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Lately I’ve been getting invitations to speak to youth about the virtues, so I’ve been trying to recall my own early training on the subject. I grew up in a Lutheran church, and much of who I am can be traced back to second- and third-generation Christian immigrants who believed in using their skills to help people in need. What I learned about the virtues, I learned through doing. In terms of any formal training, however, I remember almost nothing.

When Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church was built by German immigrants 100 years ago, it stood alone on the block; now luxury condominiums are boxing us in. A preservationist says it will cost $8 million to repair our church, give or take a million. The stained glass windows have already been removed because of the danger of breakage during the construction next door. The steeple alone, leaning to one side, will cost over a million to repair. “It’s a substantial building,” the preservationist said when he delivered the news. Sometimes I curse this substantial building as an albatross, a black hole, a money pit. And yet . . .

“How do we do effective evangelism? All our ‘outreach’ events are just another excuse for fellowship!” Our new associate pastor looked around at the outreach committee, but nobody answered him. He pressed his point. “I mean, how do we actually reach nonbelievers, not just believers?” Eventually a discussion got under way, and finally one idea stuck. Our town was known as a “jazz town,” with a couple of jazz venues that were always crowded. We hatched the idea of Jazz Night. We’d hire a name-brand jazz artist to play at the church, convert the sanctuary into a coffee shop atmosphere, put church brochures on the tables, be ready to greet people and then “let it rip.” What could go wrong?

The bride wore a white dress with pearls, a veil and a big red nose. The groom had a rainbow wig, and instead of patent leather shoes, floppy brogues as big as boats, which were coming apart at the toes. All around them a raucous band of clowns held forth on tubas and big bass drums. “Do you, Gilbert, take Glenna to be your wife?” “I sure do.” “Do you, Glenna, take this clown to be your husband?” “I do,” she smiled, and someone honked a horn.

The parable of the prodigal son came to have new meaning for me after I preached on the passage in a small Christian church in Turkey. My congregants could read meaning, for example, into the famine that the younger son experienced because our city is in the throes of a serious water shortage. We have gone without running water for days at a time. The reaction of the Turkish mayor was to call for public prayers for rain in the traditional Muslim fashion, and Turkish churches followed suit by praying for rain. It was a similar shortage that drove the prodigal son to desperation and created an occasion for repentance.

Julie Clawson needed a new bra. Most of the time she would have just gone to the store, plunked down some cash and come home with a bra. But she had been reading about globalization, sweatshops and child labor, and her conscience made her wonder where her money was going and what was being done with it. So she decided to try an experiment. She decided to find a “justice bra”—to make a purchase that could do no wrong. Did such a bra exist?

For many years I taught a course titled "The Problem of God." I believed that students should be exposed to the most erudite of the unbelievers, and that any commitment that they might make to a religious faith should be critically tested by the very best opponents. Richard Dawkins, Samuel Harris and Christopher Hitchens would never have made the required reading list. Their tirades reinforce ignorance—not only of religion—but also of atheism.