A new edition of early 20th century best-selling author Harold Bell Wright’s The Calling of Dan Matthews edited by Michael Phillips.
A new and rather naïve pastor, Dan Matthews accepts his church call with great anticipation. But he quickly runs into deeply rooted problems: judgements, party spirit, church politics, and hidden agendas. Some problems come from well-intentioned people who don’t know better; others stem from selfishness and evil motives. In both situations, as Dan obeys the life and teachings of Jesus, the consequences are severe.
Dan Matthews believed he had a calling from God. Faced with the loathsome hypocrisy in his church, what will become of him and those he befriends?
In the antebellum South, Richmond and Carolyn Davidson live lives of ease as wealthy plantation owners. But even though their wealth and livelihood depends on slave ownership, their Christian consciences speak against the practice.
When the Davidsons decide to follow their own moral judgment and God’s will by freeing their slaves, they face consequences they never could have anticipated. Risking their lives as an important link in the Underground Railroad helping runaway slaves escape to the Northern states, the Davidsons must rely on their wits—and God’s protection—to stay alive.
I am writing this as an open letter to a few select individuals who are dear to my life and heart. I hope and pray that anyone else into whose hands it chances to come may find it interesting, and may in some way benefit from it.
All my life I have been what is loosely called "evangelical" in my general outlook and spiritual perspective. As such, in order to breathe freely in my spirit and keep my brain and heart thriving and growing, I have found it necessary to re-think many of the doctrinal particulars of belief in which I was raised.
What follows is not an autobiography by any means of that journey. It is rather an attempt to place my sojourn into a wider context, and to explain this "necessity" I have felt to explore Christian thought beyond the boundaries of the teaching I received at various stages of my life.
