A FAREWELL TO PULPITS is a collection of sermons by a retired Episcopal bishop. Though logically categorized as "sermons," I prefer to call them stories that provoke or inspire some theological reflection. What's LOVE up to now?

Take, for instance, the story about two Black men who spent thirty-one years in a North Carolina penitentiary only to be proved innocent. Though released without apology or compensation, one of them (Leon Brown) still could say, "God is good all the time." Spoken with the authority of suffering. Or take the biblical story about the inevitable fate of a totally amoral, totally impenitent person (Jezebel). Not pretty. Or consider the story about some German and English soldiers in Belgium on Christmas Eve during World War I, who simply disobeyed orders and met each other in the "No Man's Land" between their trenches and sang carols and exchanged small gifts -- and called each other "our friends, the enemy."

As the author of these "sermons," I want people to notice the continual and wild happening of grace in the world. I want them to take heart. That's what this book is all about. +John S. Thornton