The Protestant reformation was an attempt to recast the Christian faith in terms of the new learning of the 16th century, the… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
The great biblical tradition says that loving God and loving one's neighbor are not two separate actions but two sides of the… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
They amuse themselves by playing an irrelevant ecclesiastical game called "Let's Pretend." Let's pretend that we possess the objective truth of God… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
As for the status of Western Christianity, we are in a place where our task is to redefine the primary symbols of… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
I know that Arnold Toynby, the great historian, said he had always hoped the religions of the world would evolve until they… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
I go into the Hebrew Scriptures frequently, looking for different ways in which minority voices have expressed the reality of God, and… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
We were born in a Jewish world, as part of a Jewish faith tradition. We had to translate ourselves into the neo-Platonic… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
God is not a Christian, God is not a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist. All of those… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
It's the 21st century, and somebody has to rise from within this faith tradition and retranslate it for the post-modern world... The… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
The way that I see Christianity is that its role is to enhance the life of every person. — John Shelby Spong Copy Share
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 Copy Share
“When a human life is open to all that humanity can be, humanity and divinity flow together as one. It was and is a… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share
I don't see Jesus as rescuing the fallen; I see Jesus as expanding the potential of life. The primary reason the old idea of… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share
The Bible interprets life from its particular perspective; it does not record in a factual way the human journey through history. — John Shelby Spong Copy Share
My basis of morality is this: does this action enhance life, or does it denigrate life? Does it build up or does it tear… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share
I want the traditional family upheld, but I don't want it upheld to the detriment of other people. — John Shelby Spong Copy Share
We live in a very pluralistic society today. There are Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, atheists, Roman Catholics, Evangelical Christians, and Christians like me. There are… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share
The Bible was written between 3,000 and 2,000 years ago, and it's filled with the knowledge that people had in that period of time,… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share
We are in a survival mentality, and that's hard-wired into our humanity, because we are the winners of an evolutionary struggle of millions and… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share
Some people think prayer stops bullets or rockets or land mines. It doesn't. That's magic, that's not God. Sometimes, you're just in the wrong… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share
The Hebrew scriptures say it's okay to enslave anybody except your fellow Jews. It says you should enslave only your neighbors. I say to… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share
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 Copy Share
Benedict XVI kept saying that homosexuals are deviant. They're not deviant. They're deviant only if you say that anyone who is different from me… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share
I find it fascinating that Paul [the apostol], writing to the Galatians, responds to the question, "What does it mean to live in Christ?"… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share
