John Shelby Spong Quotes

Whoever teaches differently from what I have taught, … condemns God and must remain a child of hell.

Most men indeed as well as most sects in Religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them it is so far error… the only difference between our Churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines is, the Church of Rome is infallible and the Church of England is never in the wrong.

Indeed heresies are themselves instigated by philosophy.

Scholars will argue with each other about everything.

The Sparks: Refutation of Heretics and Innovators

A heretic, my dear sir, is a fellow who disagrees with you regarding something neither of you knows anything about.

Religion claims to be in possession of an absolute truth; but its history is a history of errors and heresies.

We know the clerical party; it is an old party. This it is which has found for the truth those two marvelous supporters, ignorance and error. This it is which forbids to science and genius the going beyond the Missal and which wishes to cloister thought in dogmas.

Honest investigation is utterly impossible within the pale of any church, for the reason, that if you think the church is right you will not investigate, and if you think it wrong, the church will investigate you.

Every church is orthodox to itself; to others, erroneous or heretical.

Academic freedom carries with it the right to heresy as well as the right to restate and defend the traditional views.

No orthodox church ever had power that it did not endeavor to make people think its way by force and flame.

Religious scholars, marginalized by modernization, seek to assert their own relevance by insisting on orthodoxy.

Had Luther and Calvin been confined before they had begun to dogmatize, the states would have been spared many troubles.

You'll never get me to speak religion. You'll never get me to speak politics.

What's up is faith, what's down is heresy.

The fewer dogmas, the fewer disputes; the fewer disputes, the fewer miseries

Let your inimitable perfection in virtue stand up at a crisis like the present, and teach our most pious Emperor, that no gain will come from his zeal for the Church on other points if he allows such an evil to gain strength from freedom of speech for the subversion of sound faith.

Universities are only nurseries of prejudice, corruption, barbarism, and pedantry

If religion is about truth, why is it so afraid of error?

I would beg the wise and learned fathers (of the church) to consider with all diligence the difference which exists between matters of mere opinion and matters of demonstration. ... [I]t is not in the power of professors of the demonstrative sciences to alter their opinions at will, so as to be now of one way of thinking and now of another. ... Demonstrated conclusions about things in nature of the heavens, do not admit of being altered with the same ease as opinions to what is permissible or not, under a contract, mortgage, or bill of exchange.

A scientific truth must be maintained, however contradictory it may appear to the most cherished doctrines of religion.

Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion--several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven....

… religion is poison

Many a long dispute among divines [theologians] may be thus abridged: It is so; It is not so. It is so; it is not so.