1. Citations
  2. Auteurs
  3. John Shelby Spong

John Shelby Spong citations

John Shelby Spong est l'ancien évêque anglican du diocèse du New Jersey, de l'Église Épiscopale des États-Unis. C'est un chrétien libéral, théologien, universitaire, critique religieux et écrivain. Il défend généralement les thèses libérales, comme l'égalité raciale . Il appelle aussi à repenser fondamentalement la foi chrétienne, en abandonnant le théisme et la vie après la mort en tant que punition des comportements humains.

Les idées de Spong ont été sévèrement critiquées par d'autres théologiens, notamment par Rowan Williams, quand celui-ci était l'évêque anglican de Monmouth. Wikipedia  

✵ 16. juin 1931
John Shelby Spong photo
John Shelby Spong: 12   citations 0   J'aime

John Shelby Spong: Citations en anglais

“The church is like a swimming pool. Most of the noise comes from the shallow end.”

Help us translate this quote
John Shelby Spong

Source: Eternal Life: A New Vision: Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell

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

Help us translate this quote
John Shelby Spong

Source: Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (1991), p. 24

“True religion is not about possessing the truth. No religion does that. It is rather an invitation into a journey that leads one toward the mystery of God. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers.”

Help us translate this quote
John Shelby Spong

"Q&A on The Parliament of the World's Religions," weekly mailing, 2007-SEP-05, as reported on Religious Tolerance.org http://www.religioustolerance.org/reltrue.htm

“Jesus could not have imagined such an idea as Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.”

Help us translate this quote
John Shelby Spong

Source: Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (1991), p. 25

“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.”

Help us translate this quote
John Shelby Spong

Source: Resurrection: Myth or Reality? (1994), p. 238

“There are passages in the Gospels that portray Jesus of Nazareth as narrowminded, vindictive, and even hypocritical. Jesus exhorted people to love their enemies and to pray for their persecutors (Matt. 5:44) and never to call others by demeaning or hurtful names (Matt. 5:22), yet he called his enemies a "brood of snakes" (Matt. 12:34), "sons of vipers" (Matt. 23:33), "blind fools" (Matt. 23:17). … How divine is the message that says for your finite failings you will be cast into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”

Help us translate this quote
John Shelby Spong

Matt. 25:30
Source: Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (1991), p. 21

“All religion seems to need to prove that it's the only truth.”

Help us translate this quote
John Shelby Spong

Interview http://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/christianity/2005/05/i-am-a-mystic.aspx?p=2 with Deborah Caldwell for Beliefnet.com (May 2005)

“Integrity and honesty, not objectivity and certainty, are the highest virtues to which the theological enterprise can aspire. From this perspective, all human claims to possess objectivity, certainty, or infallibility are revealed as nothing but the weak and pitiable pleas of frantically insecure people who seek to live in an illusion because reality has proved to be too difficult.”

Help us translate this quote
John Shelby Spong

Source: Resurrection: Myth or Reality? (1994), p. 99

“In [the story of Jesus] I found … a center for my being. Behind the supernatural framework of the first century, behind the language of myth, magic, and superstition, I discovered a life I wanted to know; a life that possessed a power I wanted to possess; a freedom, a wholeness for which I had yearned for years.”

Help us translate this quote
John Shelby Spong

This Hebrew Lord (1974), p. 13

“Above all, words must be recognized as symbolic pointers to truth, not objective containers of truth.”

Help us translate this quote
John Shelby Spong

Source: Resurrection: Myth or Reality? (1994), p. 37

“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.”

Help us translate this quote
John Shelby Spong

"Why We Must Reclaim The Bible From Fundamentalists" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-shelby-spong/why-i-wrote-re-claiming-t_b_1007399.html, The Huffington Post (13 October 2011)

“The question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel.”

Help us translate this quote
John Shelby Spong

Source: Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (1991), p. 78