Quote

If the resurrection of Jesus cannot be believed except by assenting to the fantastic descriptions included in the Gospels, then Christianity is doomed. For that view of resurrection is not believable, and if that is all there is, then Christianity, which depends upon the truth and authenticity of Jesus' resurrection, also is not believable.

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
Also
View
Resurrection
Depends
Doomed
Views
Description
Assenting
Upon
Fantastic
Descriptions
Religion
Believed
Gospels
Jesus
Atheism
Believable
Cannot
Except
Included
Truth
Christianity
Authenticity

More quotes by John Shelby Spong

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I experience God as the power of love.
John Shelby Spong
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[Charles] Darwin, for example, is the one who made us face the fact that the primary way we tell the Christ story doesn't work anymore.
John Shelby Spong
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It's almost inevitable that we become religious people. The question is, what kind of religion is it?
John Shelby Spong
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The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.
John Shelby Spong
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I go where I'm invited. 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
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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
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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
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All religion seems to need to prove that it's the only truth. And that's where it turns demonic. Because that's when you get religious wars and persecutions and burning heretics at the stake.
John Shelby Spong
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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
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I don't want a God that would go around killing people's little girls. Neither do I want a God who would kill his own son.
John Shelby Spong
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The Bible Belt, the religious South, is the section of the country that practiced slavery until the war made them give it up. They practiced segregation. They practiced lynchings. I don't see any great value in that.
John Shelby Spong
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Some people think prayer is telling God what to do. I don't think that's the case.
John Shelby Spong
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I treasure the Bible. I live in it and work on it all the time. But it is not the word of God. It's the tribal story of a particular people, and the best thing about that story is that the story keeps growing and evolving.
John Shelby Spong
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Edward Schillebeeckx is probably as fine a New Testament scholar as I've ever read. He's a Dutchman. And he was harassed so many times that it was just painful for him. He constantly had to go to Rome to explain his views.
John Shelby Spong
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I know that Arnold Toynby, the great historian, said he had always hoped the religions of the world would evolve until they began to bring the very best of each tradition into one tradition. He hoped that Christianity would be the one religion that finally incorporated the values of Hinduism and Buddhism, and enriched itself with them.
John Shelby Spong
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What the mind cannot accept, the heart can finally never adore.
John Shelby Spong
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Was Judas Iscariot a figure of history? I do not think so. There is no mention of him in any source before the 8th decade.
John Shelby Spong
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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
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The Sins of Scripture is an interesting title most people don't put sins and scripture together in the same title. It jars people.
John Shelby Spong
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Whatever diminishes life is evil, and whatever enhances life is good.
John Shelby Spong