I grew up in a Southern Baptist church in Nashville, Tennessee. I never rebelled against the principles instilled in me by that church, despite living in many different cultures and growing beyond a few of the attitudes that infiltrated that age in the South. Why do the bedrock teachings remain as a part of my belief system? Why, when others, less challenged by change than I, leave the religion of their childhood?

The reason for the endurance of the lessons taught me, I think, is love. The song that mentions “a sweet spirit in this place” could have been written about my church. Why would I rebel against love and caring?

Perhaps some of the members of the church were racist. I don’t know for certain because we, at that time a white church to be sure, were never challenged. Ours was a humble, working class membership and not likely to be noticed by those who challenge institutions.

It came easy for me to change my views about race. The church taught love, and the seed thus planted couldn’t be smothered. One picture graced the wall of my childhood Sunday school class as we sang about Jesus loving all the different colored children of the world. A joyful Jesus held hands with a group of children. One was a fair-haired child. Another was a black African boy. The others were, if my memory is correct, a native American and an Asian child.

Teaching love and living it, as that church did, overcomes human failings and allows for later growth, as the title of this passage from the first letter of the apostle Peter suggests.