We 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 SpongAll 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 SpongThe powers of nature are so great, and our power is so inept. So,in order to cope with the incredible anxiety that human self-consciousness produced, I think we created God in our own image, and then portrayed this God as having supernatural power that we didn't have.
John Shelby SpongPapal infallibility and biblical inerrancy are the two ecclesiastical versions of this human idolatry. Both papal infallibility and biblical inerrancy require widespread and unchallenged ignorance to sustain their claims to power. Both are doomed as viable alternatives for the long- range future of anyone.
John Shelby SpongIf you begin to give people hope that there is a brighter future, there is a new tomorrow, then the people who were yesterday's terrorists become tomorrow's elected officials and they're part of the system.
John Shelby SpongI think if you're convinced that you're evil, and that God has had to rescue you, then the best you can be is grateful. But nobody ever loves the person they have to be perpetually grateful to. That's just not the way it works in humanity. You need to be set free. You need to be loved just as you are so that you can become all that you can be. That's the direction we have to turn the Christian message; when we do, it becomes universal.
John Shelby Spong