John Shelby Spong Quotes

• God is a presence that I can never define but I could never deny.

  John Shelby Spong

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Define, Presence

• I think one of the things we’ve got to look out for is human beings claiming that they know how God operates.

  John Shelby Spong

  Topics in God

  Tags in Claiming, Human

• You learn that you either are going to have a police state where you don’t have any freedom left, or you’re going to build a world that doesn’t create terrorists – and that means a whole different way of “getting along.”

  John Shelby Spong

• You can’t have a world where 50 percent of the people are dieting and 50 percent of the people are starving if you want stability.

  John Shelby Spong

• Whatever diminishes life is evil, and whatever enhances life is good.

  John Shelby Spong

• Terrorism is a real despair. These are people for whom life has been so negative that they’re willing to die if they can take down some of their enemies.

  John Shelby Spong

• Mother Nature is not sweet.

  John Shelby Spong

• If 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 Spong

• I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God.

  John Shelby Spong

• I learned early in life that you get places by having the right enemies.

  John Shelby Spong

• I admire our ancestors, whoever they were. I think the first self-conscious person must have shaken in his boots. Because as he becomes self-conscious, he’s no longer part of nature. He sees himself against nature. He looks at the vastness of the universe and it looks hostile.

  John Shelby Spong

• All 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 Spong

John Shelby Spong (32)

Birth:	16th June, 1931
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Bishop

About

John Shelby "Jack" Spong was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. He is a retired American bishop of the Episcopal Church. From 1979 to 2000 he was Bishop of Newark. He earned a BA degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1952. He earned his Master of Divinity degree from the Virginia Theological Seminary in 1955. He has held visiting positions and given lectures at major American theological institutions, most prominently at Harvard Divinity School. He has written several books include: Honest prayer, This Hebrew Lord, The Living Commandments, Easter Moment, Why Christianity Must Change or Die, A New Christianity for a New World, The Sins of Scripture, and Jesus for the non-religious.

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Births

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Deaths

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• 1971 - Shunryu Suzuki
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