The church is like a swimming pool. Most of the noise comes from the shallow end.
John Shelby SpongRead
When I grew up in the South, I was taught that segregation was the will of God, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. I was taught that women were by nature in inferior to men, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. I was taught that it was okay to hate other religions, and especially the Jews, and the Bible was quoted to prove it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on how societal norms and prejudices were justified through misinterpretations of religious teachings.
John Shelby Spong highlights the troubling lessons he learned in his upbringing, where segregation, the inferiority of women, and hatred against other religions, particularly Judaism, were all rationalized through selective and distorted biblical interpretations. This critique emphasizes how deeply ingrained biases can corrupt moral education and spirituality, urging a reevaluation of such beliefs in light of compassion and equality.
Themes
SegregationReligionPrejudiceEqualityEducation
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech addressing social justice, one could use this quote to illustrate how religion has been misused to justify harmful ideologies.
More from John Shelby Spong
All quotes →Christianity is not about the divine becoming human so much as it is about the human becoming divine. That is a paradigm shift of the first order.
John Shelby SpongRead
I would like the church to be a place where the questions of people are honored rather than a place where we have all the answers. The church has to get out of propaganda. The future will involve us in more interfaith dialogue. ... We cannot say we have the only truth.
John Shelby SpongRead
It appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different.
John Shelby SpongRead
The cross reveals that we're called to a deeper, fuller experience of what it means to be alive and open to new dimensions of life which our religious boundaries - creeds, atonement theologies - have kept us from experiencing.
John Shelby SpongRead
When the dust settles and the pages of history are written, it will not be the angry defenders of intolerance who have made the difference. The reward will go to those who dared to step outside the safety of their privacy in order to expose and rout the prevailing prejudices.
John Shelby SpongRead
Similar quotes
Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We are burial places.
Leonardo Da VinciRead
There is still much debate about whether torture has been effective in eliciting information - the assumption being, apparently, that if it is effective, then it may be justified.
Noam ChomskyRead
I readily admit it is easy to make of horses what we will. Silent, in some ways reserved, they allow us to train them, and to project our ideas upon them; to ride and drive them, and to make them symbolic, perhaps to a greater degree than any other species.
Jane SmileyRead
We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right.
George OrwellRead
Waves of thought are stirring. In a twilight corner of her consciousness, one tiny fragment and another tiny fragment call out wordlessly to eachother, their spreading ripples intermingling.
Haruki MurakamiRead
In a mouse we admire God's creation and craft work. The same may be said about flies.
Martin LutherRead