My roots include threads of the Baptist tradition and the Lutheran tradition. My paternal grandfather was a Northern Baptist pastor, and my maternal great-grandfather was a Lutheran pastor. I married a Buddhist woman who had studied at a Roman Catholic school as a girl. Those roots were grafted to mine.
After a crisis-in-faith during the Vietnam war - I served in the U.S. Army - it was my dabbling in the practice of Zen Buddhist meditation that brought me back to Christianity.
I worked in the electronics industry for 27 years after the army and then couldn’t resist the call to seminary and full-time ordained ministry. My MDiv is from Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, OH. This year, I reached retirement age and “retired” to do family things and pursue theological reflection and church renewal.
I am a lets-get-back-to-Jesus-basics-and-not-be-afraid-of-radical-ideas-or-actions person. At the “end of the day” we won’t be judged for our murderous, adultrous, thieving, gossiping, acts. We will be judged for not doing the Jesus thing. We will be judged for failing to heal the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, fight for the wronged, etc.
Paradise for me would be a nudist beach resort where everyone gets a one-acre garden plot, three German Shepherd dogs, a flock of chickens, and espresso stands serve never-ending free latte’s. And, the temperature stays between 75 and 80 degrees.