(This sermon was preached in the chapel of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.)
When I was applying to study here at Southern Seminary, I probably should have noted on the application there was a little bit of a moral problem in my life in my background back there because I came really close one time to being excommunicated. I wasn’t excommunicated from a church; I was about to be excommunicated from the Cub Scouts.
I was in the Cub Scouts, and we had badges we would earn; every once in a while one of us would earn a badge for learning water safety or learning camping safety. One of the badges we had to earn was the God and Country Badge, and we earned it by all of us going to this Methodist church there in the community. A Methodist pastor came and talked to us about faith and how faith was really important to be good citizens.
