In late July, my family took a wonderful trip to Europe.  The trip was a gift to my family for more than 10 years of  work at Texas Baptists Committed.  Loretta, Lance, Chad and I are deeply grateful and honored to receive such support from individuals and churches (not paid for by TBC gifts).

While in London we visited the Tower of London, and being a huge history buff, I was thrilled to see the very room where King Edward I lived.  If you have seen the movie, Braveheart (and I hope you have), King Edward I, was the King of England when William Wallace led the Scottish revolt against English rule in the late twelve hundreds.

Wanting to learn more about English history, I started searching for a simple, easy-to-read, history of England.   After supper (in West Texas the evening meal is supper), we walked into a used bookstore and there it was, A Child's History of England by Charles Dickens, the famous author of Oliver Twist and David Copperfield fame.  I was thrilled.

After returning to our room, I turned to the chapter titled, England under Edward the First, called Longshanks.  I looked for anything about the historical character, William Wallace, and boy, did I find it.  This is what the immortal Dickens, writing more than 500 years after Wallace lived, had to say about him:

"Now, there was, in the West of Scotland, a gentleman of small fortune, named William Wallace, the second son of a Scottish knight.  He was a man of great size and great strength; he was very brave and daring: when he spoke to a body of his countrymen, he could rule them in a wonderful manner by the power of his burning words; he loved Scotland dearly, and he hated the English with his utmost might  . . .  and there joining with his countryman  . . .  became the most resolute and undaunted champion of a people struggling for their independence that ever lived upon the earth."

Dickens talked about Wallace for several pages and then concluded:

"Nothing could break his spirit; nothing could lower his courage; nothing could induce him to forget or to forgive his country's wrongs.  Even when the Castle of Sterling, which had long held out, was besieged by his King with every kind of military engine then in use:.... William Wallace was as proud and firm as if he had beheld the powerful and relentless Edward lying dead at his feet."

Dickens then described how Wallace was killed, "His head was set upon a pole on London Bridge, his right arm was sent to Newcastle, his left arm to Berwick, his legs to Perth and Aberdeen.  But if King Edward had had his body cut into inches, and had sent every separate inch into a separate town, he could not have dispersed it half so far and wide as his fame.  Wallace will be remembered in songs and stories, while there are songs and stories in the English tongue."

I love it when history and the movies get something right.  William Wallace was an actual historical hero of freedom.

Reading about Wallace made me think about how individuals can change history.  And then, after returning from Europe, I heard another story about a close friend and strong TBC supporter. This person was described as "a lightening rod, like Jerold McBride and Herb Reynolds."

You don't see lightening rods much anymore, but I remember them when I was a kid on the old house at the ranch.  They were designed to attract the lightening and protect the house.  They were to take the heat and absorb the danger.

When a person is described as a "lightening rod" that usually means that person is controversial. Why are people controversial?  Often it is because they are a leaders and have clearly taken a stand for that in which they believe. The world has been changed by human lightening rods.

I am sure William Wallace was a lightening rod in his day and paid for his courage with his life. Moses was a lightening rod. Joshua and Caleb were lightening rods when they brought a  "minority report" after exploring Canaan.  The Bible says "the whole assembly talked about stoning them."  The Old Testament prophets were lightening rods as were Jesus, Peter and Paul.

Church history is full of lightening rods: John Hus, Martin Luther, Michael Sattler, Conrad Grebel, Thomas Helwys, Roger Williams, Issac Backus, Lottie Moon and on and on.

America is the country it is because of lightening rods like George Washington, Nathan Hale, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, George Patton, Douglas McArthur and Martin Luther King.

Texas Baptists are free today because of lightening rods like Jerold McBride and Herbert Reynolds.  I can name 100 well-known Texas Baptist lightening rods-- people who have stood courageously for Baptist principles and religious freedom.

Thousands of lay men and women, who are controversial in their local congregations because they have cared enough about Jesus and Baptist principles to work at educating their fellow church members, are lightening rods,. Texas Baptists are free today because of God's lightening rods.

Our future freedom depends on new generations of lightening rods, pastors and lay persons, committed to Christ, the Great Commission, and Baptist principles.  The battle for freedom never ends.  It must be won by each new generation because the nature of sin always produces a new generation of persons who seek to control and dominate.

Texas Baptists will remain free and effective as long as God continues to raise up lightening rods, people who's spirits will not be broken and whose courage will not be lowered.

September 1999