I met Pastor "Call me Bart" Campbell at his church in Grantville. He spoke no understandable German and my English at the time wasn't much better. He was one of the friendlier religious leaders from within the Ring of Fire that I had met. Over the following months we had several conversations, each gaining an improved understanding of the other's speech. In time we became friends. It was months later I discovered the heresies, actually read the poem. It had been on his wall all along, but I had not the knowledge to understand.
It was by Leigh Hunt and told the story of the personal salvation of an Arab named Abou Ben Adhen. Not a member of the community of Christ, Abou was still loved by God because he loved his fellow men. This flew in the face of all Christian teaching. For it is only through the grace of God that any of us gain heaven. None of us are so free of sin that we gain heaven by right. And that grace must be accepted and acknowledged.
Yet there it was—not part of the Bible, not learned discourse gained through study of the Bible—contradicting the Bible, in fact. It seemed a betrayal of Christ, and of Pastor Campbell's calling as a minister of the Lord. I remonstrated with him over it. And this is what he said in reply:
"Christ came into the world to let people into heaven, not as a way of locking them out. I know Christ died for our sins, but let me ask you something. Is the apostle Thomas in hell because he didn't believe in the resurrection before he saw it with his own eyes? If he's not, do you really think the Good Lord will condemn to eternal damnation a good man because he was born, lived his life, and died never having heard the name Jesus Christ? Thomas heard. He was there at the Sermon on the Mount, and at the crucifixion, saw Jesus when he returned, and still didn't believe till he had actually put his hands into the wounds."
He was in error. The gospel according to Mark makes it clear that those who do not believe are damned. For a while after that, it seemed, for whatever reason, God had placed heretics in our midst: even those who professed belief denied God's Word. The same Bible said that there would be no more miracles, and yet here was Grantville, delivered in the Ring of Fire.
* * *
While not wholly good, the material consequences of the Ring of Fire for Badenburg seemed mostly beneficial. At first there had been a loss of business by the local merchants, but that had changed as they had become more comfortable dealing with the Americans. The up-timers were rich, and as a rule generous in their wealth. The most common complaint I had heard lately was that the poor were unwilling to work for the wages they had found adequate before the Ring of Fire. Grantville paid better.
The winter was easier to survive than expected. American tractors, and other devices, were helping with the harvest. American soldiers patrolled the roads. American workmen and equipment improved those same roads, making the transport of goods faster, safer, and cheaper. Grantville was certainly a material boon to Badenburg, and increasingly to the surrounding area.
Spiritually, that was more of a problem. American freedom of religion seemed to cause no problems in Grantville, save for the basic one that many of the people of Grantville were—or so it seemed to me at the time—damned by their lack of faith. If you know someone is to be damned by their lack of faith in the Lord and yet do nothing to save them, are you not complicit in their damnation? And wouldn't they lead others into damnation by the example of their worldly wealth and knowledge?
I became a timid Paul, faced with Christians whom he could not persecute. I examined the various religious practices in Grantville in hopes of finding fault; errors which I could point out to my congregation, to defend them against the creeping corruption of up-timer ideas. I found many such, and pointed them out with diligence, and at some cost. Political factors suggested a more moderate approach. Margreth pointed this out to me on several occasions, but I would not be swayed.
* * *
My revelation came, not on the road to Damascus, but in Grantville High School. Nor was it a light from Heaven, but a simple comment. Two of the teachers were discussing the Ring of Fire, as they had no doubt done many times before. One said to the other: "Albert, stop telling God what to do." This struck me as odd because neither of them was named Albert.
Upon investigation, I learned I had stumbled across an old joke. Apparently a Jew named Albert Einstein was considered one of the greatest natural philosopher in history. In discourse with another natural philosopher, he had made the statement "God does not play dice with the universe." To which his fellow philosopher, a man named Niels Bohr, had made the famous reply: "Albert, stop telling God what to do." It all seemed horribly disrespectful to the Good Lord. I was not impressed with their humor.
* * *
That night I dreamed of heaven; of thousands of voices raised not in praise of the Lord, but in remonstration. God does this. God does not do that. God condemns this one. God saves that one. I say unto you: if an angel of the Lord should contradict me, do not believe him. God will make no more miracles, send no more prophets. God does not play dice with the universe. No one will be accepted into heaven who has not accepted Jesus Christ. God only loves a few chosen people and all others are condemned. Then the Lord God was looking into my eyes, and into my soul, waiting. Waiting for me, along with all the others, to tell him what he was and was not allowed to do; and I was afraid.
I knew then, God didn't need my permission to let a heathen into heaven any more than he needed my permission to create the Ring of Fire; to create a whole new universe not in seven days, but, if what the two physics teachers had said was true, in seven seconds.
Could it be, Christ wasn't sent into the world so much to save us as to let us know we could be saved? That God understands when we don't get it right? God seemed to smile, in my dream, but gave no further reassurance, made no pronouncement of his will, no statement of what he would or wouldn't do. I was comforted by that smile and I still am.
I do not know, in any objective way, that my dream was any more than a dream. I know through faith that God was speaking, but cannot command anyone else to believe it. Yet I must offer it, not because God will refuse entry into heaven for those who don't accept the truth as it has been revealed to me, but because of the suffering and fear here on earth that it may prevent.
* * *
That was my revelation but it was not enough. People need rules, standards of behavior. If those standards aren't provided by their faith, we will seek out a faith that does provide them, even if that faith requires we sacrifice a virgin to get the crops to grow. I now believe that the most rabid devil worshiper on earth may find salvation through God's grace even if he rejects that grace here on earth, or may not. It is not my place to tell God what to do. I can guess, though.
If the Good Lord is as kind as I have come to believe He is, then we need not fear His wrath. If we need not fear His wrath, why should we even try to follow his rules—rules that we can only guess at anyway? For me the answer to that is simple. I love God and prefer not to disappoint him anymore than I can avoid.
God after all gave me life, and Margreth to love and be loved by. He gave me my congregation to care for. The flowers and the trees, children laughing, and a miracle when my faith had become a thing of rote rules and following instructions. Perhaps most valuable of all, he gave and continues to give me doubt. Through doubt He gave me freedom of choice. Instead of commandments carved in stone, He gave me Grantville with all its contradictions and confusions. In doing so He gave me His trust. I don't want to disappoint Him.
I do not follow God's will in fear of punishment, or even in hope of reward. I follow God's will, as I understand it, because I love God, and want to make Him happy.
* * *
The change was too sudden. For all the long months since the Ring of Fire I had been urging caution, if not outright condemning the up-timers for their belief in freedom of religion. Over my years as a pastor, I had become enough of a politician to realize that it was going to take time to change the direction I had been leading my flock. Even if I hadn't been, Marg
reth certainly was.
It was Margreth that I told first. She was furious with me. Her fury was, I realized, a mixture of fear for my soul and guilt, for she had been encouraging me for months to be gentler in my condemnations of Grantville and up-timer beliefs. Her motives then had been practical politics: Grantville was too powerful to fight, and too rich to ignore. I had been gradually losing support among the council and among my congregation, out of fear my sermons might damage relations between Badenburg and Grantville. Now Margreth was afraid her remonstrations were responsible for my change of heart, that in so doing she had driven me into heresy and imperiled my soul.
So first, I had to convince her through reasoned arguments. It wasn't easy, but I had an ally. Not more than five miles away God had spoken, and spoken loudly if not clearly. At the minimum, the Ring of Fire meant we needed to reexamine our interpretation of the Bible, which said God would not do that. Obviously that was not the case. And what had the Good Lord sent us? A church or town of Lutherans, or a Catholic church or town? Had he sent us a Buddhist monastery, a synagogue, or mosque? No, God sent us a town, a small town from the future. A town filled with simple common folk by the standards of their time and nation. But what folk? People who respected each other's right to decide for themselves what to believe and how or even whether to pray. People who, for the most part, follow God's will a bit better than we do. A kind and charitable people who feed the hungry and cure the sick, speak in a new tongue. I don't know about demons but they are a dab hand with mercenary soldiers. Should they find the need I suspect they would do well with snakes and poison too. What they don't do is go around saying you must believe as we do.
I persuaded her after a time. There was a comfort in this interpretation of God's will. I don't know where it came from. From the outside it must seem harsh. It offered no concrete assurance that if you did one thing or another you would gain heaven. Instead it depended on trust in God's grace.
Having persuaded Margreth I had not lost my soul, I still needed to persuade her I had not lost my mind. Telling anyone seemed, to her, a dangerous and unnecessary risk. After all, the souls of my congregation would not be endangered by leaving them where they were—comfortable in their faith in Christ, if a bit smug in the notion that followers of other faiths were condemned. But they weren't comfortable, not really. There were too many discrepancies between what they had been taught and what they could see a few miles to the east. I was not the only one who had been searching for some explanation. A miracle without an explanation is a dangerous thing.
We worked out the politics involved between us: who to talk to, where to keep silent, what must be done to prepare the way. First we must prepare the council and those members of the congregation whom others looked to. Individually and slowly we needed to help them to consider that God is speaking to us through the Ring of Fire and what it has brought. Help them to discover for themselves what He is saying.
The junior pastors in the congregations of St. Nicholas and St. John's were especially important. At that time, Badenburg had two main churches and each had several smaller associated ministries. Jost Duerr was the senior pastor of St. John's. We would have consulted with Pastor Duerr concerning his spiritual convictions, save for the fact that both Margreth and I were convinced he had none. Each church had the same patron: the Badenburg council. Jost had been senior to me in the St. Nicholas Church but had been passed over, mostly because he had been a little too quick to jump into council business and too quick to change sides once he did; but partly I admit, because of Margreth's family's influence.
Jost's family was more influential than mine, but not so influential as Margreth's. Jost himself was a weather vane shifting with the slightest breeze, always looking for the main chance. He was almost as fond of me as I was of him. Any mention of my new understanding that reached his ear would quickly be twisted to whatever he thought might lead to his political advantage and my detriment. No, discussion of my change in attitude must be limited to junior pastors in the two main congregations, and not all of those.
I first softened my stance against up-time corruption. My sermons were gentler, focusing on the Good Samaritan and similar passages, not on doctrine.
There were several private dinners with members of the council and the congregation. Margreth gossiped with calculating purpose, but then, she always had. There were changes in the political landscape I had failed to consider in my search for understanding. The Ring of Fire, especially the people and their knowledge, offered opportunities for the sharp-eyed, and snares for the unwary.
Increasingly Karl Schmidt carried influence. He now employed more people in his business than anyone else in Badenburg. I had known Karl for years and he was not the person I would have expected to have prospered so well. He was a plodder, and a bit tight with his money; or, at least, he had been before the Ring of Fire. Margreth explained part of the change since the Ring of Fire. Karl now had access, through the family of his fiancée and their friends, to what Ramona Higgins described as "great gobs of numbers." Karl referred to them as financial analysis tools. Others had made investments, but none with the spectacular success of Karl's. Claus Junker, for one, had invested in a project to manufacture microwave ovens, which Karl insisted was silly. Others on the council had made better investments, but none as canny as Karl's.
Councilman Junker was going to be a problem. He had been my main support in my opposition to too-close relations with the up-timers. I had known at the time his reasons were less than fully Christian in nature. He resented their attitudes toward rank and social position, and envied their wealth. He was generally astute in business matters and publicly generous. He was also, it was safe to say, unlikely to support my changed view of Grantville. Yet I owed him my concern, and a warning if the electrical oven was to be the failure Master Schmidt was predicting. Such a warning, whether believed or not, would probably harden his attitude toward the up-timers.
The other members of the council were, to one degree or another, in favor of either closer relations or at least maintaining the status quo. So were most of the people who lived anywhere near the Ring of Fire. The up-timers meant safety and prosperity, an end to the war that had savaged this part of the world. Whatever the church might say, whatever I said, they were miracle-brought saviors. The fact that they claimed no divine authority only reinforced it. It wasn't a unanimous view but it was clearly the most commonly held one.
In spite of Margreth's objections I felt I had to at least try to warn Councilman Junker of the problems, I had been told of, in producing a microwave oven. He dismissed my warnings as soon as he knew the source. "Karl Schmidt," I was informed, "is an upstart crafter, with delusions of grandeur. He has engaged himself to a harlot with a bastard son. Sold his shop to a bunch of children." He held forth similarly for some length in rather boring and often inaccurate detail.
Well, at least I tried.
Meanwhile, discussions with the more junior pastors proceeded and biblical references and conclusions ran headlong into the fact of the Ring of Fire. Margreth and I were lining up support for my heresy. I was becoming more comfortable with the term; a conversation with Uriel Abrabanel helped with that. Christians are after all Jewish heretics. Protestants are Catholic heretics. What's one more?
Several questions of doctrine came up in those discussions. "How long did it take God to create the universe?" I answered: "I wasn't looking but according to Margreth something less than seven seconds." Pastor Hoch gaped at me. So I continued: "The universe is now some months old and seems to be running nicely. The best estimate of the philosophers in Grantville is that the universe, which we are in now, is not the same as the universe of before the Ring of Fire, certainly it's not the same as the universe which they came from. Probably we are in a new universe that took the Lord Almighty little more than the blink of an eye to create. Personally, I'm sure He could have done it faster if He had chosen to. I hope someday to meet that fellow, the one which I would have become
without the Ring of Fire, and compare notes in heaven; but not, God willing, for many years."
"But wouldn't that mean we aren't in the world that Jesus came to save?"
"Do you think him so limited? We have the knowledge of his ministry, his death and resurrection to comfort us. Certainly his mercy can reach us here. What more do you need? If there is one thing the Ring of Fire made clear to me it is that God can do what he wants. He doesn't need my permission or yours or even that of the apostles. He has created a whole new universe; not just one world but worlds beyond counting. The other interpretations don't impress me. They all strive to make God less than He is, in order to make Him fit into our preconceptions. If God created Grantville and all its history in the blink of an eye, we are forced to the conclusion that God is a liar. I don't believe that God created an intricate web of lies to trap us into hell. I could be wrong. I have no more right to restrict God's actions than anyone else. But I just don't think He would do such a thing."
So it went. We discussed every aspect of theology we could think of. We tried to find meaning and meaning we found—often contradictory and confusing but still, slowly we came to something approaching consensus, at least on the core concept. We don't tell God what to do. If our beliefs conflict with God's actions, it's our beliefs that need work not God's actions. Second, we're going to get it wrong. If such men as wrote the Bible with God's inspiration sometimes got it wrong, certainly we would.
For these two concepts we forged strong agreement. They reflected the freedom of religion of Grantville, but in a way that touched the soul, rather than just secular law. Which was certainly God's will—else why Grantville, instead of a town of less fragmented beliefs?
It was mid-April of 1632 when I finally gave the sermon I had been preparing since my revelation. I was unsure what reaction to expect. What I got was almost anticlimactic. It was almost as if the whole congregation sighed with relief. They didn't need to choose between God and Grantville. They didn't need to choose between God and their Faith. With a little work the two could fit together. Simply acknowledge the obvious: God was all powerful and generally kind; that He granted us freedom, and that freedom could lead us into error; that He had sent His son to us as a sign that He understood and forgave our sins. Later He sent Grantville to us to help us through a difficult time, to help us stop killing each other in His name. Not like Christ, so far above us as to be able to live a life without sin, just folks who knew a bit more than we did.