“The goal of all religion is not to prepare us to enter into the next life; it is a call to live now, to love now, to be now – and in that way to taste what it means to be a part of a life that is eternal, a love that is barrier-free, and the being of a fully self-conscious humanity. That is the doorway into a universal consciousness that is part of what the word ‘God’ now means to me. This then becomes my pathway into the meaning of life that is eternal. It starts when we step beyond our hiding place in religion into thinking, and finally into being. It involves stepping beyond boundaries into wholeness, beyond a limited consciousness into a universal consciousness, beyond a God who is other into a God who is all.”
John Shelby Spong, former Episcopal Bishop of Newark, New Jersey, quoted in Fragments of Holiness for Daily Reflection
King Edward Street Chapel 