277 Quotes by John Shelby Spong

Some people think prayer is telling God what to do. I don’t think that’s the case.

In fact, in 1724 the Western world learned that women were co-creators of life that’s when it was discovered that women had an egg cell.

The version of Christianity that is dying today is rooted in the grossly misunderstood concept of atonement.

We walk into the mystery of God; we do not define that mystery.

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 millions and millions of years.

Terrorism is a real despair. These are people for whom life has been so negative that they’re willing to die if they can take down some of their enemies.

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

There never was a time when we were created perfect and fell into sin and needed to be rescued. We are evolving people; we are not fallen people. We are not a little lower than the angels. We’re a little higher than the apes. It’s a very different perspective.

Unless biblical literalism is challenged overtly in the Christian church itself, it will, in my opinion, kill the Christian faith. It is not just a benign nuisance that afflicts Christianity at its edges; it is a mentality that renders the Christian faith unbelievable to an increasing number of the citizens of our world. The.