I treasure the Bible. I live in it and work on it all the time. But it is not the word of God. It's the tribal story of a particular people, and the best thing about that story is that the story keeps growing and evolving.

— John Shelby Spong (1931–2021), Bischof und Autor

Topics: The Bible & the Word of God, Doubt & Hard Questions

John Shelby Spong

John Shelby Spong war ein US-amerikanischer Bischof der Episkopalkirche in Newark und ein einflussreicher theologischer Buchautor des späten 20. Jahrhunderts. Er stand für einen radikalen theologischen Liberalismus, engagierte sich für die kirchliche Gleichstellung von Homosexuellen und lehnte traditionelle Dogmen wie die Jungfrauengeburt oder die leibliche Auferstehung Jesu ab. Heutigen Bibellesern begegnet er als streitbarer Vordenker des progressiven Christentums, dessen Kritik an klassischen Glaubenssätzen scharfe theologische Kontroversen auslöste.

All quotes by John Shelby Spong (8)

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The Bible in the pulpit must never supersede the Bible at home.
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The Bible is almost bursting with good news for bad people.
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I read the Bible the way I harvest my apple tree: I shake it, and what falls down and is ripe, I take. The rest I leave hanging for now.
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The Bible is the cradle wherein Christ is laid.
Martin Luther

The law is divine and holy. Let the law have its glory, but yet no law, be it never so divine and holy, ought to teach me that I am justified, and shall live through it. I grant it may teach me that I ought to love God and my neighbor; also to live in love, soberness, patience, etc., but it ought not to show me how I should be delivered from sin, the devil, death, and hell. Here I must take counsel of the gospel. I must hearken to the gospel, which teaches me, not what I ought to do but what Jesus Christ the Son of God hath done for me: that He suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death. The gospel wills me to receive this, and to believe it. And this is the truth of the gospel. Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.
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Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories.
Madeleine L'Engle

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