Time & Perspective Quote by John Shelby Spong

Spong is doing something clerics rarely get away with in public: praising hope not as a warm feeling but as a political technology. The line is built like a moral paradox. “Begin to give people hope” sounds devotional, almost Sunday-sermon soft. Then he snaps the listener into hard realism: “yesterday’s terrorists become tomorrow’s elected officials.” It’s a deliberate provocation, meant to yank “terrorist” out of the permanent category we like to place it in and reveal it as a status often assigned by whoever holds power at the moment.

The intent isn’t to romanticize violence. It’s to argue that insurgency is frequently a symptom of blocked futures. When a system offers no legitimate route to dignity, status, or change, illegitimacy becomes the only available language. Hope, in Spong’s framing, is not naive optimism; it’s an off-ramp. Provide a credible “new tomorrow,” and people who once sought leverage through fear can seek it through ballots, coalitions, and compromise - the dull machinery of democracy he pointedly calls “the system.”

Subtext: peace processes don’t just end wars; they rewrite identities. Spong is pushing back against the moral comfort of eternal enemies. He’s also warning that reconciliation is always scandalous: the price of a stable future is letting former militants become stakeholders, even lawmakers, even neighbors. Coming from a clergyman known for progressive, often controversial takes, the context is consistent: faith as a mandate to break cycles of retribution, not bless them.