Priest says hell is an invention of the church to control people

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My facebook friend posted this Youtube video about a priest that argues that hell is only a church invention used to control people. He states that the church doesn’t want its parishioners to “grow up” because you can’t control grown ups. I find this so disturbing, and I think it’s disgusting that something like this would come out of a priest’s mouth. What do you think of his argument?

youtube.com/watch?v=LkaH3hEmV3M&sns=fb
 
timwatt said:
My facebook friend posted this Youtube video about a priest that argues that hell is only a church invention used to control people. He states that the church doesn’t want its parishioners to “grow up” because you can’t control grown ups. I find this so disturbing, and I think it’s disgusting that something like this would come out of a priest’s mouth. What do you think of his argument?

youtube.com/watch?v=LkaH3hEmV3M&sns=fb
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Luther was a priest too.
 
As was the founder of many early heresies…

Jesus spoke a good deal of Hell…as a possibility we want to avoid.

And of course of “true life” in him!
 
I’ve always wondered about this contention that the Church has made up things in order to “control people.” How exactly does the Church wish to control people? It hasn’t worked for nearly 2,000 years so why the charade?
 
timwatt said:
My facebook friend posted this Youtube video about a priest that argues that hell is only a church invention used to control people. He states that the church doesn’t want its parishioners to “grow up” because you can’t control grown ups. I find this so disturbing, and I think it’s disgusting that something like this would come out of a priest’s mouth. What do you think of his argument?

youtube.com/watch?v=LkaH3hEmV3M&sns=fb
Click to expand...
You know, Google and the internet can be great tools 👍. I did a search for online bible concordance, found one, searched for “hell” and came up with this: cgi.godsview.com/cgi-bin/rcdenig/psiseek.pl?topic=hell “Hell”-from Deuteronomy to Revelation. Guess that priest isn’t very familiar with Holy Scripture :eek:🤷:eek:.
 
He doesn’t identify himself as a Catholic priest…there are other religions that have “priests”. Anyway, that whole interview would be laughable if it weren’t so sad.
 
He is a retired Episcopal Bishop, named John Shelby Spong. What he says scares me for any who believe in it. “You don’t need to be born again, you need to grow up!” That shows a fundamental failure to understand what being born again means.

He even teaches that “The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ’s divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.” :eek:
 
timwatt said:
My facebook friend posted this Youtube video about a priest that argues that hell is only a church invention used to control people. He states that the church doesn’t want its parishioners to “grow up” because you can’t control grown ups. I find this so disturbing, and I think it’s disgusting that something like this would come out of a priest’s mouth. What do you think of his argument?

youtube.com/watch?v=LkaH3hEmV3M&sns=fb
Click to expand...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Shelby_Spong
John Shelby “Jack” Spong (born June 16, 1931) is a retired American bishop of the Episcopal Church. He was formerly the Bishop of Newark (based in Newark, New Jersey). He is a liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator and author. He calls for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away from theism and from traditional doctrines.[1]
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First clue - was his purple vest.

Second clue - was his name on the left side corner of the video.
 
timwatt said:
My facebook friend posted this Youtube video about a priest that argues that hell is only a church invention used to control people. He states that the church doesn’t want its parishioners to “grow up” because you can’t control grown ups. I find this so disturbing, and I think it’s disgusting that something like this would come out of a priest’s mouth. What do you think of his argument?

youtube.com/watch?v=LkaH3hEmV3M&sns=fb
Click to expand...
First, Spong is not a Roman Catholic Priest. He was an ultra liberal Episcopalian Bishop in Newark, N.J., who was nudged (forced???) into retirement ahead of time because of his heretical pronouncements. He was one of the principal people who pushed women priests and admittance of homosexuals to the clergy and their elevation to Bishop within his church.
Secondly, he is/was the complete antithesis to a Roman Catholic priest.
 
timwatt said:
My facebook friend posted this Youtube video about a priest that argues that hell is only a church invention used to control people. He states that the church doesn’t want its parishioners to “grow up” because you can’t control grown ups. I find this so disturbing, and I think it’s disgusting that something like this would come out of a priest’s mouth. What do you think of his argument?

youtube.com/watch?v=LkaH3hEmV3M&sns=fb
Click to expand...
He’ll be changing his mind when he gets there, if he doesn’t change his ways.
 
ahs said:
He doesn’t identify himself as a Catholic priest…there are other religions that have “priests”. Anyway, that whole interview would be laughable if it weren’t so sad.
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Good point! Is there any evidence that he is a christian minister atall? Or even a christian, for that matter. Mayhaps he’s an atheist trying to muddy the waters? Trying to exploit the vulnerable?
 
bmullins said:
He is a retired Episcopal Bishop, named John Shelby Spong.
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Oh, this guy isn’t news. No disrespect to him personally intended, but he’s essentially an apostate. He doesn’t even believe in the Resurrection.
 
Timothysis said:
I’ve always wondered about this contention that the Church has made up things in order to “control people.” How exactly does the Church wish to control people? It hasn’t worked for nearly 2,000 years so why the charade?
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Applause, applause!

And excellent point.
 
jprice66 said:
The man in question is an ordained Anglican minister, but his positions are just about non-Christian and simply bizarre by anyone’s standards.

Read his 12 theses: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Shelby_Spong
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Wonder if he see himself as the 21st Century’s Martin Luther.
Twelve points
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Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.
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Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.
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The Biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.
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The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ’s divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.
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The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.
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The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.
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Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history.
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The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.
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There is no external, objective, revealed standard written in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time.
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Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.
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The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.
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All human beings bear God’s image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one’s being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination.
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Isn’t this close to what atheists believe?
 
Barbkw said:
Isn’t this close to what atheists believe?
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I think his 12 points are more of an indication that he thinks the bible and tradition are antiquated and should just be scrapped and we should come up with a new ‘God’ who fits what he perceives God should be based on his own ideals.
 
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