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" 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. "

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" 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. "

John Shelby Spong

Three

Book

Over

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" You learn that you either are going to have a police state where you don't have any freedom left, or you're going to build a world that doesn't create terrorists - and that means a whole different way of 'getting along.' "

" I don't think much about my physical body going off into the long, green fairways of Heaven to play golf. "

" I believe that God is very real. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I learned early in life that you get places by having the right enemies. "

" I experience God as the power of love. "

" We've got to deal with the fact that the church has been violently prejudiced against gay people. We've murdered them; we've burned them at the stake; we've run them out of town for something over which they have no control. And that's immoral. "

" Let me say that I consider myself a deep believer in the reality of God. 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. "

" 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. "

" My sense is if the Episcopal Church can't stand challenge within its own ranks, then it is not a church I would want to be a member of anyway. "

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

" 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. "

" 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

Life

Build

" 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. "

" I am a child of the 21st century. "

John Shelby Spong

I Am

Child

" 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 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. "

" Inequality for gay and lesbian people is no longer a debatable issue in either church or state. "

" You can't have a world where 50 percent of the people are dieting and 50 percent of the people are starving if you want stability. "

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