I wasn’t living in Rapid City back in 1988. I was living in Idaho. But I remember the feeling that there were fires all around. Yellowstone Park - a region near where I grew up and a part of the country that I love - was on fire. It took winter storms to put that one out. Perhaps worse, the television crews that were filming the fires were forced to use powerful telephoto lenses to capture their images in order to stay a safe distance from the blazes. The result was dramatic footage that made things look closer than they are in reality. One evening I watched what looked like towering flames threatening Old Faithful lodge. Later I learned that the flames were a significant distance from the building.

That was the year of the Westbury Trails Fire here in the hills. Locals who lived her at the time remember the blaze that took more than a dozen homes along with dozens of other buildings and vehicles. The fire scar is still clearly visible from Highway 44 and from Nemo Road.



So we weren’t too happy to see a fire burning in that area last night. I was heading home from a meeting at the church just at sunset and the smoke plume was clearly visible from Main Street as I approached Baken Park. From the vantage of the hills as I drove home I got occasional glimpses of the glow. When I turned off of Sheridan Lake road to go to our house, there was a pretty clear view of the fire. Fires always look closer than they are, especially at night. Knowing that I needed to stay far away to keep out of the way of fire fighters, I drove up to the top of Meadowlark Lane where there was a clear view across the hills and watched for a couple of moments.

Back at the house I couldn’t find any details about the fire. By 9 p.m. there was a story about the fire on the evening news and I could at least figure out where it was burning. The report said that the fire was burning in grassland and so far the fire fighters had prevented it from going into the trees. This morning there is not much new news about the fire, which is good news.

It was a busy day for firefighters with a fire northeast of town that destroyed a building and several vehicles and sent two people to the hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation. Another fire on Pine Hills Drive also brought out firefighters.

We’ve had some cooler temperatures, but the fire season isn’t over yet. The woods are crackly dry when we walk through them and there is a lot of fuel out there.

It seems like every few years we get a bad fire year. Then, if we are lucky, we get a few years that are less volatile with fewer fires. There is probably a pattern out there, but it isn’t easy to predict where the next fire will appear.

Another thing that seems to come around every few years is another story claiming that Jesus was married. The church has historically maintained Jesus’ celibacy, but there just isn’t much evidence about the details of the life of the historical Jesus. There have been novels and movies that speculated that Jesus was married. Some have been controversial and raised the ire of church leaders. Then the controversy will pass and again a few years later someone else will make some claim and the arguments will start over again.

There isn’t any new evidence about the historical Jesus, but Harvard Divinity historian Karen King make a presentation yesterday to Coptic scholars that might point to the fact that the church has been arguing about Jesus’ marital status for a much longer period of time than we previously thought.

At the Tenth International Congress of Coptic Studies, King presented the results of her study of a papyrus fragment that had been provided to her by a private collector for analysis. King wrote, “If the second century date of composition is correct, the fragment does provide direct evidence that claims about Jesus’ marital status first arose over a century after the death of Jesus in the context of intra-Christian controversies over sexuality, marriage, and discipleship.” In other words, the 33-word fragment seems to suggest that Christians have been arguing about whether or not Jesus was married for nearly two millennia now.

This type of research is continually a part of academic theology and history. A new scrap of writing is found and studied. There are relatively accurate methods for dating ancient writings and scholars who are able to make accurate translations of ancient languages. But what has been preserved are not complete documents or secret texts that have been suppressed by some conspiracy as the novels suggest. Instead what survive are scraps with a few words here and there. Conclusive proof really doesn’t exist.

The fragment outlined in Dr. King’s paper will provide scholars with another tidbit to discuss and analyze for years to come. It does not prove anything one way or another about Jesus. It might prove that we have been arguing about Jesus for as long as we have believed in Jesus.

I don’t expect the arguments to be resolved in my lifetime.

And, quite frankly, I don’t have much energy to join in the arguments. Several of the blogs that I read are filling up with excited comments intended to promote beliefs that the writers already held. I don’t see much evidence that anyone has changed his or her mind.

I am grateful that my work is in a corner of the church where the contributions and leadership of both men and women are honored and respected. Over the centuries, the church has in some times and places been more wasteful of leadership and talent than it has been of financial resources. And we haven’t always been frugal with money.

There are practical steps we can take to make our homes safer from fires.

I don’t think there are any easy steps to follow when trying to keep the church away from controversy. I expect to witness some fiery tempers as we continue to grow in our faith.

Copyright © 2012 by Ted Huffman. I wrote this. If you want to copy it, please ask for permission. There is a contact me button at the bottom of this page. If you want to share my blog a friend, please direct your friend to my web site.