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If the resurrection of Jesus cannot be believed except by assenting to the fantastic descriptions included in the Gospels, then Christianity is doomed. For that view of resurrection is not believable, and if that is all there is, then Christianity, which depends upon the truth and authenticity of Jesus' resurrection, also is not believable.

— John Shelby Spong Resurrection: Myth or Reality? (1994)

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Christianity

More quotes by John Shelby Spong

What the mind cannot believe the heart can finally never adore.

Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (1991)

The question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel.

Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (1991)

Jesus could not have imagined such an idea as Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.

Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (1991)

Above all, words must be recognized as symbolic pointers to truth, not objective containers of truth.

Resurrection: Myth or Reality? (1994)

All religion seems to need to prove that it's the only truth.

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Must then a Christ perish in torment in every age to save those that have no imagination?

George Bernard Shaw Saint Joan (1923)

The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence, from Jerusalem, of a lunatic asylum.

Havelock Ellis

Christianity offers reasons for not fearing death or the universe, and in so doing it fails to teach adequately the virtue of courage.

Bertrand Russell Education and the Social Order (1932)

Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law [this quote is referring to English Common Law].

Thomas Jefferson Vol. 1 Whether Christianity is Part of the Common Law (1764)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Shelby Spong (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.