Winston Churchill once said that backward looking aids in forward seeing. Looking to the past in order to inform the present and bring vision to the future is a creative posture. For several years I have been thinking about the early church. That is, in and of itself, not that unusual for a priest, but I am intrigued by the conditions facing the Church in the first two centuries and those facing Western Christians in the post-modern twenty-first century.

The Decadence of Rome – Thomas Couture

The Roman Empire was very different from our time and yet in some ways very similar so I have studied everything from architecture and food to law and religion. I am finding it illuminating because what worked then can work again. The Gospel of Jesus the Christ is always prepared to sprout and live. Such can happen and is happening and will continue to happen until the end.