This podcast is supported by Convergent Books, publisher of God and the Gay Christian,

by Matthew Vines, an in-depth exploration of what the Bible says about same-sex relationships.

Available now, join the conversation at ConvergentBooks.com.

My faith life, like that of everyone else, fluctuates.

There are ups and downs, and hotspots, and cold spots.

And boredom, and on-wee, and all the rest can be there.

And so, I'm not asked of a Sunday morning, as of 920, what do you believe?

And then you sound a three-hour-five-index guard saying, I would say, what do I believe today?

No, that's not what they're asking me.

They're asking me, are you a member of a community which now for millennium and a half

has said we believe in one God?

The late Great Historian, Yaroslav Pelican, knew that the very idea of reciting and

unchanging creed was troublesome for modern people.

He had a gift, which we remember this hour, of clarifying the past for the sake of the present

and the future.

He even insisted that strong statements of belief will be necessary if 21st century pluralism

is to thrive.

Pelican was one of those people relatively unknown in the wider culture, but a living legend

in his world of accomplishment.

And my conversation with him is cited by listeners from an astonishing range of belief and non-belief

as one of their favorites.

I met him in 2003, the first year of this show.

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