Author's Preface
1. Accepting Or Uniting
   
2. Who Is A Christian?
   
3. "Why Don't You Leave The Church of Christ?"
   
4. The Iniquity Of The Fathers
   
5. Our Judicial System
   
6. "You Are My People Now"
   
7. Serving "Otherwise Than As Prescribed"
   
8. Does Baptize Really Mean To Immerse
   
9. Our Relationship Through Baptism
   
10. Those Gospel Meetings
    
11. A Prelude To Worship
    
12. Worshipping In Spirit And Truth
    
13. The Forbidden Prayer
    
14. "I Didn't Hear Nobody Pray"
    
15. Communion Prayers
    
16. Communion With Bread, Wine, And Money
    
17. Thursday Is The Lord's Day Too!
    
18. Not Forsaking The Assembly
    
19. Acts 20:7 One More Time
    
20. Our Father Who Art Where?
    
21. Does Nature Reveal God's Love
    
22. Copyrighted: All Rights Reserved
    
23. Don't Pour Water On Them
    
24. The Remaining Restriction For Women
    
25. Some Questions About Revelation
    
26. Must One Fully Repent Before Baptism?
    
27. Nicodemus In Context
    
28. Our Respected Myths Of Religion
    
29. Hook's Points: A Potpourri
    

Here are items too short for chapters. Some are serious; others may only be chewing gum for the eyes. You probably have had a balanced life without any of this section. But I never seem to know when to quit; so here it goes.

For my four years as a "ministerial student" in Abilene Christian College, I had no Bible of my own for I had no money to buy one. My sister, Emily, lent me her King James Version Bible. And I managed to buy a pocketsized American Standard Version New Testament.

Do I believe that the Bible is the Word of God? No. It contains all the revealed Word of God, but it also is a record of the words of many men, both good and evil, and of Satan.

In explaining that "when you come together, each one has a hymn," I doubt if Paul was including monotones and the deaf. They cannot sing. If the tonedeaf gain by mouthing the words monotonously and the deaf are uplifted by signing the words, that is fine. But if they do this supposedly to fulfil a command to sing, they have been misdirected.

I am still puzzled about the virgin birth of Jesus being a sign. A sign is something that can be seen. Was Mary's conduct observed at all times to see that she remained a virgin? Was she examined visually to make determination? Inspired writers tell us she was a virgin by revelation. So, it seems to me, it was a revelation instead of a sign that our belief is based upon.

In our fortyeight years together, Lea and I have owned only one new automobile-a 1947 Plymouth whose monthly payments left us little on which to survive.

One of our elders taught a class which I attended. He stated that he did not condemn other people for their use of instrumental accompaniment in singing. Though I felt the same way, I offered no comment. At the elders' meeting the next night, another elder really got on my case because I did not correct the first elder.

Some of the songs we sing in our assemblies are bucolic in nature. You consider that as a derogatory remark, don't you? It is strange how we attach meanings because of the sound of a word. Bucolic simply means pastoral, relating to shepherds or herdsmen.

When I mail up to about eight books, I use padded mailers. Upward to twenty or more are boxed for mailing. When packaging a number between those figures, I encase them in cardboard retrieved from the dumpsters and wrap them in paper. In wrapping those bundles, I have used over a mile of paper. And my wrapping space is less than half the size of a card table.

A pastor of the United Church of Christ in Zambia became a bit too enthusiastic in praise of my writings in declaring, "One can easily mistake your books for a Bible"!

You probably do not understand the story of Joseph in Genesis if you have not read "Divine Providence: Joseph" in Sermons, by J. W. McGarvey. The lesson was delivered in 1893.

Are assemblies necessary? Not to fulfil a legal requirement. Yet, God's people are an interactive, supportive community whose love draws them together in body life. God knows we need each other. To associate only when the group pleases me can be selfish and a display of impatience with God's family.

Yesterday I dropped in on a big used book sale at our Civic Center. As I browsed, a strange feeling came over me when I saw two of my own books there. I did not buy them! (Maybe the Lord had them there for some special person.)

When they are winning, I like to watch the Dallas Cowboys "play" a "game" of football. But those two words lose their meaning. Since they are paid professionals, it is a job that they perform. They work an assignment called football. What about the professional minister, paid to serve the Lord? Ouch!

Mixing legalism and worship, we made giving money a necessary act of worship. The money given is for the work of the Lord, supposedly. With that money we hire a man to do the work of the Lord. But the paid worker has to give generously out of his income in order to worship and to help support someone to do the work of the Lord. Did I miss something there?

I fear that my image was not enhanced by the grandmother who would bring her grandchildren to the assembly. When they even looked like they might misbehave, she would warn, "You had better watch out; that preacher will git you!"

In 1949 I preached in an evangelistic effort under a tent at Starks, in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana. It was a good location at the edge of the small town. The closest building was two blocks or more down the street. A honkeytonk. No problem. Except that they had a loudspeaker outside. My listeners had mood music. Over, and over, and over, the juke box blared the raucous, currently popular, "Why Don't You Haul Off and Love Me One More Time?"!

Maybe you wonder with me as to why God would choose for us to be immersed in water. In many circumstances, there is scarcity of it, not only in arid regions, but in northern areas with their long, frigid winters. Storage of heated water in baptistries is very modern.

You asked about my radio singing career, didn't you? It began as I sang one song with Grover and Thelma Ross and May Belle Self in Clovis, New Mexico in 1942. To the relief of all concerned, my career as a radio singer ended that same day!

When a preacher or any other kind of salesman begins to try to manipulate me, my resistance stiffens. It is not their publicizing their merchandise that offends; it is their studied method of exploiting the weaknesses of the unwary. They make us feel the need for every imaginable product. Look what we have let them do to Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

Primitive man feared other peoples, disease, starvation, the elements, and superstitions. Modern civilized man has advanced through learning. He only fears other people (foreign and domestic), diseases of many sorts (including fears of his air, water, and food), starvation, the elements, and superstitions causing him to believe the psychics and horoscopes!

Charles Dickens said it: "To know how to say what other people only think, is what makes men poets and sages; and to dare to say what others only dare to think, makes men martyrs or reformers, or both."

I could only wish to fit either of those categories mentioned by Dickens. While I recognize that there is little point in restating what others are saying, I also recognize the dearth of original thinking. That includes my postulations.

Sometimes we manage to make ourselves obnoxious enough to create opposition. We may call that persecution and we may gain some prideful satisfaction from it, but it hardly makes us reformers or martyrs.

Many of my readers have commended my "great courage" in speaking out boldly and they have offered words of sympathy because of the abuse that they think I must be enduring. But I often reply, "God knows how insecure I am and of my inability to handle criticism; so he protects me from it!" Friends tell me of opposition that has been aroused by my books in some places, but I receive no more than two or three abusive responses in a year. I make no reply to them.

In 1987 Don Ruhl, of Klamath Falls, Oregon, edited a 200page book titled, The Balance of Truth & Freedom, "A Review of Cecil Hook's Book, Free In Christ." It contains chapters written by Art Hitt, Don Michael, Don Ruhl, Greg Weston, Willis Wormuth, and Jack Zieser, all of Oregon, and by Wayne Jackson of California, and by Jerry Moffitt of Texas. As far as I can recall, I have never met any of them or communicated with any of them except to send them 37 free books that they requested and three other books purchased. In return, a complimentary copy of their book was sent to me by mail. Maybe complimentary is not the right word!

Lea read the entire book, but I gave up about half way through. It was too sickening. I was all too familiar with their mindset, for I grew up with it before midcentury.

The opposition of those fellows makes no martyr of me. They spelled my name right! The Lord can work all things for an ultimately good purpose. For instance, a Filipino read the book and ordered a copy of my book to learn what I had written. God still opens hearts, and sometimes he even flashes his blinding light on the Damascus Road.

The most common responses that I receive now are expressions like these: "You have answered the questions that I have been asking." "I have believed those things for a long time but I thought I was the only one who believed that way." "You have put on paper what I have been thinking."

The Spirit is working muchneeded change among us. My readers are kind and gracious in saying that I am having some part in bringing it about. If I am helping in my little niche from our spare bedroom, it is the Spirit working through me.

In our time of confused values, capital punishment has come to be considered as barbaric. Enlightened societies like ours value life too highly to continue that uncivilized treatment of the socially maladjusted, we are told. Because of that and other factors, our society is rapidly becoming uncivilized and barbaric so that the lives of the innocent are valued less than those of violent and murderous men. The absence of sure and just punishment favors the criminal and undermines society.

God once dealt with Israel as a nation. He made their code of civil law. The Law of Moses made no provision for prisons. No person was sentenced to the torture of prison. The offender was punished quickly. The murderer was killed immediately by the next of kin, the avenger of blood. For some infractions like adultery, the guilty were stoned to death. A thief breaking in could be killed without guilt by the homeowner. Restitution up to four or five fold was made for stealing and other sins of liability. Some infractions drew beatings limited to forty stripes. The law demanded that the punishment fit the crime, requiring an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, etc. A person chose his own punishment by choosing the crime to commit.

That system solved the prison overcrowding problem!

Look how cheap that made life, you may counter. But when a thief knew that the property owner had the right to kill him, it was not the property owner, but God, who set the value of the life. The thief chose whether the coveted possession was worth the risk of his life. A couple lusting for each other, knowing that their unlawful act merited stoning, would consider the adulterous violation worth the risk of their lives. No one could blame the law or society for unjustly punishing them when they were stoned to death.

When people declare that capital punishment is barbaric, they presume more wisdom than God who gave the law. And Paul tells us that the civil government bears not the sword (of execution) in vain.

The relaxation of swift and equitable punishment for crimes sends the wrong message to the greedy, lustful, hateful, and violent. We see the dire effects. The innocent citizen of our land who escapes the random violence lives in fear for life and property, and his right of selfprotection is taken away. I fear that our nation no longer has the moral fiber to turn back to sure and just punishment. A dreadful time of anarchy, which is as bad or worse than totalitarianism, may lie ahead.

If I remember my English literature correctly, the Scottish poet, Robert Burns was sitting behind a woman in church who was dressed out in her Sunday best when he observed a louse crawling about on her beautiful hat. That should inspire most anyone to become poetic; so he wrote a poem! In his To A Louse, he wrote:

Oh wad some power the giftie gie us

To see oursels as others see us!

It wad frae monie a blunder free us,

And foolish notion."

In my earlier years I was painfully timid, and I have never outgrown my feelings of insecurity. Because I could not endure the thought of being the object of jest or criticism, my tendency was toward perfectionism, though I never had the talent for it! This fostered a selfrighteous feeling in me.

Our egos allow us to think highly of ourselves while we have lice crawling on our hats of pride. In a humiliating process of maturing, we learn that we are not right on everything. We must learn to accept the fact that others see our inconsistencies.

I proofread my first book with greatest diligence. It would be flawless! But after it was printed, I learned in dismay that a person cannot depend upon proofreading his own material. He cannot see all of his own mistakes. Now I do not dare to publish anything without the criticism of others who are qualified to discern.

It is fitting here to express appreciation again to Brian Casey of Wilmington, Delaware. We met briefly in 1988 in Houston, and he volunteered to do proofreading for me. It is to my great benefit that he can see my typographical errors, my bad grammar, my misconstructed sentences, and other deficiencies. And I would be most foolish to ignore his criticisms.

As I complete each essay, I strive for perfection, and I think that Brian will find nothing in it needing correction. But it comes back with red all over it!

It is like that in all aspects of life. We are not perfect. Our realization of that will soften our dogmatic declarations, put an end to our prideful posturing, and wash the arrogance from our faces. Other people can see lice crawling all over our pride, our dogmatism, and our claims to the key of knowledge.

If Burns had seen the louse on a poor, shabbily dressed woman who made no pretensions, he probably would have given little notice.

Paul punctures our ego, declaring, "If any one imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know" (1 Cor. 8:2). The more pompously pious we are, the more obvious our lice of ignorance become. And, as they are pointed out to us, it is healthy for us to laugh at our own inconsistencies rather than to become defensive or arrogant.

"Oh would some power the gift give us to see ourselves as others see us!"

Because baptism is such a solemn and meaningful ritual, it is only to be expected that there would be some human slips and scruples which would threaten its dignity.

Perhaps, you have heard of instances before we had indoor baptistries of persons breaking the ice of a stream in order to be baptized. I am glad that I was not a participant in such, for cold water is not my thing. More recently, I baptized a teenaged girl in our heated baptistry. When I say heated, I mean heated! For some reason, it had overheated. Wearing rubber waders, I did not realize how hot it was until it was too late and I had almost put her through the scalding vat.

Before the time of scientifically treating water to keep it clear in our baptistries, they would develop an ugly scum in a few days. I learned that it helped to add some chlorine bleach. After a boy wondered why his eyes burned so badly after his baptism, I realized that I had used a lot where it should have been a little.

In performing his first baptism, a young friend failed to submerge the woman completely. After the curtain was closed, and without the knowledge of the audience, he immersed her completely. One preacher, convinced that he should say "for the remission of sins" in his ceremony, forgot to say those words. So he immersed her again likewise after the curtain was drawn. Would that be double baptism, or double dipping?

Sometimes religion becomes a contest between a disagreeing husband and wife. That seemed to prevail in a recent case in which the wife kept haranguing her reluctant husband to be baptized. One morning while he was out alone on an errand, he came by for me to baptize him without giving her the joy of witnessing it, and perhaps gloating with an "I won" attitude.

No doubt, in our StoneCampbell Movement, some women must have already performed baptisms. But for the record, Phillip Morrison tells us in Wineskins (Vol. 2, No. 1) of Irina KuliZade, formerly of Azerbaijan, being immersed by Joan Randolph at the Woodmont Hills building in Nashville. Can any one forbid the water that she should not baptize?

Some of this I have related to you before. In the farm community in which I grew up, the church built a concrete baptistry out behind the building. The fire department filled it for our summer meetings. For some strange reason, people did not need baptism at other times! Many people were immersed there including the five siblings of my family. For the sake of modesty, the females were draped with sheets as they came out of the water. Because the water came so near the top, it was not unusual for some water to splash out. The baptismal scene always drew the attention of the kids who were generally wellbehaved. But it too much for them when a pitifully obese woman was submerged, sending a tide of water splashing over the sides.

My first baptism was at Milnesand, New Mexico in a surface tank (pond to you Yankees and other foreigners). The water was only about two feet deep, but the extra foot of mud in the bottom helped the depth problem. As it was in that tank and in many of our slimy baptistries whose water looked like a marsh pool ready to hatch tadpoles, I agree that it is "not the putting away of the filth of the flesh!"

Across the state line near Milnesand at Bledsoe, Texas I met my second baptismal challenge. The fellow outweighed me by about one hundred pounds. We climbed into a storage tank by a windmill for the ritual. The water came up almost to my chin. Who could ask for a better arrangement? But almost in panic I soon learned that his buoyancy was so much greater than mine that I had little weight to put him under. I almost climbed on top of him to submerge him.

Someone told how that one person, on arising from his burial, signed himself with a cross-in a Church of Christ! Others have startled our sedate people by shouting.

A brother brought a wayfaring man to be baptized one night in Louisiana. It was very cold. After my immersing him, he continued to splash the warm water upon himself in an impromptu bath. As it turned out, he only wanted a ride to another city eighty miles away.

There have been some "surprise baptisms," though it may not be known if they were fully immersed. I have heard numerous stories of persons who were assisting in preparations for a baptism falling into the baptistry with a big splash. One of our buildings in Fort Worth was broken into in a frigid night twenty or more years ago. Evidently, in his groping through the building in the dark, the pilferer fell into the chilling baptistry. Too bad that no one was present to laugh. There were interesting conjectures as to how he got home that cold night in soaked clothing. Do you suppose he might have concluded that the Lord was teaching him something about stealing from a church?

In New Iberia, Louisiana a visiting preacher brought eight or ten children from across town to be baptized in our baptistry. The poor fellow was sincere but illiterate. It was a picnic! The children, mostly under ten years old, I would guess, thought it was fun. The man did not know how to hold the candidate so as to restrain the hands. So, as he would start to put them under the water, they would yell and start threshing the water with their arms, much to the delight of the onlookers. He never got one of them under the water completely. What was I to do? In my youthful perplexity, I decided to let the Lord handle the matter knowing that he would understand any sincere purpose.

In that same baptistry, I immersed a man. That was not unusual except that this fellow smelled strongly of intoxicating beverage. He was trying to please his wife, I fear, instead of trying to please the Lord. Anyway, I sort of felt that the Lord took care of the situation for, as I lowered him backward, he lurched strongly, bumping his head hard against the baptistry. Rather than him going on his way rejoicing, he went away rubbing a large knot on the top of his head.

Have you ever witnessed a tandem baptizing? I may be ahead of you there. When I was a teenager on the farm, some of the Holiness people were having a big revival with lots of responses. They brought them all to our neighbor's watering trough to be immersed. Two of the candidates would be made to stand side by side with one arm around each other. Then two baptizers would hold their arms, one on each side, and immerse them together.

My favorite baptism story was told to me nearly fifty years ago by W. B. Andrews. This young preacher led a woman out into a river with some caution and apprehension for the baptizing. He was slight in stature compared to the woman. As he was getting ready to immerse her, she looked down on him and growled in an undertone, "You had better not drown me, you little devil!"

Fundamentalists are very defensive about the length of the "six days of creation." To them the admission that the days were indefinite periods of time would open the door for evolutionary theories. Others also accept that they were twentyfourhour days but give them the "thousand years as a day" interpretation, relating them to socalled "endtime prophecies." Using Usher's chronology, they would project us to the seventh and last thousand years of time.

Having completed his work of creation, God rested on the seventh day (Gen. 2:1f). He hallowed that day making it a day of rest, a sabbath, a ceasing, a desisting. Was it also a day of twentyfour hours? No. Using Usher's chronology, it began in 4004 B.C. and God is still resting from his work of creation.

God has wanted his people to enter into that rest with him. The Fourth Chapter of Hebrews deals with this. Israel was prevented from entering that rest by their unbelief and disobedience. "For we who have believed enter that rest" (v. 3). It is further declared, "So then, there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God; for whoever enters God's rest also ceases from his labors as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest..." (v. 911).

That sabbath is an eternal day of rest with God. There is no way to harmonize the concept of twentyfourhour days in Genesis 1 and 2. One of them is eternally durative.

Even the most ardent literalist does not accept all of the creation account literally. And there is no profit in trying.

The account of creation is not meant to be a lesson in science. Instead, it is theological. It points all mankind to an infinite and almighty Creator.

In his plan to make a great nation of Israel, God made Joseph to become a powerful ruler in Egypt. Living in a climate of governmental favor enabled the descendants of Jacob to multiply and prosper. But they were to enter another phase of development after the death of Joseph.

"Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph" (Exo. 1:8). Becoming threatened by the growing power of the Israelites, the new Pharaoh brought rigorous oppression against them. We tend to think of that as being bad, but God was still in charge of developing his people. "The more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied" (v. 12).

Their oppression helped them to define who they were and what their purposes were. It made them a separate people instead of one integrated into Egyptian society. They were not just another people, but they were God's people.

These considerations lead us to question the role of civil governments in helping or hindering the Christian religion. Some of these thoughts come from a taped lesson of Dr. Robert Hooper.

Jesus introduced the gospel into the fertile soil of the vast Roman Empire. As it took root and spread, the disciples met with severe persecutions. The populace did not accept Jesus because it was the popular thing to do. Oppressions helped to keep the purposes and professions defined and unpolluted by compromises within a favorable society. The disciples had something worth dying for. This pure form of Christianity was so appealing that no persecutions could stop it. The more God's new people were oppressed, the more they multiplied.

Seeing that his empire was being overrun by disciples in the Fourth Century, Constantine must have decided that he needed those people on his side. So he relaxed the persecutions, made laws favoring Christians, had his army to be baptized, and built buildings for worship. How great it was to have governmental favor and support! Or was it?

Being a follower of Christ became the "in thing." No longer was it demanding and defining. Christianity could, and did, blend with society and paganism. Forms and professions and the keeping of church laws began to replace a true identity with Christ. A vast system of organized religion developed. The entire population of "Christian" countries was claimed by the church.

When Constantine let Christians become a political force, he was giving "a leg up" into the saddle. With the development of the hierarchy and papacy, the church mounted into the saddle and began to rule the empire. It became the "Holy Roman Empire." So that which began as a governmental favor led to the great apostasy.

Although we in America have prohibited a state religion, we have enjoyed governmental favor. That has been a mixed bag of blessing and curse. It has fostered nominal discipleship. It has always been more favorable in our society to profess discipleship than to denounce it. The purposes and definition of discipleship have become vague. But now that is changing.

A new king has arisen who knows not Joseph. Government laws restrict Christianity in our land. In our societal institutions all kinds of religion may be taught except Christianity. The media, entertainers, artists, musicians, and talk show hosts are becoming more brazen in ridiculing Christian people. The image of the disciple is horribly blurred offering no sure definition or purpose. Already a person is shouted down for denouncing sexual immorality, dissolution of the family, homosexual practices, abortion, pornography, profanity, drunkenness, and salvation other than through Christ.

This is a discouraging picture, but don't give up. God is still working. He will refine and define his people. It may take a new era of persecution to do it. Our children and grandchildren may have to step forward as martyrs. The fires of persecution may burn into a revival of true discipleship in the TwentyFirst Century. In the flames, the true image of Christ will appear again as in the early centuries. When people see him as he is, they will fall before him as before. Christ will conquer without the favor of our civil governments and societies.

Let us gain comfort from this realization. Let us prepare our generation for the perils ahead. Let us pray that their faith will be purified by the inevitable refining fires.

"God is no respecter of persons" (Acts 10:34). "For God shows no partiality" (Rom. 2:11; Gal. 2:6). Other similar passages would indicate that God's rules apply equally to all persons. When God makes a demand, law is law! There are no "ifs, ands, or buts" about it. There are no excuses, exceptions, or variations. One size fits all! But it just fits tighter for some than for others.

The universal application of God's commands allows for no interpretation. So we can determine their violation or neglect and condemn all violators. In doing that, we just let the word of God do the judging, don't we?

Such an understanding as I have presented is ignorant, stupid, and presumptuous. If I were really trying to be ugly, I might say that it is a usurpation of God's judgment seat. None of us is willing to apply such judgment without prejudice.

Let me illustrate that with one example. "Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord" (Eph. 5:32). "Likewise you wives, be submissive to your husbands..." (1 Pet. 3:1). There are no "Except" clauses. One size fits all.

If the wife happens to be your daughter, you will allow some exceptions. Her husband beats her regularly and threatens her life. Must she be submissive? He abandons her and will not provide for her and her children. Must she be in subjection? He becomes incestuous. Can she resist him? He becomes despotic and is mentally deranged? Do you tell your daughter that she must still be submissive to him? No, you demand that she leave him, have him jailed, divorce him, or shoot him! You see that even perceived law stretches to allow mercy.

Laws begin to take on elasticity when put into practical application. One size begins to be multisized. Why is this true? Because we begin to look for grace rather than the harshness of unbending law. Law is a yoke of bondage. Christ's yoke is easy and liberating.

God sees individuals. He knows the reason for your every response. He knows the factors that make each of us behave differently from every other person on earth.

Our Creator understands the different emotional responses of males and females, those caused by our genes, hormones, and testosterone.

He knows that we vary greatly in intelligence and that our logic and feeling come from right brain or left brain dominance. He understands our manicdepression, paranoia, learning disability, emotional instability, and tendency toward drug dependency. Being deaf, paralytic, or blind, or having chronic headaches, or other physical handicaps affect our responses.

God knows our responses that come from childhood influences: the father/mother role, sexual abuse, physical abuse, lack of cultivated selfesteem, lack of moral training, and spiritual or hedonistic upbringing.

Cultural differences are surely known by God, whether it be our race or national customs, our period of history, our education, or the availability of the Scriptures.

God has never demanded the impossible of anyone. Can one size fit all?

In making your judgments of other people, can you take all the above mentioned factors into consideration? If you try to judge by law, you may think that no understanding of differences is required; so you may have the arrogance to conclude that you can judge all others. How stupid and proud we can be!

Grace and law are incompatible. God's grace is multisized. He takes all things into consideration and offers grace to all who respond according to their abilities. "Mercy triumphs over judgment" (James 2:13).

When the preacher says with finality, "And in conclusion," don't reach for the song book. He may go on another ten minutes!

Thank you for hanging with me to this last page. I hope that my writings have been more a challenge to think than a boredom to read. I do not pretend to have all the answers or a new oracle from God.

One of the disappointments of my life is that I have more questions now at the age of 75 than I had when 25. Integrating each new perspective demands a new look at everything it affects so that new questions arise to be reckoned with.

You might have detected already that I have always been a sort of believing skeptic. It is not my aim to create that kind of skepticism in you except to encourage you to search for more satisfying answers.

Although I am pleased when you agree with me, I can assure you that such is not necessary in order for you to be loved and accepted by both God and me. Fellowship is based upon our having a common Father rather than upon agreeing on doctrinal points.

I remain convinced that our greatest disappointment to our Father is our rejection of others in his family. May God be more merciful to us than we are to one another.