250 Anecdotes About Religion: Volume 2

Some samples: 1) Preacher Will D. Campbell ministers to people who need to be ministered to. He was very active in the Civil Rights Movement, but he also ministers to Ku Klux Klan members. For both blacks and whites (even racist whites), he performs weddings and funerals. Kris Kristofferson, who even before he became famous knew Mr. Campbell, once visited Mr. Campbell’s office to ask him, “What the hell kind of place is this? You’ve got a preacher who marches with Dr. Martin Luther King and also ministers to members of the Ku Klux Klan. I’m a Rhodes scholar, and I don’t understand that.” Mr. Campbell replied, “Maybe the reason you don’t understand is that you’re a Rhodes scholar.” 2) Dr. Louis Finkelstein, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, kept a strictly kosher diet. While in Paris, he and a group of rabbis ate only in kosher restaurants. On leaving Paris, Dr. Finkelstein joked, “I can’t understand all this fuss people make about French cooking. We have the same things at home.” 3) While staying in Scotland, Peg Bracken spoke with a woman who had once regularly received telephone calls from God. The first time it happened, she was going through a time of trouble—her husband had recently died, her son had broken a leg, she was worried about insurance, etc.—and a telephone call came for her in a place she had not told anyone she would visit. She answered the telephone, and a voice said, “This is God.” Of course, she asked, “God who?” The voice answered, “Your good friend God. I just want you to know you’re doing fine. And don’t you go worrying about Ritchie’s leg now. It’s going to be as good as new.” For six months, she received these mysterious telephone calls at least once a week. She never recognized the voice, and she never totally believed that God was speaking to her, although she didn’t want to totally disbelieve either. Once, she started to ask the telephone operator to trace the call, then she changed her mind. After six months, the telephone calls stopped, but things were going well for her and her family by then.