Meditation on Turning 80 in London

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 25 August 2011 2 Comments
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Question

As a cleric, you can’t be expected to understand the technicalities of architecture and engineering, but crashing planes into skyscrapers would never be enough to cause them to collapse straight down.  Those three buildings were demolished by pre-set charges.  When the American people finally realize that, they will also realize that the entire deficit was manipulated by the (privately owned) Federal Reserve Bank.  Both invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were deliberately manipulated for the oil barons.  We have made the world a playground for the rich.  Men invented money and it is usury which is constantly making the rich richer and the poor poorer.  When that situation applied in France a couple of centuries ago, the result was calamity for the wealthy.   Can you hope that God will intervene to change things?

Answer

Dear Nick,

I’m sure that there are people who think like you do, but I have never been asked to respond to them in my column.  Your comments reflect the rampant conspiracy theories that tell me more about the author of the letter than the situation you describe.

I see no evidence that pre-set charges caused the collapse of the World Trade Center.  I do not believe the deficit was manipulated by the Federal Reserve Bank.   Were they also responsible for Greece, for Ireland and for Portugal?  While the oil interests certainly had a stake in the two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, I regard that as quite simplistic to assume that my nation is so weak as to be manipulated in that fashion.

I think you have taken germs of insight and have turned them into “off the wall,” almost paranoid conclusions.  Are you unable to convince anyone else of the truth of your assumptions because everybody in power is part of the problem or because your assumptions are simply not true.  People who feel victimized tend to find someone else to blame. I do not regard that as a healthy exercise in rationality.

~John Shelby Spong

 

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