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Apologetic explanations do not develop unless there is a reality that has to be explained and defended. Jesus was undeniably a figure of history.

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
Unless
Apologetic
Jesus
Defended
History
Explanations
Reality
Explained
Explanation
Develop
Figure
Figures
Undeniably

More quotes by John Shelby Spong

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I look at American Christianity and I'm almost in despair. I don't want to be identified with it. The Christian vote in America is an anti-abortion, anti-homosexual vote. I consider that to be anti-female and anti-gay, and I don't want to be identified with a God who is anti-anything.
John Shelby Spong
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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
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I live on the other side of Copernicus and Galileo I can no longer conceive of God as sort of above the sky, looking down and keeping record books.
John Shelby Spong
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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
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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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Christianity is, I believe, about expanded life, heightened consciousness and achieving a new humanity. It is not about closed minds, supernatural interventions, a fallen creation, guilt, original sin or divine rescue.
John Shelby Spong
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The task of the church, for example, becomes less that of indoctrinating or relating people to an external divine power and more that of providing opportunities for people to touch the infinite center of all things and to grow into all that they are destined to be.
John Shelby Spong
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The thing that intrigues me about Matthew is that I don't believe anybody would read it if they aren't Jewish and understand it. And so to say that publicly as a Christian is kind of interesting.
John Shelby Spong
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Whatever diminishes life is evil, and whatever enhances life is good.
John Shelby Spong
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As for the status of Western Christianity, we are in a place where our task is to redefine the primary symbols of our faith or tradition in a more human direction. That's the thing I spend my time doing.
John Shelby Spong
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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
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What the mind cannot accept, the heart can finally never adore.
John Shelby Spong
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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.
John Shelby Spong
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Hysterical fundamentalism is not the way into the future it is the last gasp of the past.
John Shelby Spong
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You need to identify the values that come out of that kind of belief system, because I don't see them. All the polls I look at say, for example, that adultery is committed as much in the Bible Belt as in any other part of the country. The same goes for abortion, child abuse, spouse abuse or murder.
John Shelby Spong
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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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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
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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
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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
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My hope is that a religious consciousness will begin to rise, one based on enhancing humanity, grasping life in all of its complex wonder, having the courage to live fully, to love wastefully and to be all that each of us can be and that it will express itself in our national life in more earth centered, justice enhancing and humane ways.
John Shelby Spong