John Shelby Spong

"These theologians [we studied in seminary] never had to deal with the reactions of ordinary folks who felt that their spiritual leader was destroying their faith. That would be the job of graduates like myself. Most graduates, I was to learn, however, would not rise to this challenge. They would graduate, pack up their seminary notes, and revert to the piety of their youth, undergirding their preaching with traditional religious understandings. They would claim the power to explain the ways of God to their congregations, thus encouraging the unbelievable concepts of a manipulative, invasive, this-world-oriented deity who governed the intimate details of people’s lives from a position just beyond the sky. I vowed that I would be different when I finally became a priest. Little did I know how difficult that would be."

— John Shelby Spong, from Here I Stand