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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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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No, I don't make my work in order to challenge or confuse other people's expectations - I only do what I find natural.
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When a character does something appalling but you still want to root for them, I find that the most exciting challenge to play, if you can pull it off. You're not supposed to like it, but you can't help it.
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I was unwilling to - without getting too philosophical about it - I was unwilling to structure my spirituality in the way that the church wanted me to structure it.
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You could fancy what you'd like, but as a woman, my mother always raised us to believe in ourselves. I am very grateful that my mother brought me up that way.
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I think American actors are much more intimidated by Shakespeare.
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I learned to be a hot-air balloon pilot to take tourists over the Masai Mara Reserve in order to earn some money and finance the work I was doing with my wife, Anne. We were studying the life of a family of lions for more than two years. Taking pictures was a way to capture information we could not put in words.
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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.
