Quotes by John Shelby Spong

About John Shelby Spong:

John Shelby is a retired American bishop of the Episcopal Church. From 1979 to 2000 he was Bishop of Newark (based in Newark, New Jersey). He is a liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator and author. He calls for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away from theism and traditional doctrines.
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I don't think much about my physical body going off into the long, green fairways of Heaven to play golf.

John Shelby Spong

This is the picture of a woman cast in the role of a learner, a pupil, even a rabbinic student. Quite obviously this is a prohibited role for women in those days and in that culture. Yet Jesus affirms Mary in that role. Martha, however, rebukes her. ...

John Shelby Spong

What the mind cannot accept, the heart can finally never adore.

John Shelby Spong

Whatever it was that people experience in Jesus has today come to be identified with medieval doctrines based on premodern assumptions that are no longer believable. That identification means that serious theological discussion seems to accomplish li...

John Shelby Spong

I do not live in a world where people can walk on water, or still a storm, or take five loaves of bread and feed 5000 men plus women and children. If that is a requirement of my commitment to Jesus, I find it difficult to stretch my mind outside the ...

John Shelby Spong

In the first gospel, Mark, the risen Christ appears physically to no one, but by the time we come to the last gospel, John, Thomas is invited to feel the nail prints in Christ's hands and feet and the spear wound in his side.

John Shelby Spong

I admire our ancestors, whoever they were. I think the first self-conscious person must have shaken in his boots. Because as he becomes self-conscious, he's no longer part of nature. He sees himself against nature. He looks at the vastness of the uni...

John Shelby Spong

It appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different.

John Shelby Spong

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

Religion is a mixed blessing.

John Shelby Spong

There is no way that the Fourth Gospel was written by John Zebedee or by any of the disciples of Jesus. The author of this book is not a single individual, but is at least three different writers/editors, who did their layered work over a period of 2...

John Shelby Spong

Author Bio

  • NameJohn Shelby Spong
  • DescriptionAmerican bishop
  • BornJune 16, 1931
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPriest; Author; Theologian