It appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different.
John Shelby SpongThe thing that intrigues me about Matthew is that I don't believe anybody would read it if they aren't Jewish and understand it. And so to say that publicly as a Christian is kind of interesting.
John Shelby SpongI know Jerry [Falwell] fairly well, and he's probably not bright enough to recognize all of the implications of what he said.
John Shelby SpongPaul's words are not the Words of God. They are the words of Paul- a vast difference.
John Shelby SpongI'm not writing for fundamentalists. I'm writing for the people who have been repelled by that kind of thinking and yet who think there might be something they haven't yet discovered.
John Shelby SpongWe have to start at ground zero and ask what it means to have a real connection with God and what it means to pray. We have to recast our whole understanding of God. We live on the other side of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Steven Hawking, a whole group of people who have recast the way we think about reality.
John Shelby Spong