Let me give you a little history. My parents were missionaries to the Philippines before WW2. My father was Captain of a "Gospel Ship" that took missionaries all over the islands. Jolo Island, in the extreme south, was rather primitive in the ‘30s with a large Muslim population, but my father decided to go ashore and invited me, his eight old son, to go with him. Unbeknownst to us, the Muslim imams up in the hills were feeding their flocks beetlenut (a local narcotic) and telling them if they went to town and killed a few Christians, particularly if they got a white missionary, that they'd get few extra virgins in Paradise.
Well, this crazed Muslim with jihad on his mind, comes running down the dock at us swinging a native sword called a bolo. My father reaches down for my hand and says, “Stand fast son.” He then throws his sword cane up in the air and grabs it by the small end. Now that sword cane had a large solid silver head, about the size of a hardball. Well, this screaming native tries to behead my father, who parries and clubs the guy across the side of the head, full force, probably killing him. This is life or death, so it was no love tap on the noggin.
Of course, my father could have fallen to his knees and sung a few hymns, in which case, I wouldn’t be here to tell you about it, would I? Point being: Christians back then appear to have been made of sterner stuff or, with all due respect, could we possibly be confusing the wimpy attitudes, so popular in the churches today, with sanctity?
