John Shelby Spong Quotes
My sense is if the Episcopal Church can't stand challenge within its own ranks, then it is not a church I would want to be a member of anyway.

Quotes to Explore
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There's an interesting contrast between born Catholics and converts. Converts are often much more rule-directed. Catholicism isn't something that they breathed in from their childhood, so they think that if you don't toe the line on abstract doctrine you can't be part of the Church.
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But I like going to church. If you've been brought up in the Church of England, it feels like visiting an elderly relative. And I think it's important that part of the kids' education is knowing about the Bible.
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I'd previously done 'Expelled,' and that was more on the comedy side, so I really wanted to challenge myself and see if I could actually do a drama.
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I think one challenge is that having few women in your work environment makes you feel a little isolated and alone. I'm an extrovert; I like talking to people, and I make friends easily, but if your personality is somewhat different, I think you would struggle to connect with people.
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I like to challenge myself.
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The great thing is that whether we have faith or not, we are by and large very tolerant of people, whatever their particular view.
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My mother taught me that to maximize your philanthropic potential, you need to constantly challenge your capabilities and put yourself in situations that are not always comfortable. Through her example, I discovered that there is no more beautiful way to live a life than to live a life of service.
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My biggest challenge is cooking traditional French dishes, which usually require very specific techniques and methods. That's just not my style... I cook from the soul.
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I'm not looking to set a standard... but, I believe I have offered a challenge to others with my work.
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Everything's cyclical. Having been raised by actors, I watched their careers, and the challenge is to take time off.
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Too many church services start at eleven sharp and end at twelve dull.
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Being from Africa is the best thing that could have ever, ever happened to me. I cannot see it any other way. All of my fundamental principles that were instilled in me in my home, from my childhood, are still with me.
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I've spent more time in hospitals than some fellows ever spend in church.
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I challenge myself everywhere, onstage, on the golf course. Hey, isn't that the point of it all? To keep getting better? Otherwise why do it?
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My family, frankly, they weren't folks who went to church every week. My mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew but she didn't raise me in the church, so I came to my Christian faith later in life and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead.
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The Celtic Church as we know it, till gradually brought under Roman discipline, was purely monastic. The monasteries were the centres whence the ministry of souls was exercised.
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I'm just looking as always for something that's stimulating and I hope to find a good story that's a challenge, whether it's big or small. Or that it finds me. I don't have like a career plan. Maybe I should, but I don't.
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That's just my family's mentality. We are a very loving, hugging and kissing kind of family. And we grew up in a church atmosphere and still have that atmosphere. There is no negativity.
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Ministers should impress upon the people the necessity of individual effort. No church can flourish unless its members are workers. The people must lift where the ministers lift.
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While I was growing up, I believed I could do anything I could think of. So the challenge was always to keep thinking - to get to where I wanted to be and then to think of somewhere else to go.
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From Caesar's legions to the Napoleonic wars. From the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the industrial revolution to the defeat of nazism. We have helped to write European history, and Europe has helped write ours.
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What kind of America do people want to leave for their children? What horrors are down the road, stuff that was unthinkable 30 years ago?
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My sense is if the Episcopal Church can't stand challenge within its own ranks, then it is not a church I would want to be a member of anyway.