What the 10th Century 'Peace of God' Movement can teach us about our country's embrace of political partisanship and violence

Rapid economic change in 10th Century Western Europe led to instability, which created fertile ground for those with power to press their claims for more power at the expense of the common people.  If I replace 10th Century with 20th-21st and Western Europe with the whole world, the gap between our own predicament and the medieval world narrows considerably.  In their case, the economic change was newfound prosperity after the doldrums of the Dark Ages following the disintegration of the Roman Empire.  In our case, the economic change has been far less favorable to most people, but rapid change opens the door to power moves whether that change be for the better or for the worse.

The patchwork of nobles that controlled Western Europe took advantage of the changing landscape to press their own dynastic claims at the expense of their family rivals leading to endemic small scale warfare.  As Diarmaid MacCulloch tells it in Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, 

"One symptom of the reorganization of society's wealth was a great deal of local warfare as rival magnates competed to establish their positions and property rights, or used violence against humble people in order to squeeze revenue and labor obligations from them; this was the era in which a rash of castles began to appear across the continent, centers of military operations and refuges for noblemen." (p. 370)

What was the Church's response to this violence and oppression of the 'least of these' by those who claimed to be followers of Jesus Christ, but acted in self-interested, and often violent, greed instead?

The Church threw its moral authority against the violence and greed, threatening to excommunicate those who failed to keep the peace.

Beginning with the Bishop of Le Puy in 975, local Church leaders organized processions with holy relics and used their moral authority to cajole the feuding nobles into swearing solemn oaths to keep the peace.  Those that hesitated were persuaded by the threat of excommunication to accept the Church's restrictions on which days of the year they could fight without incurring the Church's wrath.  In addition, the Church set itself up as an arbiter where disputes could be resolved without bloodshed.  This movement had the backing of one of the most influential spiritual leaders of the day, Odilo, the abbot of the Cluny monastery, and eventually popes became involved in regulating the peace agreements.  In the end, the Church was not able to eliminate the greed and violent tendencies of the nobles, but they were able to significantly curtail it and limit its impact on the common people.

What then are the lessons for the Church in our own era of economic upheaval and political instability?  

1. The Church needs to stand with the common people, not seek the favor of the powerful.

This should hardly need to be said, given the clear teaching of Jesus Christ on the matter, but sadly we need to be reminded that role and function of pastors/elders/bishops is not to curry the favor of powerful business leaders or politicians, but shepherd the flock of Jesus Christ.  Deference to the powerful is a betrayal of every minister's ordination vows, a sign of unhealthy priorities, and an invitation to moral compromise.  

2. The Church needs to withdraw its recognition/support of 'Christian' leaders/politicians whose behavior besmirches the name of Jesus Christ.

The threat of excommunication doesn't hold much water anymore, and a Church fractured into many pieces has difficulty speaking with one voice, but those in power have little incentive to change their ways when large and powerful churches gladly support their ambitions despite repeated evidences that those they support care little for Christian morality.  Such a reckoning is unlikely to come until churches eliminate their own tolerance for immorality among their own leadership {the plank in our own eye first}, something that sadly is all too common, but it is certainly necessary that they do so as the bond between a Church dedicated to imitating Christ-likeness and powerful people who ignore Christ's teachings, but still claim to be Christians, can only be a marriage that will stain the reputation of the Church.  While there will always be a charlatan like Paula White-Cain willing to embrace/endorse the rich and powerful for mutual gain, respectable Church leaders must walk away from these toxic relationships that benefit those who behave in ways that make a mockery of our faith by given them a veneer of legitimacy that their actions don't deserve.

In the end, Christians simply need to insist upon better leaders by choosing to not support those who demonstrate moral unfitness, whether that be in their own local church, their denominational leadership, or within the political party they support.

3. The Church needs to heal its own divisions and rivalries to allow it to speak with more moral authority.

This is, of course, the hardest of the three.  There are significant portions of the Church today who identify with liberal politicians/causes, and significant portions of the Church today who identify with conservative politicians/causes, MORE STRONGLY than they do with Christians who disagree with them on those issues.  In other words, for far too many Christians, politics comes first.  It is difficult for many liberal Christians to see conservative Christians as genuine believers, and vice versa.  The question: "Do you profess the risen Lord as Savior?" has been replaced as a test of faith with, "What is your position on Immigration?" {for example}  That this is unhealthy for the Church should be evident to both sides, but the solution to it is not going to be easy.  Here it is: We need to care more about unity in Christ than we do about winning elections.  We need to share the Gospel of Jesus to the Lost more passionately than we argue about the latest political scandal on social media.

What is the solution to America's growing descent into partisanship and political violence?  A Church that utilizes it own moral authority on behalf of the 'least of these', refuses to excuse immoral behavior on the part of leaders for the sake of power, and is willing to restore the Gospel as the test of faith and fellowship regardless of the political philosophies of those who proclaim Jesus as Lord.

Why are our elected leaders continuing down this path of bitter partisan divides?  Because the Church has been cheering them on from the sidelines.  It has to stop.

  

How the Pope became popular among Evangelicals

The title alone seems like a crazy thought; it least it would have only a generation or two ago.  Having just finished Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (with its 1016 pages no less), I could not help but comment on his observation that Secularism (in particular cultural battles over sexual morality) was an unintentional boost to the modern alliance between formerly rival factions within Christianity.  A generation or two ago, the primary threat as seen by Evangelical Protestants would have been Liberal Protestantism and Catholicism; Orthodox Christianity wouldn't have rated a mention as it languished behind the Iron Curtain.  Fast forward past the Cultural Revolution of the 60's, Roe vs. Wade, the rising tide of divorce in the West and America, and the battles for ordination for women and homosexuals.  With all of these struggles in common, a remarkable shift has taken place: "a survey on approval ratings among American Evangelicals showed that Pope John Paul II, who would have represented Antichrist to an earlier Evangelical generation, out polled assorted spokesmen of the Religious Right" (pg. 1010, from a poll taken in 2004).
What did it take to make the Pope popular among Evangelicals?  The realization that we have more in common with our brothers and sisters in the Catholic (and Orthodox) Churches than we do with a society that has come to embrace sexual promiscuity, divorce, abortion, and euthanasia.  It was not a sudden outbreak of Christian brotherhood that prompted those looking across the divide of Christianity for solidarity, but a realization that we must work together lest we separately be overwhelmed by atheism and agnosticism.  It seems that after 500 years of confrontation (in the case of Orthodoxy, 1000 years), the worldwide Church is beginning to see that the message of the Gospel is needed in our world regardless of which one of our Christian denominations is doing the telling.  What we have in common is more important that our differences, however important they may be.  The world needs a message of hope, forgiveness, and reconciliation, far more than it needs us to continue the arguments that have raged within the Church in the shadow of the writings of St. Augustine.
Did I once think the Pope would be the Antichrist?  Sure I did, that's what was being taught in Evangelical circles 30 years ago.  The times, they are a changing.  In the words of the American Patriot Benjamin Franklin, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Caught between two worlds

One of the fascinating thing about study history is the chance to see patterns emerge that may lend insight into the world we live in today.  I understand that not everything would think this to be exciting, but I often find that an example or illustration from the past works wonders in helping people understand the present.
As I continue to read through Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, one of the things that keeps popping up is the contrast and conflict between men and women in Church history who desired certainty (in theology, morality, cultural norms, etc.) and those who valued ambiguity.  Sometimes the difference is one of personality; some people simply cannot abide ambiguity, they feel a deep need to categorize and label everything; others feel the opposite, being asked to take an either/or position makes them uncomfortable, it just feels wrong.  On top of differences of personality we have cultural differences.  Some cultures emphasize the need to take a stand, others value including multiple viewpoints.
Church history (and human history in general) has often been a case of two people who care about the same thing (on a host of different issues) not being able to see eye to eye because one is seeking certainty and the other is valuing ambiguity.
As you read this you may be thinking, "Of course we need certainty, only a Commie liberal would want that multi-cultural crap".  Or perhaps the opposite, "What kind of fascist jerk would assume he has all the answers to everything!"  That our politics often seems divided between similar viewpoints is no fluke.  Western Civilization is a combination of the heritage of two cultures: The Greek world of Plato and Aristotle, and the Jewish world of Moses, Jesus, and Paul.  The Greeks were forever seeking ultimate truth, unable to let an issue lie, they loved the constant questions necessary to peal away layers of uncertainty.  The Jewish mind on the other hand, disdained those who claimed to know it all in favor of consensus, including every opinion and letting a majority decide things but always leaving the back door open in case a change of mind was necessary down the road.  The very languages of which our Scriptures are comprised reflect that, the precision of Greek and the ambiguity of Hebrew shows itself in the very structure of the languages themselves.
As a result of our mix and match heritage, the Church (and Western Civilization) has always prized the search for ultimate Truth but at the same time has felt discomfort when we think we have found it.  We crave unity of opinion, but know that we should leave room for those who don't fit in.  We value diversity, but find ourselves hoping that all that diversity agrees with us.  Is it any wonder that there are more Christian denominations in existence today than we can even keep track of, and yet at the same time we still long for a universal big "C" Church to stand above the fray.
My own intellectual experience reflects these tendencies.  When I was younger I craved the neatness of certainty, but the more I learned and the more I experienced the more I came to realize that such textbook answers are rarely as cut and dried as people think.  When I was younger I hesitated to extend the term "Christian" to peoples and groups with whom I saw little in common, but as time went by I began to see the underlying bond we share beneath the surface disagreements.  In the end, I've come to a place where I can affirm ultimate Truth with confidence on the core issues of our faith (see I John, or better yet download and read my book for more on this topic) and yet remain open to the multiple of expressions of that faith that exist in the Church today.
Maybe you don't want to be caught between two worlds, maybe you want only one or the other, but I'm sorry to tell you that isn't an option.  Everything we think, say, and do is a product of our common heritage, a heritage God intended to be born of two worlds, a Hebrew Old Testament and a Greek New Testament.

Lenten thoughts on peace among Christians

As we begin today the season of Lent we are reminded of the wide variety of Christian practice here in the United States.  We are not separated from each other by region, race, education, or any other social factor that has throughout history driven wedges between the various churches of the Church.  It wasn't always this way, America has a past where the type of church you attended meant a great deal more than the type of man/woman you were.  As we have our racial past sins, we've been on the long road of moving beyond our past.
Nearly every day I work with a Christian volunteer, lay leader, or pastor from a non-Baptist church.  My work with Mustard Seed Missions crosses boundaries all the time without even consciously thinking about them.  We will soon join together in a community wide cross walk followed by an ecumenical tenebre worship service.  We are still many, but we function more and more as one.  In this we certainly please God whose son is the groom of the whole Church, no local version has a monopoly on the claim to being the Bride of Christ, nor does any continent spanning denomination. 
That being said, most of us don't know about two experiments that took place in Eastern Europe prior to the Thirty Years War that offered hope of toleration and civil peace among Catholics, Lutherans, Reformed, and Orthodox Christians.  That these experiments didn't survive into the modern world do not detract from the vision, honor, and courage of those who embarked upon a journey of hope in peace.
The first example comes from the nobility of Transylvania, a small principality that was wedged between hostile Ottoman Turks and the Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperor.  Transylvania was home to a wide variety of Christian churches,  as such these nobles were forced to find common ground with each other for their very survival.  The result was and agreement in 1568 in the town of Torda that stated,
"ministers should everywhere preach and proclaim {the Gospel} according to their understanding of it, and if their community is willing to accept this, good; if not, however, no one should be compelled by force if their spirit is not at peace...no one is permitted to threaten to imprison or banish anyone because of their teaching, because faith is a gift from God." (from Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid McCulloch, page 640)
Likewise, the kingdom to the north, Poland-Lithuania was faced with choosing a new king after the death of Sigismund Augustus in 1572; they were also faced with Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, and Orthodox churches within their territory.  When the nobility decided to ask Henri, Duke of Anjou to be their next king they required him to first sign a agreement that had been drawn up in Warsaw which stated,
"Since there is in our Commonwealth no little disagreement on the subject of religion, in order to prevent any such hurtful strife from beginning among our people on this account...we mutually promise for ourselves and our successors forever...that we who differ with regard to religion will keep the peace with one another, and will not for a different faith or a change of churches shed blood nor punish one another by confiscation of property, infamy, imprisonment or banishment, and will not in any way assist any magistrate or officer in such an act." (McCulloch, page 643)

As we begin the path of Lent, the road that leads to the Cross and the Empty Grave, let us remember those who tried (often in vain) to bring peace among Christians, to foster a sense of brotherhood among those who claim Jesus as their Lord.  We should be rightly proud of our current level of brotherly love here in America, but we should rightly remember that we didn't walk this whole path on our own, there were visionaries in Transylvania and Poland-Lithuania hoping for peace five hundred years ago.

The workings of the Holy Spirit

In the mid-fourteenth century the Eastern Orthodox Church was convulsed by a dispute about the whether or not a style of mystical prayer known as Hesychasm was valid.  The prime advocate of this type of prayer, Gregory Palamas "maintained that in such practice of prayer, it is possible to reach a vision of divine light which reveals God's uncreated energy, which is the Holy Spirit." (Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch, p. 487)  What the mystics of the Orthodox Church were trying to achieve through repetition of the "Jesus Prayer" (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me.") was a connection with the Holy Spirit.
Jesus made it clear to his disciples that when he left them the Spirit of God would take his place to teach (John 16:12-15) them, and throughout Acts the Spirit is seen guiding and directing the early Church through men like Peter and Paul.  We know from Paul's letter to the Romans that the Holy Spirit is also instrumental in our prayer as well (Romans 8:26-27). 
In the past two thousand years the Church has come up with a variety of answers to the practical questions of what our interaction with the Holy Spirit could/should look like for individuals, local churches, and Christendom as a whole.  For some people, that answer is a subtle one, a "still small voice" that speaks quietly when we're willing to listen.  For others, the answer has been much more vocal, whether it be speaking in tongues, visions, dreams, or other kinds of communication.
Depending upon the church tradition you're familiar with, it may seem odd, even weird, to experience the other end of the spectrum.  To step into a Pentecostal Church if you were raised Roman Catholic would be quite a shock, likewise to step into a Lutheran Church if you were raised Southern Baptist might be equally surprising.  That same divergent response to the Holy Spirit is mirrored in individuals as well.  For some people, to talk about being moved or spoken to by the Holy Spirit is only natural, for others it seems a foreign concept.  Those of us who are naturally outgoing might find such expression easy, and those who tend to be more reserved might find it uncomfortable.
So who is right?  Which expression of the work of the Holy Spirit is the right one?  They all are.  That isn't avoiding the issue, it's the truth.  The Spirit of God works throughout the Church of Christ.  If we are all followers of Jesus Christ, all of us have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  That includes the jumping up and down "Hallelujah" shouter and the man sitting in the back praying silently.
Here's a suggestion that might open your eyes, take some time and visit a church that is unlike the kind you're used to; find out the ways in which other Christians are living out their faith, you just might find something that speaks to you.

Ancient Words Ever True...

I was listening to the song Ancient Words in the office today, considering the words of Peter in Acts 4, and pondering the book, The Reformation by Diarmaid MacCulloch.  Where did all of that lead me?  The Reformation (in conjunction with the Renaissance) was a difficult time for those who wished to respect ancient traditions.  If you wanted to revere all the wisdom of the ancients, you had to deny the observations of men like Copernicus and Galileo in favor of men dead for two thousand years like Aristotle and Ptolemy. 
If instead, you opened up the wisdom of the ancients to doubt, even ridicule, how could you hold the line and protect the Orthodox faith from those who would deny the Trinity (for example)?
For us, the answers seem easy: Copernicus was right and that doesn't say anything about Biblical interpretation, it's just an observation from the natural world.  It wasn't so simple at the time.  We, as supposedly enlightened modern thinkers, may scoff at the foolishness of our forefathers, and shake our heads that they ever burned "witches" at the stake; but the question should be, "Are we any better?"
Take a look around the world we live in.  It has become the accepted belief in the Modern West that a human embryo can be disposed of with not a bit of care, and even an ironic moral outrage at those who would seek to "force" a young girl to give birth to the child growing inside of her.  It has also become the accepted belief in much of the Modern West that any and all variations of sexuality, co-habitation, and separation are equally valid.  That nobody has the right to tell anyone else that their choices are wrong.
Does it really seem so funny that men in the 16th Century were troubled that Copernicus was claiming the earth revolved around the sun?  In reality, humanity hasn't "advanced" much at all over the last five centuries.  We may know more stuff, and have a lot more widgets and gizmoes to entertain ourselves, but our moral state is just as deprived as the day Luther became troubled with Paul's insistence on fallen humanity in his letter to the Romans.

A History Lesson: How NOT to run a Church

This nugget of wisdom also comes from Diarmaid MacCulloch's The Reformation but isn't one that very many people will know already.
In 1561 a Greek soldier of fortune named Heraklides found himself in the employ of an unpopular king in the small Eastern Orthodox Christian principality of Moldavia.  Heraklides had little love for the Orthodox tradition of his homeland and had rather become enamored with Protestant Christianity (his work as a soldier had taken him all over Europe to this point).  With the backing of the Hapsburgs and the Lithuanian nobility, Heraklides overthrew the king and took his place.  In and of itself, this wouldn't be much of a lesson for the Church, such coups we fairly common in Europe, but what happened next proves to be rather instructive.
Heraklides ordered Protestant worship in his court, appointed a Polish Reformer as his bishop, and generally annoyed the traditional Orthodox people he intended to rule.  To make matters much worse, Heraklides raided the Orthodox monasteries because of his zeal against sacred images (a huge matter of contention at the time in much of Europe struggling with the ideas of the Reformation) and took their golden crosses and the gilded frames of their icons (Orthodox two dimensional Christian paintings; Heraklides didn't destroy them, just took their valuable frames) which he proceeded to melt down and turn into coinage with, of course, his own image on it.  Forget for a moment the irony of having zeal against idolatry, but making coins with your own image on them, and just think about the choices that Heraklides was making.  As an outsider, he was imposing Reform ideas (whether right or wrong) on the local population of Christians without any regard for how they felt about it.  In other words, he was trying to lead a movement from the top; against the will of the people.
The story ends badly; his army deserted him and he was butchered without mercy, along with any who were suspected of being sympathizers with his cause.  The entire experiment of imposing a Reformation on an unwilling populace had lasted two years.  Similar problems were happening all over Europe (though not to this extent) as nobles and kings attempted to guide/direct/coerce their people toward their own chosen side in the Catholic/Protestant divide.  This certainly should enlighten us about the danger of governing against the will of the people, but it also teaches us about how church leadership, be it local or denominational, cannot simply force people to accept changes (good or bad, right or wrong) from the top down. 
For those of us who are church pastors, this lesson is helpful, though sadly easy to ignore when our own circumstances convince us otherwise.  We see a need, something that our heart tells us is what God wants, and we try to force our people to see it to.  The fault, typically, arises from not taking the time/effort to lay the groundwork properly or not allowing for the fact that change is difficult.  Rather than running around melting down our people's icons (a symbolic stand-in for anything they hold sacred), we should be asking ourselves WHY they feel that way about them?  Where does this passion come from, is it healthy or not?  Can it be utilized rather than attacked?
There are few easy answers for a pastor, elder, or lay leader in a church that is in need of reform or restoration.  The problems were not arrived at quickly or easily (in most cases) and they won't be solved that way either.  But do yourself a favor, don't aspire to be a Heraklides, it didn't end well for him.

The Plot Thickens...or...The More You Learn, the More There is to Learn.

One of the things I love about a good thick book on a subject I already know about is the chance to learn new things and see things in a new perspective.  As I continue with Diarmaid MacCulloch's book, The Reformation, I've been intrigued by the author's attempts to show the parallel developments that were going on throughout the 1500's in areas that converted to Protestantism, and those that did not.  It was not as if reform was absent in Spain or Italy while Martin Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin were working in Northern Europe, but rather that those initiatives toward reform took different tracks and ended up with different outcomes.  Some of the explanation is as simple as the normal N/S divide in Europe's culture (along with its climate and geography), as well as the differing relationships between rulers and their nobility, and the simple fact that Rome was in the south.
One particular connection between the Jesuits and Methodists struck me as interesting.  The Jesuits resisted the urge to become a clerical order, "We are not monks!  The world is our house." (Jeronimo Nadal, Society member, 1550's)  Likewise, two centuries later John Wesley sent out another group of traveling preachers saying, "the world is my parish".  That Jesuits and Methodist preachers would have anything in common may seem surprising, but one of Loyola's core beliefs was that the Medieval Church was wrong to think that priests or monks had any greater chance of getting to heaven than anyone else. {an idea he learned from Thomas a Kempis' The Imitation of Christ}.  That idea was at home within the Protestant Reformation, where the idea of the priesthood of all believers became a foundational understanding of our salvation by grace. 
What's the point of all this?  Am I saying that there are no real differences between Catholics and Protestants?  Of course not, but if we are ever going to see past those differences and begin to work together for the kingdom of God, it would help if we understood that our common ancestry, the Medieval Church, gave rise to reformers throughout Europe (not just in the North).  That we went down differing paths from there is obvious, but that both groups were in the process of reform should help us see that our paths may at some point run closer together once again. 

The Word of God in the hands of the people

In Diarmaid MacCulloch's superb book "The Reformation" there is a profound observation that comes originally from Bernard Cottret's biography of John Calvin, "the increase in Bibles created the Reformation rather than being created by it, and it is notable how many of these Bibles were translations from Latin into local languages." (P.73)
In other words, there were plenty of would-be reformers and reform movements throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, but it was the printing of Bibles in the vernacular (the language of the people) through movable type that made the Reformation possible.  It is an amazing thing when the Word of God is read by God's people.  In the days of Josiah (II Kings 22), the people of Israel had so little contact with Scripture that not a single copy was available until a dusty old scroll was found in the temple and read to the people.  The subsequent weeping and mourning were inevitable because without God's Word his people will always wander away from the truth.
The same thing could be said of any church, regardless of denomination, in our world today.  The closer the people in the pews are to God's Word, the more they ingest it themselves on a regular basis, the better off the church will be.  Worried about a crack-pot pastor leading his flock astray?  There is far less a chance of that happening when the people know God's Word as well as he does.  Worried about people remaining true to the Gospel message in its original form?  Not if they read it, teach it, and preach it every week.
Does our local church need reform, does yours?  Follow the example of the Reformation, get the Bible into the hands of the common people and let the power of the Word of God convict God's people of their sins and bring them to their knees in worship of the LORD.

"take hold of the hope offered to us" - Hebrews 6:18

Something I was reading in the book, "The Reformation", by Diarmaid MacCulloch reminded me of this verse from Hebrews that we'll be looking at during Bible study tonight.  The reference in Hebrews is to those who fled for their lives to the Tabernacle, and later the Temple, in order to physically take hold of the horns of the altar in hopes that their lives would be spared by those who pursued them.  It was an appeal to God's mercy that was sometimes granted, (as it was by Solomon when his older brother Adonijah fled to the alter in I Kings 1:49-53 upon hearing that Solomon had been made king; although Adonijah later tried to get the throne anyway and was killed) and sometimes it was not (as with the case of Joab who had conspired against Solomon with Adonijah and who also had the blood of two innocent men killed in cold blood on his hands; he was killed despite having his hands on the horns of the altar).  The whole point of the passage in Hebrews is that our hope in Christ is greater than taking hold of the horns of the altar.  We can truly seek a sanctuary that is secure against all storms.
How does any of this relate to the Reformation?  Simply enough, it was in 1414 that the Bohemian reformer, Jan Hus was given safe-conduct (a guarantee of protection) by the Holy Roman Emperor so that he would be willing to go before a church council and explain his grievances.  The council and the Emperor changed their mind, put Jan on trial for heresy (Jan's reforms?  He wanted the Mass given in the language of the people, and the cup given to all so that they could fully participate in the Mass); they then had Jan burned at the stake.  The resulting uproar and civil war in Bohemia paved the way for the first Western Church that was independent of Rome, and example that would later influence Martin Luther.  Had these men been true to their word the reforms of Hus could have been debated and evaluated, but instead those in authority tried to crush dissent.  That such short-sighted and ungodly decisions led to the splintering of the Church is no doubt (more on MacCulloch's book as I work my way through it)
So how does this apply to me?  The hope that we have in Christ avoid all such human double-dealing and uncertainty.  God does not lie.  His Word will stand for all time.  When we flee and take hold of the Cross of Christ, "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure." -Hebrews 6:19