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" Religion is a mixed blessing. "
John Shelby Spong
Blessing
Mixed
Religion
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" I cannot possibly conceive of my planet Earth as the centre of a three-tiered universe. I know rather that the sun, around which my planet Earth revolves, is a middle sized star in a galaxy called the Milky Way that has over a hundred billion other suns or stars within it. "
John Shelby Spong
Way
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Sun
" 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
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Build
" I don't think much about my physical body going off into the long, green fairways of Heaven to play golf. "
John Shelby Spong
Long
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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
" 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
" In academia, I discovered that issues and insights, commonplace among the scholars, are viewed as highly controversial and even as 'heresy' in the churches. "
John Shelby Spong
Controversial
Issues
Even
" I find that children have very little trouble understanding non-literal stories. "
John Shelby Spong
Children
Understanding
Trouble
" 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
" I believe that God is very real. "
John Shelby Spong
Very
God
Believe
" I believe that is what the God experience does for us. It calls us beyond our limits into the fullness of life - into a capacity to love people we are not taught to love - and into an ability to be who we are. "
John Shelby Spong
Love
People
Experience
" 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
" 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
Side
Feel
Feet
" It appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different. "
John Shelby Spong
Religion
Nature
Against
" If you begin to give people hope that there is a brighter future, there is a new tomorrow, then the people who were yesterday's terrorists become tomorrow's elected officials and they're part of the system. "
John Shelby Spong
Tomorrow
People
New
" 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
" I am a child of the 21st century. "
John Shelby Spong
Am
I Am
Child
" 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
" 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
" 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. "
John Shelby Spong
History
Him
Any
" 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. "
John Shelby Spong
Value
Life
Book
" 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
" Our English language really says if you're not a theist, the only alternative is to be an atheist. What I'm trying to do is develop a language that will enable us to talk about God beyond the, what I think, are sterile categories of theism and atheism. "
John Shelby Spong
You
God
Language
" 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
Life
Alive
New
" 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
" The way you become divine is to become wholly human. "
John Shelby Spong
Way
Human
You
" 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
" A lot of people hear me attacking their certainty. I don't have any interest in doing that. I'm interested in penetrating the meaning of certainty. "
John Shelby Spong
People
Meaning
Me
" 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
" 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
" The God of the Hebrews is a God that human language, we're not even supposed to speak the holy name. We were told in the Second Commandment we could make no images of this God, and I don't think that means just building idols, I think that means also trying to believe you've captured God in your words, in the Creeds, in the Scriptures. "
John Shelby Spong
God
Name
Speak