A I don't think you can locate God or define God. In 1991's Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture, Spong argued that St. Paul was homosexual, a theme that was satirized in Gore Vidal's novel Live from Golgotha. With the need for constant evolution in mind, Spong created his personal mantra. , That is what Jesus meant and thats what the original Christ experience was, before we became Scripture defenders, and before the creeds became the essence of our faith.. 5:22), yet he called his enemies a "brood of snakes" (Matt. It caused his followers to regard his teaching as worthy of being preserved. }("apstag", window, document, "script", "//c.amazon-adsystem.com/aax2/apstag.js"); Spong said this means human division must disappear. John Shelby Spong Believe, Trying, Calling 45 Copy quote I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God. if(cookiePair[0] === name) { } " True religion is not about possessing the truth. Doctrines are never a description or definitionof our God experience. It has not only to do with erasing human divisions, but about revitalizing our most cherished beliefs.. 1. I rather experience God as the source of life willing me to live fully, the source of love calling me to love wastefully and to borrow a phrase from the theologian, Paul Tillich, as the Ground of being, calling me to be all that I can be. [7] Spong was the cousin of the United States Senator from Virginia William B. Spong Jr. setDisplayBids: function() {}, From 1979 to 2000, he was the Bishop of Newark, New Jersey. 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. gads.async = true; John Shelby Spong, whose books have sold more than a million copies, was bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark for 24 years before his retirement in 2001. googletag.cmd = googletag.cmd || []; As far as we know, a creaturewho can: define life, contemplates its beginning, anticipates its termination and raise the question of its meaning, is a rare thing, he said. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers. // The final address of this week, the final address in Chautauqua, the final addressof my life. He sees himself against nature. According to The Episcopal Diocese of Newark, Bishop Spong suffered a stroke before a speaking engagement in Marquette, Michigan, on Saturday, September 10, 2016. He is as radically liberal as it is possible to be and still maintain a nominal identification with the name "Christian.". Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends. An Episcopal court ruled that homosexuality was not counter to its principles in 1996, and the church recognized same-sex marriages in 2015.[4]. Most of the noise comes from the shallow end. They amuse themselves by playing an irrelevant ecclesiastical game called "Let's Pretend." Ibid., p. 288. The way you become divine is to become wholly human. If I were a child of Tibet or of Arabia, I suspect the path Id walk would be the Buddhist path or the Muslim path. If that is a requirement of my commitment to Jesus, I . All of those are human systems which human beings have created to try to help us walk into the mystery of God. url = "https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/mobile/phone_images-9e9093f0cfddba8c2b1e815375d976a3.css"; John Shelby Spong has been called a heretic and worse. About us. It's just not easy enough to say that I pray and God will accomplish. All of those are human systems which human beings have created to try to help us walk into the mystery of God. !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)? throw new Error("could not load device-specific stylesheet : " + err.message); function(a9, a, p, s, t, A, g) { The tour coincided with Hollingworth leaving the diocese to become the Governor-General of Australia. You can't go to church without praying ten or fifteen times for God to have mercy on you. Integrity and honesty, not objectivity and certainty, are the highest virtues to which the theological enterprise can aspire. John Shelby Spong 1 Mother Nature is not sweet. 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. var ue_sn = "www.goodreads.com"; 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. It is rather an invitation into a journey that leads one toward the mystery of God. 23:33), "blind fools" (Matt. 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. 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. A liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator, and author, he called for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away from theism and traditional doctrines. October 13, 2011. 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. [Religion News Service] Retired Newark Bishop John Shelby Spong, a bestselling author and cleric known for his progressive theology and his support of LGBTQ+ clergy in The Episcopal Church, has died. Was Judas Iscariot a figure of history? googletag.pubads().setTargeting("author", [45659]); // "[17], Spong's ideas have been criticized by some other theologians, notably in 1998 by Rowan Williams, the Bishop of Monmouth, who later became the Archbishop of Canterbury. "The older I get, the more deeply I believe but the. The Christians tried to separate themselves from the Jewish crowd so they wouldn't be the recipients of the persecution of the Romans. That is not within the capacity of the human mind to embrace the nature of God.. 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. 50. Favorite John Shelby Spong Quotes. Spong was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and educated in public schools there. 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. This self-denigration stuff - Jesus died for my sins - is nothing but a guilt message. Introducing John Shelby Spong the Rt. apstag.init({ Prayer is being present, sharing love, opening life to transcendence. var isRetina = window.devicePixelRatio >= 2; // retina display Prayer is entering into the pain or joy of another person. node.parentNode.insertBefore(gads, node); The Bible interprets life from its particular perspective; it does not record in a factual way the human journey through history. His views on the future of Christianity were "that we have to start where we are. John Shelby Spong Quotes. The church is like a swimming pool. Weekly mailing, September 5, 2007. The Bible was quoted to keep women silent, and the Bible lost. 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. John Shelby Spong. I admire our ancestors, whoever they were. The Rt. 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. But before he talked too much about the end, he went back to the Jewish roots of Matthews Gospel. The priesthood in many ways is the ultimate closet in Western civilization, where gay people particularly have hidden for the past two thousand years. I can only give away the love that I have received. [25] The notice was announced by the St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia, where Spong had once been rector.[26][27]. window.csa("Events")("setEntity", { John Shelby Spong. Matthew was sounding the call to a universal humanity, Spong said. Elaborating on this last idea, he affirmed that Jesus was adopted by God as his son (Born of a Woman 1992), and he says that this would be the way God was fully incarnated in Jesus Christ. var gads = document.createElement("script"); There is no way that the Fourth Gospel was written by John Zebedee or by any of the disciples of Jesus. And the way they did it was to say, the Jews killed our hero too. I call this God by different words. " John Shelby Spong 2. 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. He sees himself against nature. "//securepubads.g.doubleclick.net/tag/js/gpt.js"; I do not think so. It was for me a holy moment for I was certain that I was kneeling on holy ground.I will not make any further attempt to convert the Buddhist, the Jew, the Hindu or the Moslem. Why dont we understand that? Weve got to deal with the fact that the church has been violently prejudiced against gay people. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotes in the bullet points above are from Kitchen, "The Future Church and Bishop John Shelby Spong," p. 17. try { What the mind cannot believe the heart can finally never adore. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers. g.parentNode.insertBefore(A, g) He is a liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator and author. init: function() { Because as he becomes self-conscious, hes no longer part of nature. 5:22), yet he called his enemies a "brood of snakes" (Matt. It is simply a fact of his upbringing, along with a personal desire to continue being a disciple of Jesus. I do assert that one prepares for eternity not by being religious and keeping the rules, but by living fully, loving wastefully, and daring to be all that each of us has the capacity to be. 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