Righteousness, Freedom, and Peace

I present here two sermons from the Rev William Tatter, 1893-1963, from the West Pullman Hungarian Baptist Church in Chicago, IL, USA for the 1958 and 1959 holiday season. He was an intellectual, living without much means on a tiny salary, unlike the megachurch evangelists of today, who have seemed to lost the true meaning of righteousness, freedom, and peace. He was committed to using and encouraging the “free pulpit”.

The Rev William Tatter was born in the Austrio-Hungarian Empire to a family of Baptist ministers, with a long history of being discriminated against and jailed for preaching and giving out bibles. This is why they came to America – for religious freedom. He was my grandfather. He preached in Chicago, Kipling Saskatchewan Canada, and in New York during WWII.

These two sermons from his mature years are worthy of renewed contemplation and renewed commitment to loving spirituality through relationships, behavior, and attitude towards our fellow man. Nourish lasting concern for the best which can be expressed in living in harmony with all others.

Teaching the purpose of human life

Jealousy, greed, hatred, and anger when they are the driving force in life bring nothing but hostility and destruction. We come into life naked and alone and leave it naked and alone, so there is no purpose for these negative and harmful emotions. In the end they have no meaning. The only meaning in life is that we left life for others better than if we had not existed. We are given the gift of life to leave behind good will, generosity, compassion, advanced understanding, and love. If that is not what we left, then life has no meaning. I have strived my  whole life for this and had hoped that others would do this also.  I was naive in thinking my fellow man would universally think in this manner. I find that no more than 1% of man agrees with me as they are so consumed with these four negative emotions. It saddens me greatly.

Laws should discourage negative emotions and encourage positive emotions. This should be paramount in education to instill positive emotions and teach children to recognize negative emotions and the tools to discourage and dissipate them. Our curriculum and laws need major overhall to accomplish this.

Now that others’ negative acts have stolen from me any possibility of through career , family, or acts helping others to live out the purpose of life, and physical as well as emotional  pain and disability have stolen my ability to even enjoy the beauty of life, especially the beauty of nature in my garden in every morning,  I can no longer live the meaning of life, there is no purpose for my life. This is devastating. When I leave this world, I can only wish that others truly find and act out my wish. For those who do not recognize how they act opposite the meaning of life and harm others to the degree that it shortens and destroys the lives of others, like so many have done to me including family, officers, judges, attorneys, neighbors, etc., I can only pray that your life is long and in your misery and suffering, you eventually see how much you hurt others, and try to turn your life around, so that you have peace when you die.

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Miracles do happen! – Love, devotion, to a dying breath

This is a most inspirational story of devotion of a dying man to an infant that needed a family and the love of the extended family, community and church members that moved mountains to ensure a future for this child.

 

Read here.