[A follow up from November 10, 2021] I am touched by the story of The Four Chaplains. By the heroism, the sacrifice and the amazing constellation of circumstance that brought these four men together. At that hour. At that place. What are the odds that four friends – clergy of four different faiths — would be together on that dark night, when a torpedo changed their world.

Question. Do you think the fellow who got the priest’s life jacket was first asked “are you Catholic?”  Do you think the rabbi inquired – “are you Jewish?” Or the Methodist or Reformed Church pastors asked- “are you Methodist? Reformed?” I suspect not. Four men died so that four men could live. John 15:13 states “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Could it be that there is a higher message? When these four heroes died, what was important was saving the life of a fellow human being. Yet knowing that they were sacrificing their own. Might God’s benevolence be similarly ecumenical? Is the criteria for salvation that one be Methodist? Lutheran? Catholic? Jewish? Episcopalian? Or another faith? I’m just askin’. . . .