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I think one of the things we've got to look out for is human beings claiming that they know how God operates.
John Shelby Spong
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John Shelby Spong
Age: 93
Born: 1931
Born: June 16
Author
Philosopher
Priest
Theologian
Writer
Charlotte
North Carolina
Humans
Looks
Things
Think
Claiming
Thinking
Operates
Beings
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Human
More quotes by John Shelby Spong
The way that I see Christianity is that its role is to enhance the life of every person.
John Shelby Spong
Human beings are hardwired by however many millions or billions of years to orient toward their own survival. That's why we're tribal people. That's why we're prejudiced people. That's why we treat women as second-class citizens, that's why we are homophobic, and that's why we make religion a weapon to prove we're superior to other people.
John Shelby Spong
I don't like to talk about it in those terms it's impossible to describe who or what God is. Suppose you were a horse, and you were asked to describe what a human being was like. You couldn't do it.
John Shelby Spong
Religion is a mixed blessing.
John Shelby Spong
Some people think prayer is telling God what to do. I don't think that's the case.
John Shelby Spong
Some parts of the Bible are dreadful. In fact, my working title for The Sins of Scripture was The Terrible Text of The Bible.
John Shelby Spong
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
The trouble is, the same thing that enabled us to survive evolution is also going to kill us, because in the final analysis, if survival is the primary motivation of every human being, then we will finally be in a situation where might will make right and only one person will survive.
John Shelby Spong
Matthew is the only gospel that uses the Sermon on the Mount, for example, because that's the new Moses making a new interpretation of the law on a new mountain. So then you begin to put all these things together, and I don't know how you can make sense out of that book if you don't know the Jewish background.
John Shelby Spong
In my book, The Sins of Scripture, I traced the development of tribal religion, which included ideas like God's killing the Egyptians because they hated the chosen people. Then a God of love finally appears in the Book of Hosea, about the 8th century. A God of justice appears in the Book of Amos in the late 8th century or early 7th century.
John Shelby Spong
The priesthood in many ways is the ultimate closet in Western civilization, where gay people particularly have hidden for the past two thousand years.
John Shelby Spong
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.
John Shelby Spong
I know Jerry [Falwell] fairly well, and he's probably not bright enough to recognize all of the implications of what he said.
John Shelby Spong
The church had to find a way to protect Jesus' perfection so that he could do the work of salvation which, in their frame of reference, only God could do, because God had to come into this world from outside this world to rescue the fallen creation.
John Shelby Spong
I don't make that decision [what next book will be] until I've read enough to know that I've got something different to say and I know how to say it.
John Shelby Spong
I think the story of the Christian faith is how you can become more deeply and fully human, not how you can become religious. And I don't see any indication that being religious makes you more moral.
John Shelby Spong
Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, says, From the rising of the sun to its setting, God's name shall be great among the Gentiles. This encompasses the whole world. Suddenly it's not the Jews against the Gentiles, or my tribe against your tribe.
John Shelby Spong
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
I ... look at Jesus and see a humanity open to all that God is--open to life, open to love and open to being.
John Shelby Spong
The demolishment of the power of organized Christianity in the Western world to finally realize the emancipation of women and give them the vote in 1920. Women couldn't even own property in their own names until the last quarter of the 19th century in America.
John Shelby Spong
