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" If I were a child of Tibet or of Arabia, I suspect the path I'd walk would be the Buddhist path or the Muslim path. And I don't mind saying that I don't invalidate any of those paths. "

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" 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. "

John Shelby Spong

Loved

Life

Holy

" 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. "

" 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. "

" The way that I see Christianity is that its role is to enhance the life of every person. "

" God is a presence that I can never define but I could never deny. "

" Oh the Christian church has encouraged enormous immaturity among the peoples who are its primary adherence. "

John Shelby Spong

Among

Who

" Mother Nature is not sweet. "

" The audience that I try to reach are members of what I call the church alumni association. Now they are people who have not found in institutional religion a God big enough to be God for their world. "

" 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. "

" I live on the other side of Charles Darwin and I can no longer see human light as having been created perfect and falling into sin, I see us rather emerging into higher and higher levels of consciousness and higher and higher levels of complication. "

" Religion is a mixed blessing. "

" I find that children have very little trouble understanding non-literal stories. "

" The Bible interprets life from its particular perspective; it does not record in a factual way the human journey through history. "

" 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. "

" Whatever diminishes life is evil, and whatever enhances life is good. "

" It's just not easy enough to say that I pray and God will accomplish. "

" The church is not going to survive if they are going to tell people that they have to twist their minds into 1st century pretzels. "

" Perhaps the most telling witness against the claim of accurate history for the Bible comes when we read the earliest narrative of the crucifixion found in Mark's gospel and discover that it is not based on eyewitness testimony at all. "

" In academia, I discovered that issues and insights, commonplace among the scholars, are viewed as highly controversial and even as 'heresy' in the churches. "

" All religion seems to need to prove that it's the only truth. And that's where it turns demonic. Because that's when you get religious wars and persecutions and burning heretics at the stake. "

" There is no way that the Fourth Gospel was written by John Zebedee or by any of the disciples of Jesus. The author of this book is not a single individual, but is at least three different writers/editors, who did their layered work over a period of 25 to 30 years. "

" I can only give away the love that I have received. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I want the traditional family upheld, but I don't want it upheld to the detriment of other people. "

" Was Judas Iscariot a figure of history? I do not think so. There is no mention of him in any source before the 8th decade. "

" It appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different. "

" I am trying to understand what it means to be a Christian without being religious. "

John Shelby Spong

Trying

Christian

" 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. "

" When I'm asked to define God, I'm almost wordless. "