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_To my children_

Marjorie and Lanny

FOREWORD

This book was born out of a living encounter with the members of the
Christian Education Conference to which I lectured at the American
Baptist Assembly at Green Lake, Wis., in August of 1958. As I stepped to
the speaker's rostrum to begin my first lecture to that group, and my
first to so large a group of Baptist lay people, I wondered whether I as
an Episcopalian and they as Baptists had images of each other that would
help or hinder our communication. I shared with them my question and
learned later they had been asking themselves the same question. I
explained that I had prepared myself to speak to them in the hope that
through me some of the truth of God would be heard by them, and I
explained also that their lives were to be their preparation for hearing
what I had to say; that is, that I hoped they would work as hard to hear
me as I would work to make myself understood. They responded in good
spirit, so that the Spirit of God spoke through and to all of us.

I describe this occasion because it produced the experience and context
out of which the present book appeared. _Herein Is Love_ is, I believe,
an outward and visible sign of the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
experienced on that occasion; and I offer it as a means of opening to
others the possibility of participating in this fellowship of the Holy
Spirit.

The theme of the book grows out of that experience: As the love of God
required incarnation in Jesus of Nazareth in order that it might be
received by us, so the Word of God's love in our day calls for persons
in whom it may be embodied. The church, as the embodiment of divine love
in human relationships, has tremendous responsibilities and
opportunities in our modern culture. The old and familiar biblical
symbols and stories do not always communicate their meanings to men
today, and we must find a language that does. The language of the lived
life of both man and God is the one that we shall use here in an attempt
to open to us the meaning of the life of man and of God.

Reuel L. Howe

January 10, 1961

CONTENTS

PAGE
FOREWORD 7

CONTENTS 9

I
SOME FRIGHTENED FRIENDS