277 Quotes by John Shelby Spong

What happened in the Western world was that Plato ceased to be the way people thought. Aristotle was rediscovered, and the modern, educated world moved toward Aristotelian thinking.

In the fall of 1988, I worshipped God in a Buddhist temple. As the smell of incense filled the air, I knelt before three images of the Buddha, feeling that the smoke could carry my prayers heavenward. It was for me a holy moment for I was certain that I was kneeling on holy ground....I will not make any further attempt to convert the Buddhist, the Jew, the Hindu or the Moslem. I am content to learn from them and to walk with them side by side toward the God who lives, I believe, beyond the images that bind and blind us.

In supporting argument for segregation, Paul [the apostol] addresses the people in his epistle to the Colossians, and he tells them how to treat their slaves. "Slaves, obey your masters. Masters, be kind to yourslaves." Paul was in favor of a kinder and gentler slavery; it never occurred to him to raise the question about whether slavery itself was immoral.

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.

I know that Arnold Toynby, the great historian, said he had always hoped the religions of the world would evolve until they began to bring the very best of each tradition into one tradition. He hoped that Christianity would be the one religion that finally incorporated the values of Hinduism and Buddhism, and enriched itself with them.

[Charles] Darwin, for example, is the one who made us face the fact that the primary way we tell the Christ story doesn't work anymore.

The Sins of Scripture is an interesting title; most people don't put sins and scripture together in the same title. It jars people.

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.

I don't like to talk about it in those terms; it's impossible to describe who or what God "is." Suppose you were a horse, and you were asked to describe what a human being was like. You couldn't do it;