Robert Sparkman

“This idea of growth is important for understanding Irenaeus. According to him, Adam and Eve were not created as perfect in the sense that they were all that God called them to be, but were rather created so that they could develop and grow in that image of God, which is the Son.”
― Justo L. González, A History of Christian Thought: In One Volume

“The wellspring of these folk churches was a stern Calvinism which the Scotch element of the population had carried with it from the dour highlands. Without competition from other religious ideas or doctrines it slowly pervaded the whole populace, and eventually became deeply rooted in their mores, so widely and unquestionably accepted as to constitute unwritten law. And while its adherents might split into a myriad of disputing minor sects, they were to remain steadfastly loyal to its basic tenets. One of these was a hatred for the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope as nothing less than arms of Satan. Another was confession of sins “before men,” and a third was the requirement of baptism. Still another was an immutable principle that no preacher or minister be compensated in any way for his time or work. Their Biblical hero was John the Baptist, and each church was fiercely proud to call itself “Baptist,” the members insisting that they alone were true followers of the methods and doctrines of the prophet.”
― Harry M. Claudill, Night Comes To The Cumberlands: A Biography Of A Depressed Area

“Since 1948 conservatives and liberals in Congress have given unstinted support to “anti-communist” governments around the world. Men whose revolutionary forebears died for the slogan “Death to tyrants!” have voted vast slush funds for Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy and one of the few lands where human chattel slavery is still legal. Predictably, much of the money—including some from the ragged pockets of Kentucky coal miners—was lavished on palaces and concubines. Even Marshall Tito, when he became restive under Russian pressure, found fifteen hundred million American dollars flowing into his coffers. The question may then be fairly asked, “If we can afford to subsidize autocratic medieval kings, a communist dictator whose expressed ideology is a detestation of our liberties, and every conceivable shade of political and economic thinking in between, can we fail to spare the funds and efforts required to convert an island of destitution within our own country into a working, self-sustaining partner in the nation’s freedom and progress?”
― Harry M. Claudill, Night Comes To The Cumberlands: A Biography Of A Depressed Area

“In attempting to expound Irenaeus’ theology, one should keep in mind that we are not dealing with a systematic theologian who derives all his conclusions from a few speculative principles. Therefore, rather than attempting to discover the ruling principle of that theology, it is best to follow the order that Irenaeus suggests in his Epideixis: to start with the Creator and then to pursue the history of salvation up to its final consummation.”
― Justo L. González, A History of Christian Thought: In One Volume