roman onslaught. "
John Shelby Spong
Say
Against
Hero
" I am trying to understand what it means to be a Christian without being religious. "
John Shelby Spong
Trying
Christian
Am
" Jesus represents the possibilities of a new dimension of existence that transcends all the boundaries that restrict us from opening ourselves to God and allowing this source of love to flow through us. "
John Shelby Spong
Possibilities
Flow
Love
" I admire our ancestors, whoever they were. I think the first self-conscious person must have shaken in his boots. Because as he becomes self-conscious, he's no longer part of nature. He sees himself against nature. He looks at the vastness of the universe and it looks hostile. "
John Shelby Spong
Boots
Universe
Think
" I believe that God is very real. "
John Shelby Spong
Very
God
Believe
" 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
Believe
Sin
Life
" I want the traditional family upheld, but I don't want it upheld to the detriment of other people. "
John Shelby Spong
Other
Family
Want