JUNE 10, 2019 --- NOTES
I'm back, and I am glad to be back. In my last post, on 30 May, I declared a pause in my blog to give myself a break. My siesta is now over. I am here and ready to catch up with what is going on, or what is not going on, as the case may be, in the schism.
LITIGATION
What is the status of the litigation between the independent diocese, the Diocese of South Carolina, and the church diocese, the Episcopal Church in South Carolina? Unfortunately, nothing has changed in months. We are still waiting on the three courts to act.
Circuit Court
The circuit court, Judge Edgar Dickson. Dickson has had the matter before him for a year and a half. The South Carolina Supreme Court remitted its Aug 2, 2017, decision to the circuit court on Nov. 17, 2017. The circuit court has taken no action on implementing the SCSC decision since then. The SCSC decision recognized Episcopal Church/church diocese ownership of 29 parishes and Camp St. Christopher.
On Mar. 20, 2019, lawyers for TECSC filed a petition with the SCSC for a writ of mandamus. This would order the circuit court to implement the SCSC decision of Aug. 2, 2017.
In the two and a half months since then, Judge Dickson has not taken any action in the case. He could have proceeded on his own to effectuate the SCSC decision but he has not. Apparently, he is waiting on the SCSC for direction on how to proceed. My best guess is that Dickson will not act until the SCSC responds on the petition for a writ. If he were going to act on his own, I expect he would have done so by now.
SCSC
The SCSC received TECSC's petition for a writ of mandamus to the circuit court, on 20 March 2019. Shortly thereafter, both sides submitted arguments on the petition. There has been no word from the SCSC since then.
The SCSC typically takes between three and six months to issue its replies to petitions for writs. The justices may or may not hold a hearing on the petition. Since nearly three months have passed, and there has been no word from the SCSC, it is reasonable to assume the court will not call a hearing but will issue a decision on its own. Three to six months would place a decision between June and September.
The SCSC will either grant or deny the petition. It is typical for the justices to issue an explanation of several pages with their decision. If they grant the petition, the justices will issue a writ of mandamus to Dickson who will then have no choice but to execute the order. If they deny the petition, perhaps on a technicality, the justices could still make it clear to Dickson that, even without a writ of mandamus, he is required to implement the SCSC decision of Aug. 2, 2017. It is beyond belief that the SCSC justices would allow a circuit court to discard a state supreme court decision, particularly one that has been denied both rehearing from SCSC and cert from the U.S. Supreme Court. The SCSC decision of Aug. 2, 2017 is the law of the land and must be enforced.
It is reasonable to assume we will have a decision from the SCSC in the next three months. It is likely this will prod Judge Dickson to act on restoring Episcopal Church control over the 29 parishes and Camp.
Federal Court
The federal court case, vonRosenberg v Lawrence, is another matter. The above cases relate to the ownership of local properties. The federal case is about the ownership of the pre-schism diocese, its rights and assets.
The case is before Judge Richard Gergel, of the United States District Court, in Charleston. There has been no word from Gergel in the past five months.
In December of 2018, both sides asked Gergel for a summary judgment, that is, a decision on his own. The last papers were submitted to him on Jan. 11, 2019. Gergel had set the earliest date for a trial at March 1, 2019, but changed that to May 1, 2019.
Since there has been no word from Gergel since January, and the May 1 date has long passed, it is reasonable to doubt that Gergel will hold a courtroom trial but will issue a summary judgment on his own. When he would do that, however, cannot be known since he is under no time constraint. Although state and federal courts are entirely separate, it is possible Gergel is waiting on the SCSC decision before proceeding. It is simply impossible at this point to know what is going on with Gergel or when he will act.
BOTTOM LINE on litigation. Still waiting. All things considered, I think it is reasonable to assume the SCSC will issue a decision in the next few months directly or indirectly ordering Dickson to implement the Aug. 2 decision. As for Gergel, my best guess is he will issue a summary judgment on his own in the next few months.
The big decision on the local properties has already been made. It is just a matter of time before Dickson carries out the SCSC decision. The 29 parishes and the Camp will be returned to control of the Episcopal Church. The decision on ownership of the old diocese has not been made but all signs point to a resolution favorable to the Episcopal Church. Even though these settlements are agonizingly slow in arriving, it seems clear that they will occur in the foreseeable future. It is unfortunate in these cases that justice moves so slowly. Justice delayed is justice denied.
THE CULTURE WAR
The culture war rages on in America, although I do not know of anything new apropos the schism in South Carolina. The independent diocese continues with its reactionary white male chauvinist policies victimizing blacks, women, and gays under a cloak of selective biblical literalism. This is really nothing more than a backlash against the democratic revolution in the Episcopal Church in which African Americans, women, and open homosexuals won equal rights and full inclusion in the life of the church. The battle lines in South Carolina are starkly clear. It is the future versus the past. Anyone who thinks the schism is not much and does not matter is wrong.
One should not discount the strength of the reactionary backlash in America against the democratic revolution of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. We are in the midst of a fiercely fought counter-revolution right now. The revolutionary tide will eventually prevail but the warrior reactionaries can do a lot of damage in the meantime. Case in point is the present battle on abortion. The U.S. Supreme Court, in 1973, declared a woman has a constitutional right to control her own reproduction. Yet, numerous states have recently passed laws in blatant violation of women's constitutional rights. These state laws will be struck down by the courts but in the meantime they can greatly, if temporarily, diminish women's freedom.
On the national level we have a president who is deliberately stoking the culture war for his own political gain. He is more than a national embarrassment. He is a danger to our national democratic republican system. He is up for reelection next year. It is a certainty that he will ratchet up the culture war to energize his base which is the racist white working class man and evangelicals.
Meanwhile, Alabama remains in the headlines as a hotbed of reaction in the culture war. It was not surprising that the white Republican men in the state legislature ganged up to pass the most extreme anti-abortion law in the country. However, it was a bit surprising that Alabama Public Television jumped in to side with the reactionaries on rights for gays. Last month, APT refused to air an episode of the children's program "Arthur." Arthur is a popular children's cartoon show that teaches ethical and moral values to build a better society. This episode featured a gay wedding. Find a news report about this here . APT got a lot of blowback but to this day refuses to air the episode.
Thank God for the First United Methodist Church of Birmingham. You may recall a blog piece I wrote about them, on 19 March called "The Divinity of Light." Find it here . Well, they have risen to the occasion again. On June 15, at 10:00 a.m., First UMC, of Bham, will be screening the banned episode of Arthur and throwing a big wedding party to boot. (Even if you cannot attend, you could send them a thank you note for standing up for human rights.) Find a news report about this here . Find the First UMC announcement on their website here . Meanwhile, a block away from First UMC, the Episcopal cathedral church stands coldly indifferent and silent.
While still on the subject of the culture war and Alabama, word is that Roy Moore is seriously [!] considering running for the U.S. Senate again next year. This is so outrageous that even President Trump has come out publicly against it. Now that is saying a lot. Personally I am hoping and praying Moore runs. I may even send him a campaign contribution. Moore as the Republican nominee will guarantee the reelection of Doug Jones.
SUMMER READING
The slower, lazier days of summer are good ones to catch up on one's reading. I, for one, have been doing this of late. Here are three books I read recently that you might consider for your summer reading.
1)
Gergel, Richard. Unexampled Courage: The Blinding of Sgt. Isaac Woodard and the Awakening of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waties Waring. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019. 324 p. (Available at amazon.com in hardcover, paperback, audio CD, audiobook, and Kindle.)
The great Revolutionary and Napoleonic diplomat Talleyrand, a high aristocrat, once said no one born after 1789 could know how pleasant life could be. I would rephrase that to read, no one born after 1960 could know how racist life could be. I grew up in the 1940's and 1950's in the Jim Crow south. Those of you born after 1960 simply cannot know the true nature of racism or how thoroughly poisonous it was. I know racism still exists, but what we have now is light years away from Jim Crow. For this reason, I put off reading Gergel's book. I looked at it for several months before I could make myself open the cover and delve into what I knew would be a painful remembrance of the past.
In the first place, you should recognize the author's name. This is the Judge Gergel who is handling the federal case of vonRosenberg v Lawrence.
I must confess, I knew nothing of Isaac Woodard, and only a little of Judge Waring. Having lived in Charleston once, I knew something about the renegade old Charlestonian judge who came to champion civil rights. So, since the book was by a judge important in the schism, and addressed a subject I knew little about, I finally decided I had to read it.
First I went to the standard reference work, The South Carolina Encyclopedia to catch up on the subject. It was not much help. The brief article on Woodard even misspelled his name. There was no mention of a tie to Truman or Waring. The article on Judge Waring gave no reference to Woodard. Then I turned to Walter Edgar's South Carolina, a History and found one sentence on Woodard and a couple of references to Waring. Thus, the dearth of information on the Woodard case and its aftermath piqued my interest and made me open the cover and start reading.
Summary: An African American army sergeant, Isaac Woodard, Jr., was removed from a Greyhound bus in Batesburg, Lexington County, South Carolina, in 1946, on charge of disorderly conduct. He was beaten by the local police chief, Lynwood Shull, and left blind in both eyes. Shull was put on trial and acquitted by an all-white jury. The horror of the blinding and the apparent miscarriage of justice "awakened" President Truman and Charleston Judge J. Waties Waring to the need for civil rights reforms. Each became a giant in the history of human rights in America.
Gergel gets right to it. His first chapter is a recounting of the horrific incident that left Woodard blind. Then he shows how this little known event in small town South Carolina became a national phenomenon. Interestingly enough, none other than Orson Welles turned out to be highly instrumental in making this a major story. Gergel goes on to show how Truman was affected by the Woodard case and issued sweeping reforms for civil rights by executive order, most famously the integration of the armed forces in 1948.
Unsurprisingly, Gergel is very strong on the legal history involved in this story. His retelling of the trial in 1946 is one of the best parts of the book (one cannot help but recall To Kill a Mockingbird). The second half of the book is an excellent recounting of the legal history of Waring after 1946. This is the best part of the book. It shows conclusively the essential tie between Waring's work in South Carolina and the landmark Brown case of 1954, arguably the starting place for the civil rights movement in America.
There is no problem with the legal history in this book. In fact, it is very well done. Where I have a problem is with the book's thesis, or at least implied thesis. The title says "Awakening." This suggests that the Woodard incident started Truman and Waring on their courses of civil rights reform. Although Gergel never says so explicitly, the point of the story is that the Woodard case caused Truman and Waring to champion civil rights. If this is the thesis of the book, as it seemed to me, it does not quite work.
In fact, the author himself brings up, time and again, that Truman had political motivations for advocating civil rights after 1946. Unfortunately, this book does not expand on this. Besides, Truman already had a record of favoring civil rights well before 1946. He did not suddenly wake up to civil rights in 1946 although obviously the Woodard affair spurred him on. Thus, we are left wondering how much of Truman's motivation was revulsion at Woodard's treatment and how much was established attitude and cold politics. After all, the master politician Truman unexpectedly won election in 1948 (much as Trump did in 2016). Truman understood the electoral benefits of pursuing rights for blacks.
In the case of Waring, the author likewise brings up other motivational factors beyond Woodard. In one, Waring divorced his wife and married a twice-divorced northerner in 1945. As the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, they too were ostracized from established society, in this case the Charleston South of Broad set. This was particularly painful because Waring was the scion of ancient Carolina families. He was as old Low Country as one could get. Moreover, the new wife "from off" was very outspoken in her criticism of the local racist society. The Warings were not just ostracized, they were terrorized. Once a cross was burned in their yard. On another occasion, a cement block crashed through a window. Again, as with Truman, Waring did not suddenly wake up to civil rights in 1946. He too had an established record of leaning toward civil rights well before the Woodard incident. Thus, as with the case of Truman, we are left wondering exactly how much Waring's life and work after 1946 was motivated by revulsion at the Woodard incident and how much was a reaction against the social ostracism and the influence of his new wife. The book does not address this.
I am afraid Judge Gergel has not quite made the case to this juror that Truman and Waring "awoke" to civil rights because of Woodard. There were just too many factors involved, factors the author himself introduces, which beg for more exploration. The most we can say is that the Woodard case was a big, perhaps the biggest of several, motivational factor that prompted both Truman and Waring to greatly accelerate their work on civil rights. This is enough. We really do not need to say any more to make the essential point of the importance of Woodard to Truman and Waring. In this case, it is the monumental accomplishments of those two great men that is most important.
My remarks are not meant to belittle this book. It is an important work in its own right as a much-needed contribution to southern history, indeed American history. It stands alone on its merits as good and valuable legal history. Gergel is a gifted writer and story-teller. My only reservation is that the author does not prove that Truman's and Waring's great accomplishments evolved entirely, or even primarily, from the Woodard case. There were other factors involved. With that in mind, I would change the title of the book from "...the Awakening of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waties Waring" to "...the Resolution of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waties Waring." The Woodard case certainly spurred on Truman's and Waring's resolves to accomplish great things for civil rights. There is no doubt about that. That is all we really need to say.
Bottom line---I highly recommend this book not only as a good read, but also as a necessary reminder of the hard work that so many people did to accomplish the first goal in the great American democratic social revolution of the post-Second World War world, freedom and equality for African Americans. It is with pride that we southerners should recognize that two early giants in this monumental strike against racism were southerners, the Missourian Truman and the Charlestonian Waring (in a sense a third great southerner completed their work, the President from Texas, Lyndon Johnson).
My initial attitude about the book was right. It was indeed painful to read, at least at first. But, it was ultimately much more than that. It was overwhelmingly life affirming. Grace upon grace followed after an horrific crime. In the end, it does not really matter what the motivation was. It matters that heroic people created a much better world for all of us. Moreover, it matters that Judge Gergel has revealed this to us.
2)
Carolina Grace, Gold for the Soul, Journey 2019. Find it here .
This is a miscellany of 25 entries in 52 pages edited by the Ven. Calhoun Walpole, archdeacon of TECSC. It is a mixture of personal reflections, essays, poetry, reprints and the like, some by clergy, some by laity, some local, some not. One will see here some well-known names, some not so known.
As the title indicates, the theme is a journey. Episcopalians in South Carolina are definitely on a journey, even if it is not one they wanted or one of their own making. They are in it anyway.
These are short pieces to be savored, like sips of fine wine. Every one of them is important because, as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, they are different but ultimately join to make a unified whole. I do not want to point out my favorites, just to say I have reread some of them several times. They warmed my soul.
You too will find these pieces enlightening and comforting. There are lots of different people on this journey, and each has something unique to add and share. So, read, enjoy. You are not alone.
3)
the Rev. Dr. William (Roy) Hills, Jr. Divine Glimpses, Church Stories. Vol. I, Vol. II, 2018-2019. (Available at amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.)
From heavy history, to aesthetic meditations, we move to levity. Roy Hills's two books are just what we need to liven things up. They are delightful, humorous, and heartwarming vignettes of ordinary Episcopal church life, a sort of Vicar of Dibley meets Yorkshire vet (Heriot) meets Chicken Soup. Each entry is short, several pages and accompanied by apropos Bible verses and hilarious cartoons by the Rev. Bill McLemore.
The first volume, at 217 pages, treats all sorts of topics of church life but begin with discernment and seminary. Along the way we move on to parish work, youth groups, nursing homes, charity, interacting with non-Episcopalians, blessing of the animals, acolytes, pastoral work, and passing the peace. Every person, clergy and laity, can relate to these little stories, and perhaps even see yourself there.
In the second volume, 207 pages, the stories get better. These vignettes are even more charming, and often hilarious. Not all are light however, as one deals with the serious issue of gay rights (p. 154-58). Every person who is clergy, or who goes to church often can relate to these episodes. Here we find: "always did it this way," the parish directory, home visits, stewardship, time changes, loss of hearing, fishing, hospital visits, weddings, Shrove Tuesday, lady bugs, buying a new car, attendance, Christmas, visiting the elderly, vestry disputes, church bulletins, funerals, remodeling, living in the Bible Belt, Holy Week, Christmas, youth groups, death, and ultimately redemption. Every one of us who takes church seriously will say, "been there, done that" and recall our own experiences which may have been just as humorous and heart-warming. We are part of the church and the church is part of us. Neither is perfect.
I found all of the episodes in the two volumes to be enjoyable. Some gave me a chuckle. Some made me laugh out loud. All of them made me remember people and places that were important to me. For that, I am grateful to Roy Hills. You will be too.
Next on my reading list:
Ryrie, Alec. Protestants, the Faith that Made the Modern World. New York: Penguin Books, 2017. 513 p.
Purnell, Sonia. A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy who Helped Win World War II. New York: Viking, 2019. 352 p. The almost unbelievable story of the irrepressible secret agent, Virginia Hall, a woman with one leg, who played a key role in liberating France. This is my read in honor of the 75th anniversary of D-Day, the greatest military exercise in human history.
I must confess, I knew nothing of Isaac Woodard, and only a little of Judge Waring. Having lived in Charleston once, I knew something about the renegade old Charlestonian judge who came to champion civil rights. So, since the book was by a judge important in the schism, and addressed a subject I knew little about, I finally decided I had to read it.
First I went to the standard reference work, The South Carolina Encyclopedia to catch up on the subject. It was not much help. The brief article on Woodard even misspelled his name. There was no mention of a tie to Truman or Waring. The article on Judge Waring gave no reference to Woodard. Then I turned to Walter Edgar's South Carolina, a History and found one sentence on Woodard and a couple of references to Waring. Thus, the dearth of information on the Woodard case and its aftermath piqued my interest and made me open the cover and start reading.
Summary: An African American army sergeant, Isaac Woodard, Jr., was removed from a Greyhound bus in Batesburg, Lexington County, South Carolina, in 1946, on charge of disorderly conduct. He was beaten by the local police chief, Lynwood Shull, and left blind in both eyes. Shull was put on trial and acquitted by an all-white jury. The horror of the blinding and the apparent miscarriage of justice "awakened" President Truman and Charleston Judge J. Waties Waring to the need for civil rights reforms. Each became a giant in the history of human rights in America.
Gergel gets right to it. His first chapter is a recounting of the horrific incident that left Woodard blind. Then he shows how this little known event in small town South Carolina became a national phenomenon. Interestingly enough, none other than Orson Welles turned out to be highly instrumental in making this a major story. Gergel goes on to show how Truman was affected by the Woodard case and issued sweeping reforms for civil rights by executive order, most famously the integration of the armed forces in 1948.
Unsurprisingly, Gergel is very strong on the legal history involved in this story. His retelling of the trial in 1946 is one of the best parts of the book (one cannot help but recall To Kill a Mockingbird). The second half of the book is an excellent recounting of the legal history of Waring after 1946. This is the best part of the book. It shows conclusively the essential tie between Waring's work in South Carolina and the landmark Brown case of 1954, arguably the starting place for the civil rights movement in America.
There is no problem with the legal history in this book. In fact, it is very well done. Where I have a problem is with the book's thesis, or at least implied thesis. The title says "Awakening." This suggests that the Woodard incident started Truman and Waring on their courses of civil rights reform. Although Gergel never says so explicitly, the point of the story is that the Woodard case caused Truman and Waring to champion civil rights. If this is the thesis of the book, as it seemed to me, it does not quite work.
In fact, the author himself brings up, time and again, that Truman had political motivations for advocating civil rights after 1946. Unfortunately, this book does not expand on this. Besides, Truman already had a record of favoring civil rights well before 1946. He did not suddenly wake up to civil rights in 1946 although obviously the Woodard affair spurred him on. Thus, we are left wondering how much of Truman's motivation was revulsion at Woodard's treatment and how much was established attitude and cold politics. After all, the master politician Truman unexpectedly won election in 1948 (much as Trump did in 2016). Truman understood the electoral benefits of pursuing rights for blacks.
In the case of Waring, the author likewise brings up other motivational factors beyond Woodard. In one, Waring divorced his wife and married a twice-divorced northerner in 1945. As the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, they too were ostracized from established society, in this case the Charleston South of Broad set. This was particularly painful because Waring was the scion of ancient Carolina families. He was as old Low Country as one could get. Moreover, the new wife "from off" was very outspoken in her criticism of the local racist society. The Warings were not just ostracized, they were terrorized. Once a cross was burned in their yard. On another occasion, a cement block crashed through a window. Again, as with Truman, Waring did not suddenly wake up to civil rights in 1946. He too had an established record of leaning toward civil rights well before the Woodard incident. Thus, as with the case of Truman, we are left wondering exactly how much Waring's life and work after 1946 was motivated by revulsion at the Woodard incident and how much was a reaction against the social ostracism and the influence of his new wife. The book does not address this.
I am afraid Judge Gergel has not quite made the case to this juror that Truman and Waring "awoke" to civil rights because of Woodard. There were just too many factors involved, factors the author himself introduces, which beg for more exploration. The most we can say is that the Woodard case was a big, perhaps the biggest of several, motivational factor that prompted both Truman and Waring to greatly accelerate their work on civil rights. This is enough. We really do not need to say any more to make the essential point of the importance of Woodard to Truman and Waring. In this case, it is the monumental accomplishments of those two great men that is most important.
My remarks are not meant to belittle this book. It is an important work in its own right as a much-needed contribution to southern history, indeed American history. It stands alone on its merits as good and valuable legal history. Gergel is a gifted writer and story-teller. My only reservation is that the author does not prove that Truman's and Waring's great accomplishments evolved entirely, or even primarily, from the Woodard case. There were other factors involved. With that in mind, I would change the title of the book from "...the Awakening of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waties Waring" to "...the Resolution of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waties Waring." The Woodard case certainly spurred on Truman's and Waring's resolves to accomplish great things for civil rights. There is no doubt about that. That is all we really need to say.
Bottom line---I highly recommend this book not only as a good read, but also as a necessary reminder of the hard work that so many people did to accomplish the first goal in the great American democratic social revolution of the post-Second World War world, freedom and equality for African Americans. It is with pride that we southerners should recognize that two early giants in this monumental strike against racism were southerners, the Missourian Truman and the Charlestonian Waring (in a sense a third great southerner completed their work, the President from Texas, Lyndon Johnson).
My initial attitude about the book was right. It was indeed painful to read, at least at first. But, it was ultimately much more than that. It was overwhelmingly life affirming. Grace upon grace followed after an horrific crime. In the end, it does not really matter what the motivation was. It matters that heroic people created a much better world for all of us. Moreover, it matters that Judge Gergel has revealed this to us.
2)
Carolina Grace, Gold for the Soul, Journey 2019. Find it here .
This is a miscellany of 25 entries in 52 pages edited by the Ven. Calhoun Walpole, archdeacon of TECSC. It is a mixture of personal reflections, essays, poetry, reprints and the like, some by clergy, some by laity, some local, some not. One will see here some well-known names, some not so known.
As the title indicates, the theme is a journey. Episcopalians in South Carolina are definitely on a journey, even if it is not one they wanted or one of their own making. They are in it anyway.
These are short pieces to be savored, like sips of fine wine. Every one of them is important because, as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, they are different but ultimately join to make a unified whole. I do not want to point out my favorites, just to say I have reread some of them several times. They warmed my soul.
You too will find these pieces enlightening and comforting. There are lots of different people on this journey, and each has something unique to add and share. So, read, enjoy. You are not alone.
3)
the Rev. Dr. William (Roy) Hills, Jr. Divine Glimpses, Church Stories. Vol. I, Vol. II, 2018-2019. (Available at amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.)
From heavy history, to aesthetic meditations, we move to levity. Roy Hills's two books are just what we need to liven things up. They are delightful, humorous, and heartwarming vignettes of ordinary Episcopal church life, a sort of Vicar of Dibley meets Yorkshire vet (Heriot) meets Chicken Soup. Each entry is short, several pages and accompanied by apropos Bible verses and hilarious cartoons by the Rev. Bill McLemore.
The first volume, at 217 pages, treats all sorts of topics of church life but begin with discernment and seminary. Along the way we move on to parish work, youth groups, nursing homes, charity, interacting with non-Episcopalians, blessing of the animals, acolytes, pastoral work, and passing the peace. Every person, clergy and laity, can relate to these little stories, and perhaps even see yourself there.
In the second volume, 207 pages, the stories get better. These vignettes are even more charming, and often hilarious. Not all are light however, as one deals with the serious issue of gay rights (p. 154-58). Every person who is clergy, or who goes to church often can relate to these episodes. Here we find: "always did it this way," the parish directory, home visits, stewardship, time changes, loss of hearing, fishing, hospital visits, weddings, Shrove Tuesday, lady bugs, buying a new car, attendance, Christmas, visiting the elderly, vestry disputes, church bulletins, funerals, remodeling, living in the Bible Belt, Holy Week, Christmas, youth groups, death, and ultimately redemption. Every one of us who takes church seriously will say, "been there, done that" and recall our own experiences which may have been just as humorous and heart-warming. We are part of the church and the church is part of us. Neither is perfect.
I found all of the episodes in the two volumes to be enjoyable. Some gave me a chuckle. Some made me laugh out loud. All of them made me remember people and places that were important to me. For that, I am grateful to Roy Hills. You will be too.
Next on my reading list:
Ryrie, Alec. Protestants, the Faith that Made the Modern World. New York: Penguin Books, 2017. 513 p.
Purnell, Sonia. A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy who Helped Win World War II. New York: Viking, 2019. 352 p. The almost unbelievable story of the irrepressible secret agent, Virginia Hall, a woman with one leg, who played a key role in liberating France. This is my read in honor of the 75th anniversary of D-Day, the greatest military exercise in human history.
