Our problem is not that we're fallen; our problem is we haven't become human yet. The question is, what can make us human, so that we can give life away and give love away and not be grasping after trying to protect our own lives all the time? That's the way I see the Jesus story, and I think it's a powerful and profound story.
John Shelby SpongAs for the status of Western Christianity, we are in a place where our task is to redefine the primary symbols of our faith or tradition in a more human direction. That's the thing I spend my time doing.
John Shelby SpongI've never known about anyone being helped by being told how wretched, miserable, sinful, and evil they are.
John Shelby SpongI live on the other side of Charles Darwin and I can no longer see human light as having been created perfect and falling into sin, I see us rather emerging into higher and higher levels of consciousness and higher and higher levels of complication.
John Shelby SpongI think Jesus is a fact of history. I think a man named Jesus of Nazareth lived and was crucified. I think his death interpreted his life in a fantastic way, because if you study that life carefully underneath an overlay of theology and mythology, you'll find that the power of that life was that he was constantly giving himself away. He was constantly calling people to be all that they could be.
John Shelby Spong