Theodore Parker Ferris had a great impact on my life, at a time when that impact made a difference. I was a seminary student in Boston. Ferris was the rector of the famous Trinity Church in Boston, in Copley Square, one of the great churches in America. Ferris was one of the great preachers in his day.

He had a marvelous ability to present profound, sometimes difficult, ideas in very simple language that everybody could understand. And he was disarmingly honest. That was another characteristic of his style. He was not afraid to admit that he didn't have all the answers. That is hard for anybody to do, especially hard for a preacher to do, especially standing in a pulpit. But he would do that. He even stressed that there may not be answers to some difficult questions, and that is just some…