By Bill Leonard In 394 CE the Spanish nun Egeria visited Holy Land sites, participating in the church’s great liturgical moments from Epiphany to Easter. She kept a wonderful diary of her exploits that includes this experience in Bethlehem’s Church…
‘Time was’ won’t hold
By Bill Leonard “Time was, when the population of many regions of America was almost entirely religious; it is not so now. Thousands there are, even of those who regularly attend public worship, who have no theology, no family prayer,…
‘Time was’ won’t hold
By Bill J. Leonard “Time was, when the population of many regions of America was almost entirely religious; it is not so now. Thousands there are, even of those who regularly attend public worship, who have no theology, no family…
‘Time was’ won’t hold
By Bill J. Leonard “Time was, when the population of many regions of America was almost entirely religious; it is not so now. Thousands there are, even of those who regularly attend public worship, who have no theology, no family…
The morning after: Relevant or retro?
By Bill Leonard “Their relevancy has moved away from them.” That statement bubbled up on cable TV’s Morning Joe the morning after Barak Obama won re-election as president of the United States. It was one commentator’s sound bite assessment of…
The unculted
By Bill Leonard In his 1856 autobiography, Methodist circuit rider Peter Cartwright warned of those Protestants whose “pretense of Divine inspiration” led them to predict a new millennium while playing on the “ignorance, superstition and credulity of the people.” Some,…
The unculted
By Bill Leonard In his 1856 autobiography, Methodist circuit rider Peter Cartwright warned of those Protestants whose “pretense of Divine inspiration” led them to predict a new millennium while playing on the “ignorance, superstition and credulity of the people.” Some,…
American churches: A failure to thrive?
By Bill Leonard Kidshealth.org posts this description of a common cross-generational medical disorder: “Although it’s been recognized for more than a century, failure to thrive lacks a precise definition, in part because it describes a condition rather than a specific…
Educating those we would evangelize
By Bill Leonard In 1833 Lyman Beecher, minister, educator and patriarch of one of America’s most prominent Protestant families, became president of Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio. Beecher’s move from his native New England was reflected in his essay,…