February 7, 2019 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.' John Shelby Spong/ freedom 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.. Every day we present the best quotes! I think one of the things we've got to look out for is human beings claiming that they know how God operates. The Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible's Texts of Hate to Reveal the God of Love, p.12, Harper Collins. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way. There are passages in the Gospels that portray Jesus of Nazareth as narrowminded, vindictive, and even hypocritical. From 1979 to 2000, he was the Bishop of Newark, New Jersey. googletag.pubads().setTargeting("surface", "mw"); Let's pretend that we possess the objective truth of God in our inerrant Scriptures or in our infallible pronouncements or in our unbroken apostolic traditions. Almost any poll of regular churchgoers will reveal that their favorite book in the New Testament is the Gospel of John. John Shelby Spong died this past summer at the age of 90. "Another [book on Matthew] is Amy-Jill Levine, who is a Jewish woman who teaches New Testament at the Vanderbilt School of Religion. This is an opportune time for those who identify with liberal Christianity to take a critical look at his legacy. 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. Spong, Resurrection Myth or Reality, p. 287. }("apstag", window, document, "script", "//c.amazon-adsystem.com/aax2/apstag.js"); "Application": "GoodreadsMonolith", There is a mistake in the text of this quote. googletag.pubads().setTargeting("sid", "osid.a1fff312af8a1d2b3b241fa9193829a2"); The Christians tried to separate themselves from the Jewish crowd so they wouldn't be the recipients of the persecution of the Romans. [8], Spong's writings rely on Biblical and non-Biblical sources and were influenced by modern critical analysis of these sources (see especially Spong, 1991). I don't see Jesus as rescuing the fallen; I see Jesus as expanding the potential of life. In [the story of Jesus] I found a center for my being. Was Judas Iscariot a figure of history? He stated that he was a Christian because he believes that Jesus Christ fully expressed the presence of a God of compassion and selfless love and that this is the meaning of the early Christian proclamation, "Jesus is Lord" (Spong, 1994 and Spong, 1991). If you begin to give people hope that there is a brighter future, there is a new tomorrow, then the people who were yesterdays terrorists become tomorrows elected officials and theyre part of the system. The priesthood in many ways is the ultimate closet in Western civilization, where gay people particularly have hidden for the past two thousand years. // While Paul left off there, Spong believes there is a lot more to modernizing Christianity than erasing those dividing lines. 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. [CDATA[ It appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different. V. Gene Robinson was able to publicly thank the man he said are the shoulders on which (Robinson) stands.. if (window.Mobvious === undefined) { I thought it presented Jesus as a visitor from another planet; in addition, Johns gospel is and has been interpreted as a document that fuels anti-Semitism in the church. So who is God? John Shelby "Jack" Spong (June 16, 1931 - September 12, 2021) was an American bishop of the Episcopal Church. 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. Prayer is being present, sharing love, opening life to transcendence. The question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel. var ue_id = "TXPX0XF032R2WV9SNJQY"; 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. October 13, 2011. In addition, she is a rising senior at The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism in Phoenix, Arizona, where she most recently served as a breaking news reporter for The Arizona Republic, as well as a documentary producer for Arizona PBS. I prepare for death by living. A liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator, and author, he called for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away from theism and traditional doctrines. I could not believe that anyone who has read this book would be so foolish as to proclaim that the Bible in every literal word was the divinely inspired, inerrant word of God.