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I wish to thank all the contributors to this roundtable for their open, honest, insightful, and often heartfelt contributions. It is wonderful that there was such dialogue that brought unity instead of divisiveness, which is all too often the case when religion is discussed. Since all the contributors to this dialogue have given some history of their religious or spiritual heritage, I suppose my comments would be more meaningful if I did so as well. I grew up in a Southern revivalistic protestant background, the son of a Methodist minister with numerous ministers scattered throughout my extended family. Each form of protestantism, while basically friendly with the others, usually considered its way to be the right way. Baptists would rejoice if a Presbyterian would be baptized a Baptist, therefore becoming “saved.” Methodists would consider a Baptist as “having found the way” to become “born again” within their tradition. And there was great rejoicing if a Catholic converted to any form of protestantism. I remember questioning such elitism and divisiveness even as an older child.
On the other hand, when someone was diagnosed with an incurable illness, my parents would be on the phone with people they knew around the region, they would all pray for the person—and the next thing I knew, the person would be well, the doctors saying it was a miracle. I knew that something out of the ordinary had occurred, and everyone attributed this miracle to God.1