Weve murdered them; weve burned them at the stake; weve run them out of town for something over which they have no control. Giving It All Quotes Page 34 Part 2 of the giving it all quotations list about premature-birth and baby-shower sayings citing John Shelby Spong, Eve Ensler and Milo Ventimiglia captions Now, the fourth gospel says that the moment that Jesus is glorified is the moment he's put to death on the cross, not the resurrection. var gads = document.createElement("script"); Because that's when you get religious wars and persecutions and burning heretics at the stake. It appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different. This is an opportune time for those who identify with liberal Christianity to take a critical look at his legacy. True religion is not about possessing the truth. } //=0){return}if("ue_https" in e){f=e.ue_https}else{f=e.location&&e.location.protocol=="https:"?1:0}i=f? It's just not easy enough to say that I pray and God will accomplish. The author made sure that it was understood as a universal happening, Spong said. In academia, I discovered that issues and insights, commonplace among the scholars, are viewed as highly controversial and even as heresy in the churches. [7] Spong was the cousin of the United States Senator from Virginia William B. Spong Jr. Spong said this means human division must disappear. All we can ever say is how we believe we have experienced God, doing our best to dispel our human delusions. He sees himself against nature. var gptAdSlots = gptAdSlots || []; Spong's calendar had him lecturing around the world. - John Shelby Spong. Spong proffers a third way, one that involves being "fully human." We are not really separated from God, he asserts. [3], Spong was one of the first American bishops to ordain a woman into the clergy, in 1977, and he was the first to ordain an openly gay man, Robert Williams, in 1989. John Shelby Spong has long been known as the "nightmare" of the more conservative element of the Anglican Church in America. var source = getCookieWithoutJQuery("source"); Even in the widest variety of our humanity, in our deepest set of beliefs, there is no outcast in this community, he said. And this came after I had written a book called "Living In Sin" on the whole gay. return true; And all I can tell you is if we accepted every invitation we had, I'd be away every day of my life." -- John Shelby Spong #Accepted #Invitations "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. John Shelby Spong Related Authors Part 2 of the all things quotations list about every-one and in-its-entirety sayings citing Jay Baruchel, David Frum and David Frum captions. 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 I was taught that it was okay to hate other religions, and especially the Jews, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. setDisplayBids: function() {}, Are they hopelessly misinformed? The priesthood in many ways is the ultimate closet in Western civilization, where gay people particularly have hidden for the past two thousand years. 1. BrainyQuote has been providing inspirational quotes since 2001 to our worldwide community. He believed that theism had lost credibility as a valid conception of God's nature. And thats immoral. Matthew was sounding the call to a universal humanity, Spong said. }; Showing 1-30 of 46 "God is not a Christian, God is not a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist. Above all, words must be recognized as symbolic pointers to truth, not objective containers of truth. 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. True religion is not about possessing the truth. I believe that God is very real. But the irony was that as he was making his case, modernity was ending and postmodernity starting, and his rationalist perspective became pass. window.Mobvious = {}; Now they are people who have not found in institutional religion a God big enough to be God for their world. The Rt. I was taught that it was okay to hate other religions, and especially the Jews, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. Introducing John Shelby Spong the Rt. I do not think so. The God of the Hebrews is a God that human language, we're not even supposed to speak the holy name. However, there was one last thing he wanted to add. Inequality for gay and lesbian people is no longer a debatable issue in either church or state. We do not have to literalize their words to perceive their meaning or their intention to join in the singing of their creedal song. googletag.cmd = googletag.cmd || []; googletag.pubads().setTargeting("signedin", "false"); Gate tickets and other revenue cover only a portion of the cost of your Chautauqua experience. He called for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away from theism and traditional doctrines. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way. We must move beyond the now irrelevant dualistic patterns and discover the holy at the heart of the human. Then there was Paul. The tour coincided with Hollingworth leaving the diocese to become the Governor-General of Australia. In 2000, Spong was a critic of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Roman Catholic Church's declaration Dominus Iesus, because it reaffirmed the Catholic doctrine that the Roman Catholic Church is the one true Church and that Jesus Christ is the one and only savior for humanity. That is a paradigm shift of the first order. There are passages in the Gospels that portray Jesus of Nazareth as narrowminded, vindictive, and even hypocritical. Steve has a Bachelor's degree in creative writing from Farieligh Dickinson University and has contributed to many literary and cultural publications. It is love that loves not because it has been earned. var url; I was baptized as an infant. "[23], Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, described Spong's teaching as constituting the historic definition of heresy, having "denied virtually every major Christian doctrine. But before he talked too much about the end, he went back to the Jewish roots of Matthews Gospel. Jesus was undeniably a figure of history. John Shelby Spong 82. "https://":"http://";i+=f?g:k;i+=j;i+=h;c(i)}if(!e.ue_inline){if(a.loadUEFull){a.loadUEFull()}else{b()}}a.uels=c;e.ue=a})(window,document); An Episcopal court ruled that homosexuality was not counter to its principles in 1996, and the church recognized same-sex marriages in 2015.[4]. I believe that I live my life every day inside the reality of this God. I was taught that it was okay to hate other religions, and especially the Jews, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. The trouble with Christianity was that by about 150, there were hardly any Jews left in the Christian church, and so from that time until the last part of the twentieth century, the only people reading the gospels and interpreting the gospels and writing . Jesus becomes the captive of the hysterically religious, the chronically fearful, the insecure and even the neurotic among us, or he becomes little more than a fading memory, the symbol of an age that is no more and a nostalgic reminder of our believing past. return cookiePair[1]; I just go beyond them. All religion seems to need to prove that it's the only truth. function isShowingBuyableFeatures() { The Christianity of the future cannot live inside the doctrines of the past, Spong said. The God understood as a father figure, who guided ultimate personal decisions, answered our prayers, and promised rewards and punishment based upon our behavior was not designed to call anyone into maturity. //= 2; // retina display There is no longer Jew nor Greek. googletag.enableServices(); That's sort of fourth-century Christianity that got turned into doctrines and dogmas that we've never been able to escape. Spong said this means human division must disappear. John Shelby Spong was the Episcopal bishop of Newark before his retirement in 2000. If God is the ground of being, then the only way I can worship God is by having the courage to be all that I can be, Spong said. As a leading spokesperson for an open, scholarly, and progressive Christianity, Bishop Spong has taught at Harvard and at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. I cannot say my yes to legends that have been clearly and fancifully created. , 12:34), "sons of vipers" (Matt. Let me say that I consider myself a deep believer in the reality of God. function q(c, r) { Our English language really says if you're not a theist, the only alternative is to be an atheist. I hope I am not ungracious if in return I remark that I do not think that a single NT author would recognize Spong's Jesus as the figure being proclaimed or written about. John Shelby Spong passed away at his home in North Carolina according to an announcement from the Richmond, Virginia parish he once pastored. He is representative of a stream of thought with roots in the medieval universalism of Peter Abelard and the existentialism of Paul Tillich, whom he called his favorite theologian. It is the book that is most often used at Christian funerals. All of those are human systems which human beings have created to try to help us walk into the mystery of God. Williams described Spong's Twelve Points for Reform as embodying "confusion and misinterpretation". There's a Psalm that says "Happy will you be when you take your enemy's children and dash their heads against the stones." I don't see Jesus as rescuing the fallen; I see Jesus as expanding the potential of life. Lecturing around the World 's Religions ''. he called his enemies a `` of... To act in human history in a factual way the human function ( ) { }, are hopelessly... 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