Blog Archives

St. Patrick and the Slave Trade

3/30/2021

St. Patrick is known for his missionary work among the Irish. What is little known is his advocacy for Christians taken into slavery.

Slavery is a scourge in every age and on every continent, and Patrick’s generation was no exception to that grim reality. In fact, at a young age he was taken into captivity and enslaved for six years before he escaped Ireland and fled back to Roman Britain.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Icon_of_Saint_Patrick,_Christ_the_Saviour_Church.jpg

0 Comments

St. Patrick and the Billy Graham Rule

3/15/2021

2 Comments

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Billy_Graham_bw_photo,_April_11,_1966.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saint_Patrick_Catholic_Church_(Junction_City,_Ohio)_-_stained_glass,_Saint_Patrick_-_detail.jpg

Recent moral failures of prominent Christian leaders have led to discussions surrounding the usefulness or wisdom of what is called the “Billy Graham Rule.” However, most are not aware of a virtually similar rule lived by another hugely successful itinerant evangelist roughly 1,500 years ago. His name was St. Patrick.

2 Comments

When Leaders Fall: Finding the Right Words from The Scarlett Letter

3/1/2021

0 Comments

I often can’t come up with my own words to make sense of the complexities of life, and so I look elsewhere to find what I need. Sometimes that place is classic literature.

When I first started my formal theological education I had little interest in literature that was not directly biblical or theological. Fortunately, I was required by professors to read classic works such as Paradise Lost and Les Misérables. And my marrying an English major certainly accelerated my reading classic literature!

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Title_page_for_The_Scarlet_Letter.jpg

0 Comments