The church is like a swimming pool. Most of the noise comes from the shallow end.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that a lot of superficial talk comes from those who have not deeply engaged with the subject matter.
John Shelby Spong's quote compares the church to a swimming pool, emphasizing that the more trivial and loud voices often dominate discussions, reflecting a shallow understanding of faith and spirituality. It suggests that deeper insights and profound wisdom are often found among those who are quiet and contemplative, much like the depth of a swimming pool where fewer people venture.
In practice
During a sermon, when addressing the importance of deeper understanding in faith discussions.
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.
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.
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.
It appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different.
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.
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.
The law is reason, free from passion.
I shall revenge myself in the cruelest way you can imagine. I shall forget it.
Language is never fully trustworthy, but when it comes to eating animals, words are as often used to misdirect and camouflage as they are to communicate. Some words, like veal, help us forget what we are actually talking about. Some, like free-range, can mislead those whose consciences seek clarification. Some, like happy, mean the opposite of what they would seem. And some, like natural, mean next to nothing.
The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.
For those of us who cry out for gun control, our fears cannot be eliminated as long as the country remains an armed camp in which the most troubled among us can find ways to appropriate one of the easily available weapons in all our communities.
In a world where everyone is behaving honestly, any dishonesty constitutes a big infraction. But, in a world where many people are behaving dishonestly, and the news is filled with stories of their infractions, even big infractions can feel small to the perpetrator.
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