{"id":71902,"date":"2019-03-22T23:30:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-23T05:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=71902"},"modified":"2019-03-22T23:30:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-23T05:30:00","slug":"seven-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/03\/seven-years-ago.html","title":{"rendered":"Seven years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"My<\/a>
Kenneth D. Walters (1942-2012)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Seven years ago, this blog was still new. \u00a0On 23 March 2012, perhaps the worst single day of my life \u2014 in what would go on to be the worst year<\/em> of my life, thus far \u2014 I posted the following words:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

My dear brother \u2014 my only sibling, but, strictly speaking, my half-brother (we didn\u2019t even share last names), though we never\u00a0thought<\/em>\u00a0of ourselves as half-brothers \u2014 died of a sudden heart attack just a couple of hours ago in southern California.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though he was ten years my senior, we were extremely close.\u00a0 I love him more than I can possibly express, and, though normally pretty unemotional,\u00a0 I\u2019m writing this through aching eyes, tears, sobs, and a persistent sense of disbelief.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s so common as to be trite, but no less genuine:\u00a0 I keep hoping to wake up, or to receive a phone call saying that it was all just an unfortunate mistake.<\/span><\/p>\n

When my parents died, that was sad but appropriate.\u00a0 They were suffering, and they had lived long lives.\u00a0 It was time.\u00a0 This is different, and inexpressibly painful.<\/span><\/p>\n

We and our wives were set to go on a cruise together, this July, around the United Kingdom.\u00a0 We were also going to spend time in the new house he\u2019s been building in forested northern Idaho.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been working on a book (it\u2019s nowhere near finished).\u00a0 Actually, on several.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t told him \u2014 I wanted it to be a surprise \u2014 but I was going to dedicate it to him:\u00a0 \u201cTo Kenneth D. Walters, Best of Brothers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Because he was.<\/span><\/p>\n

I realize that blogging one\u2019s sorrow like this, sharing it with a few hundred or thousand of my closest friends, is more than a bit odd.\u00a0 Very twenty-first century.\u00a0 But, frankly, I don\u2019t feel like doing anything at all \u2014 the academic paper I was working on when the phone call came holds no interest for me whatever at the moment \u2014 and this at least allows me to express my grief.<\/span><\/p>\n

Critics of the Church, particularly of the secularizing kind who altogether reject theism, and lapsed members sometimes demand of me to know what difference belief in the Gospel makes.\u00a0 Some are focused on social-policy concerns or complaints about unfeeling church leaders or church finances or any number of things that seem to me entirely secondary or even tertiary and have never seemed more so than now.\u00a0 Right now, too, I just don\u2019t care \u2014 not even slightly \u2014 about those who take delight in cynically mocking and deriding what I and many others hold sacred.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is the difference the Gospel makes.\u00a0 I choose the words of Paul, from 1 Corinthians 15:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNow, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.\u00a0 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.\u00a0 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.\u00a0 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them\u2014yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?\u00a0 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.\u00a0 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.\u00a0 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.\u00a0 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.\u00a0 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.\u00a0 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.\u00a0 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.\u00a0 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I recently wrote in the\u00a0Deseret News<\/em>\u00a0about what I call simply\u00a0\u201cSarah\u2019s Story.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 Others have told me that they took great comfort in it.\u00a0 Now it\u2019s my turn.\u00a0 Nobody escapes this:\u00a0 Every human relationship ends in death, if it hasn\u2019t already ended before.<\/span><\/p>\n

President Harold B. Lee told once of an experience he had had.\u00a0 He was speaking with a young military officer from Asia who had come to the United States for training.\u00a0 While in the States, he had met and joined the Church.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then-Elder Lee asked him how his new religious affiliation would be received back home.<\/span><\/p>\n

The young officer responded that, though he wasn\u2019t sure, he would probably be disgraced, and that his military career might well be over.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAre you willing to pay such a high price?\u201d Elder Lee inquired.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s true, isn\u2019t it?\u201d the young man responded.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYes, it\u2019s true.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThen what else matters?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Seven years ago, this blog was still new. \u00a0On 23 March 2012, perhaps the worst single day of my life \u2014 in what would go on to be the worst year of my life, thus far \u2014 I posted the following words: \u00a0 My dear brother \u2014 my only sibling, but, strictly speaking, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nSeven years ago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    Seven years ago, this blog was still new. \u00a0On 23 March 2012, perhaps the worst single day of my life -- in what would go on to be the worst\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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