Blogs

My friend Jim Henderson has an idea for an interesting experiment. What would happen if you took several people, all of whom have strong and perhaps mutually exclusive sets of beliefs about God, religion, faith, or spirituality, plus a desire to convert others to their beliefs, and asked them to live together for several weeks in full view of a few million people? Interested? How about applying to be part of it?

Excerpt from The Sword of the Lord, Chapter 6.

A new review of The Sword of the Lord by historian Paul Harvey (Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, 1992) who researches and writes in the field of post-Civil War American History. His particular interests include southern history, American religious history, popular culture, war and society, and the history of American music.

Excerpt from Chapter 16 of The Sword of the Lord.

My book The Sword of the Lord: The Roots of Fundamentalism in an American Family was published by Chiara Press on May 15th of 2011. In other words, for the first time the book was available to an audience beyond my family and the circle of friends who gave me support and feedback throughout the writing process.

Beverly Kalinin has written a lyrical, reflective, and compelling narrative of grief.

Here is a story from Folklife. Pat Wright is a miracle worker! (I am on the back row singing tenor.)

I was born into a prominent fundamentalist family in 1950 and then grew up in the midst of cultural turmoil and massive social change. My granddad was John R. Rice, famous evangelist and editor of the influential Sword of the Lord newspaper, and my grandmother was Lloys Cooke Rice.

My friend Andrea Cohen has written a lovely and useful book, Practicing the Art of Compassionate Listening" in which she reflects on the power of the heart: "The heart contains approximately 40,000 neural cells - the kind we used to think existed only in the brain.