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With the help of a friend I got father into a wagon, when the crowd had gone. I held his head in my lap during the ride home. I believed he was mortally wounded. He had been stabbed down through the kidneys, leaving an ugly wound.

In every religion I can think of, there exists some variation on the theme of abandoning the settled life and walking one's way to godliness. The Hindu sadhu, the pilgrims of Compostela walking past their sins, the circumambulators of the Buddhist kora, the haj.

Where I grew up, in a remote village at the back of a valley, the old still thought the dead needed attending to - a notion so universal, it's enscribed in all religions. If you didn't, they might exact revenge upon the living.

I have since wandered among men of many races and many religions.

Martyrs do not underrate the body, they allow it to be elevated on the cross. In this they are at one with their antagonists.

My sister had some ailment and convulsions that she suffered from, and she had been sent to some place to go and get healed there. She was brought back and prayed for by those people. She recovered; in fact, she grew to be an evangelist in her own right, healing people and traveling around.

They were being driven to a prison, through no fault of their own, in all probability for life. In comparison, how much easier it would be to walk to the gallows than to this tomb of living horrors!

Part of my driving desire as a pastor is to remove every obstacle except the cross that would keep people from coming to faith in Christ.

Religious people today are courts and juries. When it comes down to it, Jesus died on the cross so that we could learn to love others like we love ourselves, not judge them or persecute them.