Jim Schaap

Thanks, Ron--and blessings on a new school year!

Lincoln mandated that only 39 of the 300+ were guilty and sentenced to hang for their parts in what happened.  Thirty-eight were hung in Mankato, MN, on December 26, 1862, the largest mass hanging in American history.  

Interesting theory on mega-churches.  Personally, I've never really understood the dramatic attraction they have for so many believers, but they continue to grow and multiply and dislodge the kind of broader community that denominations once created, for better or for worse.  Thanks for your very perceptive thoughts.

Thanks for the very helpful thoughts.  I've never known quite what to do with the story of Babel because while God's dispersing people into different groups can be seen as punishment for human pride and aspiration, what happened there also created individual differences, both in human beings and in groups of human beings.  Those differences are wonderful.  Here in Sioux County, Iowa, the county with the highest percentage of Dutch-Americans in the entire country, we're blessed by our brand new Hispanic neighbors.  Good night, we eat a ton better these days--at least our foods are spicier.  Differences in worship style and substance are not an abomination; now two of us are exactly alike, right?  

And that's good.

The comment made by the Chippewa man is wonderful, not because it condemns Christians but because it illustrates how difficult it must have been for Native people to understand what on earth was going on when white Presbyterians fought with white Episcopalians and white Roman Catholics, etc., etc., especially snce they saw all white missionaries as emissaries from a culture that threatened their own way of life.