. . . are the days when men ruled the world. Over are the times in which men held the upper hand simply because they could beat the crap out of any woman who disagreed. History has taught us that no situation remains long in place that was established through brute force. And like the marginalization of Jews, people of color and homosexual persons we must (to paraphrase John Shelby Spong) cleanse ourselves of our distorted past in order to restore integrity and honor to our society. We must embrace this enlightenment, rejoice in it and celebrate it.
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(from Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy by John Shelby Spong)
". . . If we reduce this Matthean character (the Canaanite woman) to literal person, we can deal with her once and for all and then move on. If she is a symbol, an icon, her challenge will be eternal; her face will change throughout history, but her demands will remain, constantly challenging our security and eroding our barriers. Jewish readers of Matthew's gospel knew that she was a symbol. Gentile readers, later, would assume that she was a literal figure and that they had dealt with her once they had brought themselves to accept Canaanites. Perhaps we need to confront the possibility that Christianity has not failed, as our critics constantly assert; the reality, I believe, is that Christianity has never been understood and thus has never really been tried. . . "
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(from http://myfox8.com/2013/05/25/heaven-for-atheists-pope-sparks-debate/)
". . . Atheist leaders welcomed Pope Francis’ comments that God has redeemed atheists, saying that the new pontiff’s historic outreach is helping to topple longstanding barriers. “The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone,” the pope told worshipers at morning Mass on Wednesday. “‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!” Francis continued: “We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.” Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association, said that although he has been skeptical of Francis’ outreach to the nonreligious, he welcomed Wednesday’s comments. . ."
(from http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/511016-i-find-something-repulsive-about-the-idea-of-vicarious-redemption) [Christopher Hitchens, world-reknown atheist who preferred to NOT be called an atheist]
“I find something repulsive about the idea of vicarious redemption. I would not throw my numberless sins onto a scapegoat and expect them to pass from me; we rightly sneer at the barbaric societies that practice this unpleasantness in its literal form. There's no moral value in the vicarious gesture anyway. As Thomas Paine pointed out, you may if you wish take on a another man's debt, or even to take his place in prison. That would be self-sacrificing. But you may not assume his actual crimes as if they were your own; for one thing you did not commit them and might have died rather than do so; for another this impossible action would rob him of individual responsibility. So the whole apparatus of absolution and forgiveness strikes me as positively immoral, while the concept of revealed truth degrades the concept of free intelligence by purportedly relieving us of the hard task of working out the ethical principles for ourselves.”
(from http://content.unity.org/homepageArchive/features/ponderFuture.html on John Shelby Spong's writing)
". . .The trouble with traditional Christianity, he said, is that it is built on two assumptions that are inadequate and dying. First, salvation must come from a God outside us—a theistic God, in Spong's term. Second, human beings are fallen, broken, sinful and in need of redemption. In other words, Christianity is based on a God with the power to save and humans who need to be saved. People are cast as “quivering children before a punishing, divine parent figure.” Human depravity is necessary before we can see the grace of God, who “saved a wretch like me,” Spong said, quoting the old hymn. No one has been helped by being told how wretched they are. . . “”
