Rev. Paul T.

Stallsworth Interview

Paul T Stallsworth (PS): I hope I dont yell and scream and pound the table. Those of us

who are called conservative have that reputation. I dont think its an accurate

portrayal.

Sarah Arney (SA): Alright, so I would just like to start, I usually start these interviews by

playing something which I think you have probably heard. Its one of the presiding

Bishop's about to start some group discussions, and I felt like the story that he told was

very relevant for this particular conversation. So here it is.

Bishop Palmer: So I want to tell you a quick story. The Council of Bishops a

couple of years ago was having table conversations about some of our most challenging

issues in the life of the church and the several cultures that we represent around the

globe. One of our colleague bishops at the table where I was sitting said, We all need to

take a step back. There was a pregnant pause, as you might imagine, not knowing what

would be said next by this particular bishop, who Ill not throw under the bus as we

speak. He said, Why dont we try telling our story, before we take our stand. I found

those words memorable, and I'm grateful for them to this day, no matter what the subject

is before us. So, would you see this as a time for you to tell your story, and you dont

have to give every detail of your life, but as it relates relevantly to this conversation that

weve been engaged in over many decades around human sexuality? And as you begin,
the statement is coming, that ought to be available at the heart, but think about telling a

story, telling your story, before you take your stand.

SA: So that is really the purpose of this interview: to tell a story about your experience

and how you have come to the beliefs you have. So, first question: would you like to say

your name, your occupation, and a bit about yourself?

PS:

I usually let my attorney answer those questions Sarah, but the since were in this

context I can answer on my own I think. (laugh) My name is Paul Stallsworth. I'm a

United Methodist pastor in Whiteville, North Carolina, not surprisingly at Whiteville

United Methodist Church.

SA: Can you tell me about your call to ministry? That is a question you may get a lot.

PS: Very seldom, actually. I don't want to spend a lot of time on this because it would be

boring to you and even more boring to anybody who might be listening in.

SA: Not at all.

PS:

I was drawn to Duke Divinity school by a deep affection for the study of theology. I

love to study theology, I love to read the greatsBonhoeffer, Barth, etc. I went to divinity

school and found it a tremendous struggle, strangely, because I had never academically
studied theology, so it was quite an adjustment to make. I survived the rigors of the

education, graduate school, and went back home to the Midwest and taught junior high

math for another year. I continued to feel what seemed like a call into the pastoral

ministry, and so I finally consented to that. Went into parish ministry in the North

Carolina Conference, beginning as an associate pastor in Elizabeth City at the First

United Methodist Church there.

A couple of years later I took a summer school class at Princeton Theological

Seminary. Richard John Neuhaus was the professor who had just written a book entitled

Freedom for Ministry. He taught from that book and at that point I was captured. When I

saw Richard in front of our class lecturing, leading, encouraging, critiquing, I believe that

I said yes to God. That was galvanizing to me, Sarah.

I went back to North Carolina, dealt with the conference, the board of ministry, and

they saw fit to ordain me an elder in 1981. Ive been serving churches since then,

mainly. I went to work with Neuhaus for six or seven years, back in the mid to late

1980s, and since then I've returned parish ministry.

SA: What did you do with Neuhaus?

PS:

I was gofer. I did a little bit of everything. I went for this, and I went for that. I

changed light bulbs, I emptied trash, I helped organize conferences, edited books. We

had a little newsletter called The Religion and Society Report that went out to about

12,000+ readers. I helped to do the research for that, and I read probably 10-20

periodicals a day, if you can imagine that. Just a little bit of everything.
SA: How important would you say that your culture was in shaping your religious

beliefs? So, this could include being an American, living in the American South, living

particularly in Whiteville, whatever that means to you.

PS:

Great question. I do think that culture plays a very, very important role in shaping

us. I don't think that culture determines faith though. I think that's the issue, that's the

argument that's currently underway in our denomination. I think that culture can direct

and influence, without determining, our faith or our religion. In part, Sarah, because I

believe that the faith itself is a culture. The Christian faith, and more particularly, the

church has a culture of their own. That's what's determining for us as Christians, I

believe, the church's culture. Its not taken very seriously in a lot of places, no doubt. I

mean the Saints arent talked about, the Christian year isnt celebrated, the Bible isnt

understood communally or historically. That culture is not known, let alone practiced. But

where that culture is known in the head and practiced by the hand and appreciated by

the heart it is powerful. I think Christ works through precisely that culture in, as we

Methodists say and as more importantly Jesus said, making disciples of him. So, the

churchs culture is what determines. The larger culture I think has an input and an

impact, no doubt about it, but what's formative to us Christians is the church's culture.

You know H. Richard Niebuhr wrote the book Christ and Culture. I don't know if

you have run across it, where Christ and culture are said to mix in various ways and

means. It's Christ of culture, Christ against culture, Christ and culture in paradox etc.

etc. My argument is that the body of Christ, Church, is a culture. Of course, this goes

along with what Will Willimon has been teaching along with Stanley Hauerwas, over at

your nemesis Duke University for years. So, this is nothing new, I just happen to believe
it.

SA: Thank you. Do you have a stance, or should I say a viewpoint rather than a stance,

on the issue of the role of LGBT persons in the church and can you describe that for

me?

PS:

I'm not sure that I would call this a stance. Sarah, I'm not trying to play semantic

games with you, I simply try to hold to what the church teaches as true. I try to hold to

Methodist doctrine in this area and also Methodist discipline. I don't think it's a

personally-arrived-at opinion, or position, or stance. I think it's an ecclesiastical teaching

and practice, doctrine, and discipline. So, what I believe is what the church teaches and

what I firmly believe the Bible teaches as well. On this point, and I would say this about

everything Sarah, please don't understand me to be a kind of robotic Methodist, okay?

I'm anything but that. But on this point, I believe that our church teaches truly and well.

Our teaching is not as sophisticated and thoughtful as it could be. I would love to see

our teaching made more comprehensive and more thoughtful and even more sensitive

towards the LGBTQI community. Basically, I think what the church teaches is that the

gift of human sexuality is to be practiced within the confines of marriage well

understood. Not redefined. If that's the case, everybody wins. Everybody wins. All

sexual practice outside that context would be understood as sin for which Christ died

and for which there is forgiveness and redemption in new life on offer. No questions

asked. That challenge applies everyone, no matter how people as we say today self-

identify. That applies to everybody, and I'm here to say that I believe that most of the

people who commit sexual sins, according to Christian teaching, according to Methodist
teaching, are what could be called heterosexuals. And again, Christ died for those

people and for the forgiveness of those sins, but he also died for those who commit sins

outside of the heterosexual world. So that briefly is where I understand the church's

teaching to be, and I aspire, Sarah, to teach and to live in that way. There are times

when I fall short. There are times when I do not reach the level of chastity that I'm called

to live. Chastity deals with heart and mind and life and body. And there are times that I

must seek forgiveness, but I think that's the standard to which we are called. Is that

helpful to you?

SA: Yes, thank you.

PS:

If you would like to push me on any of this, please feel very free to push back,

Sarah; or if you would like to inquire more deeply, if I say something that's unclear,

please come back and ask for clarification. I'm glad to attempt again. I'm not the world's

most articulate pastor or United Methodist, so please push me if you need to.

SA: One of the things that you mentioned, and I've heard other people mention, is that

you wish the Discipline were a bit more comprehensive in its understanding of human

sexuality, and that perhaps the one or two sentences here and there that we give it is

not enough. So how would you like to see that change?

PS:

So, in Paragraph 161 in the Book of Discipline there is a section devoted to human

sexuality, you know that. In the Book of Discipline note there are several paragraphs
there, at least a couple, maybe more than that, that deal with human sexuality. My

problem with that section of the discipline, Sarah, is that it points out that homosexual

practice is incompatible with Christian teaching. Well there are a lot of things in the

realm of human sexuality that are incompatible with Christian teaching such as: the

carrying on of affairs, premarital sex, masturbation, the use of pornography, and so on. I

mean all of those things go against Christian teaching, okay? Why is it that only

homosexual practice gets lifted up? Now Im not making the argument, Sarah, as you

well know, as you might guess, that we should do away with that stipulation. Im not

saying that. What I'm saying is that we should have more stipulations, as the attorneys

would have it.

You know, I think the deal is that Methodists like to make as few people mad as

possible. Okay? That's the way we order our life together. I think it's a terrible principle,

but I think that's where we are today. It was the homosexual community, because it was

more vocal, that got picked on with this stipulation. Homosexual practice is

incompatible with Christian teaching. I'm going to say, Sarah, we should intend to make

more people mad in what we teach. We shouldnt limit the number of people being

offended or being made angry. We should increase that number. Why would a pastor

say such a stupid thing? Because I think the seeds of anger can become the deepening

or the beginning of life with Christ. Strangely enough, I think God can use offense and

anger for divine purposes. And so, strangely enough, we should increase the number of

people who are alienated by the church's teaching in the hopes that God will use that

alienation to claim men and women through the Gospel for faith and obedience to Jesus

Christ. Is that helpful? Understandable?

SA:
 So now were going to go back in time a bit. When you were growing up, how

important was this debate in your community, and, if people talked about it, what did you

hear?

PS:

First of all, it was never discussed in the church that I can remember. The churchs

concern was with the young people within her community and keeping the practice of

human sexuality within the confines of marriage. That's where we were taught. Now

there was concern about, there was interest in, homosexuality outside the church, in the

public-school classroom. There was a culture, of course, that it was kind of under the

radar. You grew up with the same culture, I mean this is no secret to anyone.

And there were rumors of, particularly adults, or one adult in particular, who was

an alleged practicing homosexual. Very odd in the southwestern Kansas town where I

grew up, and of course that particular man was not well respected by the young men or

by the boys that I grew up with. His name was used in derision and criticism. And again,

the church said nothing. It wasn't an ideal situation, and when I look back on this, it was

shameful what those boys and young men were doing with regard to this man. I don't

know if he was a practicing homosexual or not. As I recall, I think he had children, so

that would mean he was bisexual. But it wasn't a good thing what was done to him.

SA: How important would you say the debate was in your training as a pastor? Was it

talked about at all when you went through Divinity school or seminary?

PS:

Just slightly. I was in seminary from 1973 to 1976 Sarah, over at Duke Divinity
School, and there was a little bit of attention that was given to this, not a tremendous

amount. I can remember writing a paper in my Christian ethics class, and the topic that I

chose was divorce, which seem to be a more pressing matter at that time. Of course, in

that day the sexual revolution was just getting cranked up, and I think homosexual

revisionism came with the sexual revolution. So, this was a little bit before the sexual

revolution, and the matter of homosexuality was just beginning to wash over the church.

I can remember, let's say in the early 80s, I really enjoyed being in contact with young

men and women who were students at Duke Divinity School. Some of them were

student pastors, so they were out in the field, out in the church with people like myself. I

remember some of these friends saying that the matter of homosexuality had become a

much larger matter at the divinity school, and we kept up with it some.

By the time I went to work with Richard in New York City, of course, it was a major

debate. That would've been mid-to-late 80s. Of course, thats just my experience and my

context. Sarah, you know from our prior conversations my, in some ways, priority issue

is the matter of life and abortion. Human sexuality of course attaches itself to the

matters of life and abortion, but abortion was my prior concern. So that played a role, I'm

sure, in me not attaching myself to the issues related to homosexuality as early,

because I was more concerned about abortion.

SA: Did any of your teachers mention the debate or how they considered theological

teaching on the subject?

PS:

I can't recall any offhand, honestly. I don't think that they did. Neuhaus might've

been the one who mentioned it first in the classroom as far as I was concerned. Of
course, Richard was never married. He was a single man, but you know Richard

unashamedly called other pastors to the highest standards. It was very odd, Richard

was associated with the anti-Vietnam War movement, and he was associated with the

Civil Rights Movement. When it came to matters related to Christian morality on a

personal level he was one who believed very much in the Methodist understanding of

holiness. He called people to the highest standard without apology, and he did so

relying upon the grace of God and the power of God in our lives. I was always

fascinated by that, and I think that's just what we pastors should do. I try to do that,

Sarah. I don't do it nearly as well as Richard did, but the attempt is made.

SA: Can you give me an example of a time when he spoke to someone whom he felt

needed that reminder?

PS:

You know, I think of his book Freedom for Ministry. This is not a personal example,

but it's a kind of literary example, if you will. He wrote the book for pastors in training and

in the parish, and the book unashamedly calls all pastors to the highest standards in the

sexual realm. Also to the highest standards when it comes to the use of money, and use

of time, everything in human life, and in my life, falls under the standard of holiness.

That would be one exampleand you know he lived that way. Sarah, he lived a chaste

life. Richard was very handsome. He could have married and married well, as a

Lutheran. He couldn't have married well, or at all, as a Catholic, which he later became.

Inoh gosh, when was it, 1990, the end of 1990 or 1991he converted and became a

Roman Catholic priest with John Cardinal O'Connor. But as a Lutheran pastor, as a

Lutheran, he wanted to live a celibate life, and that's what he did. He married the church,
and I don't think a wife could've put up with his torturous ministerial schedule, just could

not have done it. So, he was wise not to marry.

SA: So, weve talked about this a little bit, but how would you describe that course, or

the trajectory, that this debate has taken in the past 15 to 20 years? So that could be

from the late 1980s to the present, I suppose from when you said it first became

PS:

Yeah, so I think you're asking about the years when I came back to the North

Carolina Conference in 1990 up to the present. So really, were talking about the last 25

or 26 years. I think the debate has become increasingly divisive and rancorous. There

are elements of the debate that are just sadly out of control with all kinds name-calling

and behavior that is not even close to being civil, let alone loving.

Sarah, I can remember years ago, that it really was the conservatives, that is, the

evangelicals and Orthodox, who at times, not regularly, but at times behaved badly.

There was the bad, there was name-calling, occasionally not regularly, but every once in

a while. There was the bad disposition, bad demeanor, that was shown. And again, that

was occasional. But then as the liberal and progressive community took on this matter

as one of its agenda items, it grew in power, and I think evangelicals and traditionalists

began to act better. We couldn't misbehave at that point or wed be called out, which

was good for us. You know it is good to have a kind of disciplining of our speech and

action, its alright. But as the liberal and progressive side has become more and more

powerful in the debate, some on that side, I believe, have misbehaved, Sarahto the

point where, at times, the behavior is very unfortunate. The word usage is very

unfortunate. For example, I believe that a person can identify with the church's teaching
practice, and not be homophobic, but according to some who are Progressives and

liberals, if you identify with Christian teaching in this area you hate anybody in the

LGBTQI community. I don't. I don't think I'm homophobic, and if I am in any way, I want

to be corrected. So that's where we stand today, I think. There's a kind of lopsidedness

in manners and morals in this debate. I think those who are pushing for revision get an

awfully large pass. If those of us on the traditionalist side say one word or engage in one

action that's wrong or inappropriate, we get called out. Now I think we should get called

out, but I think the other side is getting a lot of passes right now. Again, that's just the

way I see things, and that probably reveals where I sit, okay?

SA: Thank you. So, has your opinion of LGBT persons or the doctrine regarding the

debate changed over time?

PS:

My understanding of doctrine and teaching has not changed at all. I hope that its

become better grounded in Scripture, and, Sarah, I believe the grounding in Scripture is

very solid. Very easy to point out. You know Jesus taught on marriage, and that's in

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, actually just Matthew, Mark, and Luke. His teaching

points to the Genesis creation of humanity and the creation of marriage, and his

teaching presages what the Apostle Paul taught in Ephesians 5, where marriage is an

example of the union of Christ and the Church. Again, that spreads over the whole

canonGenesis, the Jesus in the Gospels, the synoptic Gospels, to Ephesians, and

you could extend that on to Revelation; it covers the whole Bible. Marriage is discussed

there. Again, departures from marriage, sexual departures from marriage and some

departures within marriage, are not right. They are not consistent with the Christian
teaching. I believe that I've been more firmly grounded there as the years have worn on.

Sarah, my personal knowledge, of those who are within the LGBTQI community,

has increased, because Ive known some of the men and women who live within that

world, and practice that lifestyle, also those who argue in favor for that perspective

within the church, I've got to know them much better over the years. So, I'm thankful for

that kind of personal friendship that has developed. So, I have deepened in terms of the

doctrine, and also become better acquainted in terms of the persons who practice the

lifestyle, and who argue in favor of the lifestyle.

SA: Have you or any of the churches that youve been with, taken steps to discuss the

debate? I understand that you have been great part of the Unity Dialogues in the North

Carolina Conference. I was wondering if you could tell me that about those and/or other

conversations that you might have had here or other places?

PS:

To a large extent, the dialogues that I'm involved with are at the conference level.

Theyre at a regional level. Sarah, I haven't done dialogue so much at the local level. I

would be willing to, it's just that I haven't pushed them at the local level. Now I teach

what the church teaches, and I preach what the church preaches on human sexuality

here. I do that. But I don't really do these things in a dialogical framework. Is that

distinction helpful?

On the conference level, I've been involved in the Unity Dialogues since the late

90s up to the present, about three times a year, sometimes two, sometimes four times a

year. We will hold a dialogical event and in each event the Orthodox person is allowed to

speak, the Progressive-liberal person is allowed to speak, and then all those people
present are allowed to speak as well, and they jump into the discussion. That's basically

what happens. We allow a kind of freeform discussion to take place on matters related

to human sexuality. Now that dialogue started in the mid to late 1990s, Sarah, because

Bishop Marion Edwards wanted to remove contentious resolutions from the conference

agenda, the annual conference agenda. He did that with our approval and replaced that

with a dialogue that was institutionalized, and kept, and moved forward through the

years. That dialogue has focused on human sexuality, particularly on homosexuality.

SA: Did you find any of those conversations particularly fruitful? Is there an example of

somethings you found really beneficial to the conversation?

PS:

Sarah, there have been so many, that I really could not go back and just point out

one. I do know that there was one dialogue where I was challenged to put forth the

church's teaching, and I spent hours and hours preparing for that one particular

dialogue. I tried to offer the churchs sexual teaching within a proclamation of the gospel.

Within that, I went to our basic doctrine. Sarah, believe it or not, a lot of Methodists don't

even realize we have doctrines. We really have on-the-books-within-the-discipline

doctrines that are stated propositionally. I went back and presented a case for the

traditional sexual moral teaching within the doctrines of our church. So that meant that I

went back and looked at what we believe about original sin. Sarah, I bet you didnt even

know that Methodists have a position on original sin, did you?

SA: I would assume that we do.

PS:

Well good for you! You're ahead of most Methodists then. But that's the one

dialogue that really sticks out in my mind. I felt like that really engaged the folks who

were present, from my perspective. You know that Rev. Laurie Hayes Coffman is the co-

chair of the Unity dialogue. Laurie just gets up and speaks off the cuff, is freewheeling,

and engaging, much different from me. I get up, and I'm prepared down to the T. I

usually walk in with the manuscript of what I present, because I want people to

understand what has been presented when people walk away from the event. The styles

contrast tremendously, but that's all right. I think that's fine. And Laurie does her

presentations beautifully, and I wouldnt want to change anything that she does. But I

think that generally speaking her presentations are much more engaging. I think it's

great the way she does it. But I think that one presentation, which was later published in

the pages of Lifewatch, was probably the best one but I've ever made.

SA:

So, have there been members of the LGBT community involved in any of the

dialogues that you've been in, and if so, how have they added to the conversation that

youre having?

PS:

Oh, they have been a tremendous addition over the years. There has been one

man from the community that you described who's been with us from the beginning, and

he has been very, very, very helpful. Lots of times he brings the kind of criticism of the

Orthodox position of the church's teaching that is going. You know he brings the

contemporary critique of Christian teaching, and that's very, very helpful to us. The
others from the community have drifted in and out of the dialogue. Sarah, I've noticed

that some stayed for years and after a number of years just decided to wave us

goodbye. Some will stay for briefer lengths of time. My guess is it's not easy for them to

be part of the dialogue, so that's why there's an attrition rate. I wish they would stay on

board. I've not pursued them after theyve left, but I wish they would remain with us.

SA: What values or aspects of your faith do you really lean on when you are having

these dialogues or when you're trying to facilitate this kind of conversation?

PS:

Two. Truth and love. Those are essential to being Christian in our context today. In

the church today in America, I believe that truth and love are absolutely essential. Not

one over the other, not one to the exclusion of the other, but both truth and love are

essential. I think the truth of the church's faith Sarah is passed down as the apostolic

faith by the church. Go all the way back to the apostlesits that faith that gets

transmitted by the church, that faith that is witnessed to in Scripture, that faith is truthful.

But that faith is to be transmitted in love. Not apart from love, not apart from love! But

that faith is to be witnessed to in love for the good of people. Not to their detriment, not

to their harm. I believe that Jesus Christ is truth, and I believe he is the grandest

demonstration of the love of God that is available in the cosmos. So, truth and love are

what I strive to serve and to demonstrate in these dialogues. Lots of time, Sarah, I fail

and fail miserably. I am not the minister, I am not the witness, I should be and could be

by the grace of God; but still those are the standards that I aspire to. Truth and love.

SA: If you could speak to or ask a question of someone who has a viewpoint different
than your own, this could be one of many, what question would you ask?

PS:

I hope that you can edit this tape to take out the dead air. You know, I think the

identity question is a good one. Sarah, how do you identify? Where do you get your

identity? And I don't mean in a kind of flippant, oh-of-course-I-get-my-identity-from-this-

place-or-that-place way, but I mean truly, where does your identity come from? And

that's a question that I need to ask myself, not once, but continually. I hope that my

identity comes from Christ crucified and risen in his body called Church that's given to

me, offered to me, through baptism and through the church's faith. If my identity ever

departs from that, I want to be aware of it so that that identity can be corrected ex post

haste, because I don't want to live apart from that identity.

But I think the identification question is a good one, and that begins to open up

conversation. It's that identity question that gets people talking about their stories, right?

So, I think that might be the best question to initiate conversation.

SA: So, I asked this question of several of the pastors that I interviewed previously, and

one of them asked what I think is a very good question. When you begin this

conversation or when you think of the United Methodist Church having this debate, what

is at stake for you when you participate or when you watch it happen?

PS:

That is a lovely question. I think that gets to the heart of this. I believe what's at

stake is the faith of the church. The truthful and genuine love of the church are at stake,

Sarah, for me. As you can tell, the stakes are high for me. Otherwise, I would not have
been in this dialogue for 20 years. I would not have fooled with it. But I believe the

integrity the church's faith is at stake here. If we give way on this issue, as far as I'm

concerned, we have a chance to compromise, or to overly accommodate, the church's

faith; and I don't want that to happen. Now a part of that is the church's interpretation of

Scripture, I think that's involved. I talked about that earlier in our interview. I think that we

need to defend the churchs interpretation of Scripture, not my personal interpretation or

somebody else's personal interpretation. I'm interested in people personally, but you

know were not about personal opinion in this debate. We are about the churchs

understanding of these matters. My personal opinion is important to my wife and

probably my sons, probably important to my mother, but she died three months ago so

it's not really important her now, and may she Rest in Peace. But whats at stake is the

church's faith, and that's what's important.

SA: Clarifying question. Also, Im sorry about your mothers passing.

PS:

Well thank you very much. She was a wonderful woman, and I can blame her, in

part, for my involvement in these matters today. My mother, and this sounds awfully

homey, is the one who taught me what we call the facts of life. She taught me Christian

morality in a kind of unashamed, matter-of-fact way that gave me a firm understanding

of these matters, even as a boy. And then the church reinforced that, Sarah, and then

theology and Christian doctrine reinforced that through divinity school and through my

life as a pastor. So, moms teaching me as a boy and the MYF teaching me as a boy,

and a young man at Divinity school, and suddenly you know Im formed as a pastor and

can't help myself. So, blame them, it's their fault. (laughter)
SA: You said that personal opinion is, to a certain extent, important, but not less

important than church understanding. But what is church understanding but a collection

of personal opinion over time?

PS:

You know when it comes to the Methodist understanding, I'm afraid there's truth in

your challenge. But you know I think the personal opinions of us Methodists are taken to

General Conference, and theyre voted on. What General Conference does, at its best,

Sarah, is that it validates apostolic teaching. It's not just a pooling of what everybody

believes about this or that, but it's validating what the apostles taught. That's an awfully

arcane way to put it, but I think that's what's happening. We Methodists feel like we have

to put on our stamp of approval, and we do that at General Conference. We do that now

by 864 people being given stamps, and we take a vote at General Conference, and we

figure out how that stamp of approval is to be put on apostolic teaching. And thats what

we do.

Again, that might be too sophisticated or too complicated a way to state it, but

that's what's going on. Methodist don't just pool personal opinions entered in a kind of

democratic soup and then come up with an answer. The commission that was appointed

by the 2016 General Conference, if that commission does its work well will include the

Orthodox on the commission. They will concern themselves with apostolic teaching that

is traceable back to the apostles and certainly traceable back to Scripture and Jewish

and Christian teaching through the ages. So, its not just let's get together and let's

figure out what we all think and lets try to come up with the least common

denominator. It's more interesting than that I hope. I hope.

SA: That concludes my official set of questions. Is there anything else that you would

like to say or that you wish that I had asked you about?

PS:

This has been one of the most interesting things I've done in a long time. Thank

you very much for this, Sarah. Just fascinating questions. And I love talking about these

matters. You can tell that, and thanks for bringing me into your project.

SA: Absolutely, thank you.