Tag Archives: Christianity
The Latin translates to the Joy of Love, and it was released on Friday. It clocks in at 263 pages. The news media focuses on “rules” that weren’t changed to make popular first world stuff ok. They miss the boat. I hope everyone reads the original, downloadable here. I recognize no one has time. The document is 325 paragraphs. Read one paragraph a day and you’ll have it done within a year. This document is ground-breaking, inspirational, and potentially church…..
Three hundred eighty years after Roger Williams put everything on the line to stand for heartfelt worship and respect for conscience, we seem a bit building focused. When we talk of separation of church and state we often focus on which building an organization can meet in, e.g. can a church meet in a public school. There is a sad lament that churches in Europe are being repurposed rapidly as they are empty, but Roger Williams might have been happy,…..
When Roger Williams was banished he set out alone into a blizzard in a harsh New England winter. He would survive to separate church and state in a brand new settlement that would become Rhode Island. Roger Williams wrote little that has survived about his 14 week winter stay in the wilderness of New England. The resulting absence of fact has led to a plethora of theories. There are many alternatives to the one in the novel Rekindled. What we do…..
When I was young my grandmother watched the first step on the moon with me on our black and white TV. She did not believe it was occuring. She thought it was staged. I was certain it was true and the most exciting thing I would see in my whole life. Now a NASA team discovered evidence of brine — indicating contemporary liquid water on MARS. It is even more exciting than Neil Armstrong’s first steps. Why? Liquid water on earth almost…..
Rekindled Chapter 1 opens with HH’s story as if it is certain who he was. That certainty is fiction. What is known is that the introductions to Roger Williams’s book The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution opens with HH’s writing, and Roger Williams asserted that it came out of Newgate prison. The introduction is clearly meant as an inspiration for what follows in the book: a rational for the separation of church and state. Because the text of HH’s writing showed…..
The Blue Ink Review beat out the competition to provide the first professional review of the book Rekindled, posted here. I was warned to have a thick skin on this review business. Really, it is a fine review. It gets the spirit of the book right. What they say about what I did is true — I certainly did not make the characters use archaic language as that would have made the story really hard to read. I stand by that, even…..
Last November, the seminarian student originally from Romania called Lumi came and told us her story. If you have not heard Lumi, you can listen here: Lumi She left us with an assignment—to figure out how to tell our own stories. Lumi is scheduled to return in April—what will she find? It is my hope she will find us preparing feverishly to tell our stories — first in church to edify each other, then outside. Toward that end I invite you to…..
Roger stood in the 1600’s for life and liberty. Since the 1700’s we’ve believed in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The goal of happiness may spawn from an increased focus on the individual, a focus that took a big step forward with Christ’s recognition of each soul as valuable. However individualism did not fully flower until after Roger Williams was gone. It seems now that happiness has overtaken life and liberty as the most sacrosanct goal. If we…..
Kim Davis, as a Christian, is obligated to honor her conscience. Therefore she cannot sign marriage licenses as they are currently constructed in Rowan county. Kim Davis took an oath to uphold the civil law which now conflicts with her conscience. Her conscience led her to publicly ask the question if the law was just, which civil authorities have now answered. Some are expressing surprise Kim Davis is in jail. However, she was not only upholding her own conscience but…..