Author Archives: Clarke Morledge

About Clarke Morledge

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Clarke Morledge -- Computer Network Engineer, College of William and Mary... I hiked the Mount of the Holy Cross, one of the famous Colorado Fourteeners, with some friends in July, 2012. My buddy, Mike Scott, snapped this photo of me on the summit.
December 31, 2014

The “Unbroken” Legacy and Billy Graham

By Clarke Morledge
Louis Zamperini. Restless young man, U.S. Olympic runner, war hero, and sinner in need of grace who helped to define the era of Billy Graham (early publicity photo)

Louis Zamperini. Restless young man, U.S. Olympic runner, war hero, and sinner in need of grace who helped to define the era of Billy Graham (early publicity photo)

It was 1949 in Los Angeles. The conservative Christian community had pulled together to put on a multi-week revival under a big tent, featuring a then relatively-unknown Billy Graham. By the end of week three, the organizers were unsure if the revival meetings were to continue. Despite a massive publicity campaign with flyers and newspaper ads, attendance had been rather so-so. Graham and the leadership team decided to pray, asking for God’s guidance on what to do. After much prayer, they decided to go ahead and extend the meetings a few more weeks.  But had they done the right thing?

Several weeks later, on week five, a well-known celebrity made his way into the revival tent. Louis Zamperini grew up a restless teenager and became a juvenile delinquent. To give his life some focus and meaning, Zamperini took up running. Eventually, he earned a spot on the United States Olympic team in 1936 in Berlin. World War II dramatically changed his life, where he was shot down over the Pacific and suffered terribly as a Japanese prisoner of war. When Zamperini came back home after the war, his life kept falling apart. After struggling with marriage problems, alcohol abuse, and horrific post-traumatic stress, he entered that revival tent that one evening. He gave his life over to the Lord Jesus Christ, and he spent the rest of his life serving Him.

Zamperini’s conversion to Christ had helped to give Billy Graham and his team a sense of confirmation that extending the revival a few more weeks was the right thing to do. For Graham, the Los Angeles revival gave him international exposure and influence that has continued to last today into Graham’s twilight years.

Louis Zamperini died in 2014, but his story lives on. Laura Hillendbrand’s bestselling book Unbroken is an enthralling story, from friends of mine who have read the book. From what I have been told, even if you are not a Christian, you will be spellbound by Hillendbrand’s telling of the story. Also, according to his son, Luke Zamperini, the 2014 movie Unbroken by Angelina Jolie tells the story of his dad’s life well, particularly with respect to how Jolie presents Louis Zamperini’s Christian faith, though some say that the faith element is downplayed too much.

But what I find even more fascinating is how Zamperini’s story also helps to tell the story of Billy Graham and the generations of believers who have come under his influence. The intersection of Zamperini with Billy Graham was a critical watershed moment for American evangelicalism in the 20th and early 21st centuries. Here is a summary of some correspondence between Graham and Zamperini before Zamperini’s death.

I would be curious to know from other Veracity readers what you have thought of the book and the movie.

HT: John Paine, for the Luke Zamperini story about the Christian faith element in the movie.

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December 20, 2014

The Real Saint Nick

By Clarke Morledge
American cultural icon every December, or beloved Christian pastor in southern Turkey in the 4th. century?

American cultural icon every December, dangerous pagan tradition, or Christian pastor in southern Turkey in the 4th. century who exemplified a love for the poor by following the way of Jesus?

Growing up as a little kid, my mother left a big chocolate chip cookie out on a plate in front of the living room fireplace one Christmas Eve. When I woke up the next morning, the cookie was half-eaten, with crumbs unmistakably left on the plate.

When I came to having personal faith in Christ in high school, I looked back on the childlike belief in Santa Claus as a type of feel-good fairly tale. Jesus was the “real thing” while this jolly “Saint Nick” figure was simply a product of cultural imagination… merely an urban legend.

It must have been my dad who ate part of that cookie.

In the contemporary era of the so-called “War on Christmas,” Christians have faced the awkward challenge of what to do with “Saint Nick.” Secularists for years had suggested that old “Saint Nick” was simply a pious invention having no relevant historical basis. Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians, however, have argued that Saint Nicholas was indeed a real historical figure from the 4th century, and so only vaguely related to the “ho-ho-ho” North Pole type glamorized by the old 1931 Coca-Cola ads. Evangelical Protestants, who tend to frown upon the veneration of saints, have sought to distance themselves somehow from Saint Nick in different ways, some even dismissing the history of the original figure as being of pagan origin (just as some secularists still do). Indeed, perhaps one of the reasons why the ancient Saint Nicholas evolved into the jolly guy with an obesity problem driving a bunch reindeer around in a sleigh filled with merchandise from Target and J.C Penny’s is because the majority of American Christians since the 19th century have been reluctant to associate with the practice of venerating dead saints.

Various attempts have been made in recent years to rehabilitate the true history of the original Saint Nicholas and get at what Paul Harvey called “the rest of the story.” Campbell University’s Adam C. English has probably done the most thorough research into Saint Nicholas to give us the detailed scoop. In The Saint Who Would Be Santa Claus, argues that the evidence shows that actually the original “Saint Nicholas of Myra” did come from 4th. century southern Turkey, serving as a Christian pastor and a popular bishop who advocated for the poor. Beyond that, the exact details get a bit murky.
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December 17, 2014

The Christmas Truce of 1914

By Clarke Morledge

They said that the war would be over by Christmas…

This Christmas marks the 100th anniversary of the so-called “Christmas Truce” between the German and British armies along the Western Front during the “Great War.” When the fighting began in August, 1914, both sides were expecting a fairly quick outcome. But by the time the bitter cold of December set in amid the muddy trenches near the Marne River, devastated by terrible casualties resulting from the horrors of modern warfare, it became clear that the bloody end was still some years away.

But why the war in the first place? As Baylor University historian Philip Jenkins argues in the The Great and Holy War: How World War I Became a Religious Crusade, the typical narrative offered by secular historians, that the war was basically a great imperial contest among European colonizing empires, fails to adequately and fully explain what happened. Jenkins maintains that “the First World War was a thoroughly religious event, in the sense that overwhelmingly Christian nations fought each other in what many viewed as a holy war, a spiritual conflict” (Wall Street Journal book review, by D. G. Hart, June 6, 2014, but also consider this review from Reformation21).

Prior to the war, the majority of Christians were optimistic about the future spread of the Gospel changing societies for the better, an essentially postmillenial view of the “End Times.” But after these supposedly “Christian nations” of the world had managed to annihilate millions of people, at least indirectly all in the “name of God,” the mood and perspective of many Christians began to change. A type of pessimism took over, so it should come as no surprise that the great “Christian nations” of Europe would eventually enter a steady decline towards apostasy. It was as though the “War to End All Wars” had compromised the witness of the church. But what was not so evident at the time was that in the aftermath of the war, the spread of the Gospel would increase rapidly across the “Global South”, where the Christian faith continues to expand even today all across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Is there anything we can learn from all of this?

For me, the event during that war that most captures the contradictions and the absurdity of “Christian nations” fighting one another, while still offering a glimmer of hope, is in that unusual truce between the German and British armies that lasted for several days beginning Christmas Eve, 1914. What started off as German soldiers singing Christmas carols to one another became a type of peaceful interchange between the warring parties.

The truce would turn out to be brief, as the fighting renewed just a few days later… Charlottesville, Virginia folk singer, John McCutcheon, tells the tale of the Christmas Truce:

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December 8, 2014

Exodus: Gods and Kings and The Min and Max of Digging

By Clarke Morledge

So, what type of archaeological evidence would a mass migration of escaping Jewish slaves leave behind to be discovered some three thousand plus years later?

For whatever reason, the year 2014 has turned out to be a year of Christian-themed cinema, with movies ranging from a creative re-interpretation of the Noah story to the dispensationalist Rapture event of the End Times, Left Behind. To end off the year, film director Ridley Scott promises a real blockbuster, Exodus: Gods and Kings, with an all-star cast. Here is the theatre trailer:

The story is indeed a familiar one to students of the Bible. A Hebrew man grows up among the ancient Egyptian royalty, only to be called by God to lead his people out of slavery under the defiant eye of Pharaoh and across the Red Sea. But what will Ridley Scott’s epic deliver?

One of the main concerns of potential movie goers will be the historical accuracy of the film. A recent poll indicates that if the story is mostly consistent with the biblical account, over 70 percent of Americans surveyed will see the film, whereas if it is inaccurate, close to under 70 percent will forgo it. The problem is figuring out what is meant by “historical accuracy.” If you had a shovel over there in Egypt, what would you discover?

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November 25, 2014

The Shemitah: Mystery or Mischief?

By Clarke Morledge

Does an ancient Jewish practice point us today towards a “3,000-Year-Old Mystery That Holds the Secret of America’s Future, the World’s Future, and Your Future?” So reads the subtitle to a book written by messianic Jewish pastor, Jonathan Cahn, The Mystery of the Shemitah.

Here is a one minute, partial interview with the author:

My first encounter with Jonathan Cahn’s first book, The Harbinger, was when I was on my way out of a restaurant, where a very nice yet persistent couple proceeded to talk my ear off about the supposed “revelations” discussed in that book. That one-time New York Times bestseller has made its way onto coffee tables across America over the past few years. As American culture continues to become more biblically illiterate, books like The Harbinger demonstrate a growing interest to better understand the Jewish roots of the Christian faith. What better way to learn about some of the teachings in ancient Judaism and its relevance for today than from a man who grew up ethnically Jewish, embracing atheism as a child, only to finally encounter Jesus (Yeshua) of Nazareth as the true Messiah? Admittedly, it peaked my curiosity.

In this follow-up to The Harbinger, Jonathan Cahn suggests that he is revealing to the reader The Mystery of the Shemitah and its contemporary implications. The shemitah, transliterated from the Hebrew, refers to the early Jewish practice taught within the first five books of the Bible regarding a command about observing the “sabbath.” Just as the Jews were commanded to work six days and then take a day of rest on the seventh to focus on worshipping God, the same logic was extended towards a sabbath of years. The shemitah principle, particularly in an agricultural context, teaches that the people in covenant with God are commanded to work the land for six years and then give the farm land a rest on the seventh.

For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard (Exodus 23:10-11 ESV).

Furthermore, the shemitah, literally meaning “release,” also calls for the cancellation of debts in that seventh year:

At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release.And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, because the Lord’s release has been proclaimed (Deuteronomy 15:1-2 ESV).

The Mystery of the Shemitah, a concept first mentioned in a chapter in Cahn’s fictional work, The Harbinger, now takes on a “non-fictional” literary approach, exploring how this ancient observance of the Sabbath every seven years has direct implications for today’s world. But is what Cahn laying out for the reader a “revelation” of mysteries… or is he playing mischief with his handling of the God’s Word?
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