John Shelby Spong Quotes about Religion

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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.

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.

John Shelby Spong

Journey, Religion, Doe

"Q&A on The Parliament of the World's Religions". Weekly mailing, September 5, 2007.

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

Religious, War, Religion

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

Jesus, Views, Religion

John Shelby Spong (1994). “Resurrection: myth or reality? : a bishop's search for the origins of Christianity”, Harpercollins

The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.

John Shelby Spong

Punishment, Forever, Religion

The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.

John Shelby Spong

Religion, Atheism, Divinity

The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.

John Shelby Spong

Miracle, Religion, Atheism

At its very core the story of Easter has nothing to do with angelic announcements or empty tombs. It has nothing to do with time periods, whether three days, forty days, or fifty days. It has nothing to do with resuscitated bodies that appear and disappear or that finally exit this world in a heavenly ascension.

John Shelby Spong

Easter, Religion, Three

John Shelby Spong (2009). “Resurrection: Myth or Reality?”, p.21, Harper Collins

Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.

John Shelby Spong

Prayer, Religion, Atheism

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

John Shelby Spong

Heart, Mind, Religion

I cannot say my yes to legends that have been clearly and fancifully created. If I could not move my search beyond angelic messengers, empty tombs, and ghostlike apparitions, I could not say yes to Easter.

John Shelby Spong

Easter, Moving, Religion

John Shelby Spong (1994). “Resurrection: myth or reality? : a bishop's search for the origins of Christianity”, Harpercollins